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Heavenly Father, thank you that you have spoken to us in the Scriptures. We’re sorry that we’re so often deaf to what you say. By your Spirit please open our ears now to hear your voice. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

‘Grace Abounding’ is my title, and Romans 5.1-2 is where you need to be this evening, as we start this new series on chapters 5 and 6 of the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans. So please find that on page 942 in the Bibles in the pews, or on your Bible App. The Word of God is alive, and glorious and amazing – and that’s supremely true of this staggering Letter to the Romans. If you’ve never read it carefully right through, there’s a top project for 2023 for you. Maybe you could even do that with a couple of friends, discussing it section by section as you read it. Anyway, in this series we’re jumping in at the start of Romans 5, and we’re zooming in on Romans 5.1-2. These two verses are like a kind a hinge, a link, between Romans 1-4, and Romans 5-8. Here they are:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

So just a couple of verses this evening, but that’s good because they’re like one of those delicious but incredibly rich Christmas Day desserts. Even in just a very small portion there’s so much to take in. Why do I say this is like a hinge? Well, the first phrase links us back to the first four chapters of the Letter:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith…

That’s exactly what those early chapters are all about. In Romans 1-3 the apostle has relentlessly argued for the universal sinfulness of all mankind, and consequently the condemnation and death that we all deserve, with no exceptions – culminating at Romans 3.23:

…for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God…

And the price we’re due to pay for that is put pithily a bit further on in Romans 6.23:

For the wages of sin is death…

But thank God Romans 3.23 is followed by Romans 3.24:

…for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…

Then in Romans 4, using the example of Abraham, Paul wonderfully explains what he means by being justified. So he sums up where he’s got to at the start of Romans 5.1:

Therefore, since we have been justified…

And then he puts in a nutshell three immense consequences for our lives that are bound up with our justification. They are peace, grace and glory. Justification deals with our past, as we depend on the cross of Christ, where Jesus took on himself the wages of our sin, which is death. Peace and grace are what we have in the present as we live trusting in Jesus. Glory describes our future, when the risen Jesus will share his glory with us. So look at Romans 5.1-2 again:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Peace, grace and glory. And this is the other side of the hinge, because these three things that are all part of the package along with justification are what the apostle now goes on to explain in more detail in the rest of Romans 5 and through to the end of Romans 8. So in Romans 5.3-11 he majors on the peace we have with God. Then from Romans 5.12 to the end of Romans 7 he draws out the wonderful workings of the grace of God in our lives. And in Romans 8 he paints a word picture of the glory that lies ahead of us and of the world God made. Then he kind of explodes with praise at the end of Romans 8, as he stands back and surveys this glorious gospel that God has given him to preach to a lost world. These two verses at the start of Romans 5, then, are like a four course taster menu for the whole of Romans 1-8. What are the four courses? First, we have been justified. Secondly, we have peace with God. Thirdly, we stand in grace. And fourthly, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. There’ll be a lot more on those as we go on in this series. But to whet our appetites let’s take a bite of each of them now. So:

1. We have been justified

Romans 5.1:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith…

It’s very clear from the early chapters that he’s not talking about everyone here. He’s talking about those who are trusting their lives to Jesus and following him – those who’ve been saved by grace through faith in Christ. If that’s not yet you, then this will be like looking through a window onto what it’s like being a believer. If you too want to be on the inside (and my prayer is that you will) then you go through the door by believing in trusting in Jesus yourself. Because those who believe and trust in Jesus have been justified by faith. What does that mean? It’s a legal term, from the world of the court room, and trials and verdicts and sentences. To be justified is to be acquitted. It is to be declared innocent. How can we be declared innocent by God our Judge?

Paul has just shown with a clarity that puts a stopper in the mouth of anyone who would want to defend themselves that we are without exception guilty of disastrous rebellion against God. But we can be acquitted, because of Jesus. He has stepped into the firing line in front of us. The innocent verdict on him is applied to us and the guilty verdict that should have been ours is applied to him. And he pays the penalty to atone for our sins. We walk free. That is justification. When we trust in Christ, then we are justified. That’s where the apostle gets to at the end of chapter 3. Understand that and your life is turned upside down – or rather, right way up. Understand that and you have a wellspring of joy in your heart. Understand that and you have a security deep inside that no raging fire of life’s pressures can threaten.

And just in case we should miss the point, Paul wants to remove any grounds for misunderstanding. He needs an example of a guilty sinner who was justified by faith. So in Romans 4 Paul illustrates what he’s been talking about from Abraham’s experience. Abraham was not righteous - but God credited him with righteousness, he counted him righteous, he justified him in anticipation of the sacrifice of Christ which was to happen 2000 years later.

I don’t know if you’ve ever collected Nectar points with a Nectar card. A while back we’d been collecting Nectar points for years without spending them. Then someone hacked our card details and stole all our points, leaving us with an empty account. Card fraud is rife. Having this justifying faith is rather like the absolute reverse of that. It’s like being persuaded to give somebody your bank account details so that they can put money into it. Only it’s not money that has been earned. It is a gift given to the undeserving. We have to do nothing but share our account details. And the gift is paid in. It’s credited to our account. If it’s a big enough gift we find ourselves rich. But from beginning to end we’ve done nothing to deserve it. In a moment, we go from owing massive unpayable debt to God, to owning infinite divine riches. We have been justified.

2. We have peace with God

Romans 5.1 again:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The experience of justification does not just have to do with our legal acquittal because it’s deeply personal. It also has to do with our relationship with God. The other day the front pages were plastered with headlines about Harry the son and King Charles the father. Here’s a sample:

Harry: I’d like my father and brother back. Prince says royals ‘have shown no willingness to reconcile’ but insists he wants to make up.

Whatever your own take on that, the deep and painful personal rift caused by estrangement at the heart of a family is clear. Without faith, we are estranged from God. But because of Jesus, when we have faith that estrangement is taken away. God no longer treats us as the enemies of his that we are. We are restored to friendship. We are reconciled. This is spelled out later in this chapter. So for instance, here are verses Romans 5.10-11 by way of a preview:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

That’s the joy of reconciliation so publicly absent currently in the royal family, but so wonderfully portrayed in Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the son says to himself (Luke 15.18-19):

I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.

And Jesus tells what happened next (Luke 15.20):

So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

You can read the full story in Luke 15. That is the instantaneous change in our relationship with God the Father when we put our trust in Christ as our Lord and Saviour. We really were God’s enemy, hostile to him, with no right to go near him, subject to the death penalty. And now, justified by grace through faith, we have become his beloved children. The enemy becomes the son and heir, taken gently into the love and care of the Father. We have peace with God.

3. We stand in grace

Back to Romans 5.1-2 again:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…

Back in 1666 the puritan John Bunyan published his autobiography, written while he was serving a twelve-year prison sentence in Bedford gaol for preaching without a license. It was called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ to his Poor Servant John Bunyan. They knew how to write book titles back then! Bunyan understood grace, from deep personal experience under severe pressure. If you haven’t read it, can I commend Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as another 2023 reading project – but only once you’ve read the Letter to the Romans! It’s a classic, graphic and gripping depiction of the outworkings of the grace of God in the life of a believer.
That’s the great theme of these chapters of Romans from 5.12 to the end of Romans 7. So for instance, speaking of the sin of Adam, Paul says in Romans 5.17:

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

And the wonder of the working of this grace in which we stand is summed up in Romans 5.20:

…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…

Keep coming on these Sunday evenings to see how that unfolds in our lives as believers. For now, just note that according to Paul we stand in this grace. He calls it:

…this grace in which we stand…

It’s like taking possession of a new home, as we’ve done recently. You begin to live it. It’s yours. It can’t be taken from you. It becomes the space in which you live your life. We stand in grace. That is a glorious thing. And glory is what it leads to. We stand in grace. Then:

4. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God

Romans 5.2:

Through him [our Lord Jesus Christ] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

What is God’s plan for us? Answer: glory. That’s what’s in store. Romans 8 is the great chapter of glory. Here are Romans 8.28-30:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What is God’s purpose for us? What’s the destination that he’s got in store for us? At the end of the line is glorification. What does that mean? It means both being like Jesus, and being with Jesus. Believers (Romans 8.29) will be conformed to the image of [God’s] Son. We will be changed into the people we were created to be. Jesus is the pattern and the prototype. No more sin that sickens the heart. Imagine that! The sinful nature within us that kicks and claws against all that is good and holy and pure will be finally and utterly destroyed. The character and goodness, the love and virtue of Jesus will be ours. We will be like him. And that will be so that (Romans 8.29) he might be the firstborn among many brothers. God’s plan is for a massive family of brothers and sisters, with Jesus there at the heart of it. He will be our brother. We will know him and be known by him, face to face. And that will be unimaginable glory.

You saw human glory if you watched the Argentinians rejoicing at the end of the World Cup Final, lifting up their hero Lionel Messi, the ultimate victor – or if you saw Messi being feted by millions on the streets of Buenos Aires. ‘This was Messi’s victory,’ was the cry. But it was also ‘we won’. They all joyfully shared in Messi’s glory. What a pale shadow that is of the glory of Jesus in which we his people will share. And for us there are none of the uncertainties of defeat in the group stages. We know we’re headed to victory – the victory of Jesus. At the end there is glory, and we will share in it. For all our inevitable failures, struggles and sufferings, that glory is the root of the joy which marks our lives now as believers.

So, we have been justified - acquitted of our sin. Our past is paid for. We have peace with God – reconciliation to our heavenly Father; and we stand in grace – empowered to live Godly lives. Our present is protected. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Our future is promised. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, these truths which you’ve been speaking to us about are too wonderful for our words to express. Thank you Lord, that you have dealt with our sin. We are safe with you now. And you are leading us to glory. Help us to grasp these things in the depths of our souls. Help us to build our lives on them. Help us to teach them to others – in the power of your Spirit, and with Jesus by our side. In his name we pray. Amen.