Romans 5:2-5
Preached 2/14/2021 (previous)
[audio]
INTRODUCTION
Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is widely agreed to be one of the most comprehensive and well written treatises on the subject of salvation in the entire bible. R. C. Sproul refers to the book as the Apostle Paul’s “Magnum Opus”. Entire evangelism programs use a series of verses from that book that to this day we call “the Romans Road”. But Romans covers much more than just the aspect of “getting saved”. For many Christians, that is as far as they generally go when talking about the gospel. But as we talked about last week, this is a huge mistake. And it is borne out by what Paul wrote in this book.
We often stop at the point of “getting saved” when we think about the gospel, but Paul definitely did not stop there. He covers the “getting saved” part in the first four chapters of the book. This section ends with the great declaration that every person in the human race who makes it to heaven will do so through being justified by God through the atonement of Christ on the cross, and that God has ordained that this will be through a free gift that is appropriated only by faith. In this way, Paul says, “boasting is excluded”. In heaven we will be boasting only of what God has done through his Son, not ever about anything in ourselves.
So if only four of the sixteen chapters of this book are about “getting saved”, what is in the rest of the book? We began last week to investigate this very question. And we saw that while the first four chapters talk about how to get salvation, Paul takes us in chapters 5 through 8 to the other side of the door to talk about what we get in salvation. And it is glorious.
Last week we started this wonderful section of the book of Romans as we began to look at the first part which consists of chapter verses 1 through 11. These few verses tell us what happens when a person receives salvation through faith in Christ. Paul sets our feet down on solid ground and explains how our security in salvation is assured by the same grace that brought us into salvation in the first place! This section is about two things: (1) Our life in Christ, and (2) our assurance in Christ.
There are so many wonders in these few verses that it is hard to take them all in. The three persons of the Godhead – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - shine out in the way that they minister this salvation to us. The past, present and future part of our salvation are undergirded with hope. But in all of this three words stand out: Peace, Hope, and Love. The only part we have in all of this is to rejoice!
The outline I will follow for verses 1-5 will be titled Position, Perspective, and Person. The first part we covered last week. In verse one we saw that we have peace with God. While the message of the gospel starts with God’s wrath toward all of the ungodly (which includes everybody), the result of our justification by faith is that the wrath, the enmity, the war… is over. This is not a temporary, uneasy truce. Our redemption brings about the complete propitiation of every ounce of God’s righteous wrath against us and, as Peter puts it: “there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:11)
But that is just the beginning of Paul’s list of salvation benefits. In the rest of this section, keep your eyes out for several words and phrases that mean the same thing, and indicate that Paul is bringing in yet another blessing – words like “also” in v2, “Not only that” in v3, “much more” in v9 and “More than that” plus “also” in v11. We are not poor as believers. Peter assures us that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence”. (2 Peter 1:3) God knows what He is doing and He doesn’t do anything half-way. Paul writes in Ephesians that God the Father “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”. (Ephesians 1:3) And yet we often mope through life with our eyes cast downward, looking at our troubles, wondering if we are suffering alone instead of seeking after God and his glory in this life.
John MacArthur tells an illuminating story in his book Our Sufficiency in Christ. The story tells of a poor man who had wanted to go on a cruise all his life ever since he had seen an advertisement for a luxury cruise as a kid. He had dreamed of experiencing the luxurious environment on a large ocean liner. He spent many years saving pennies and going without many things in life so that someday he could afford the ticket for a cruise. Finally he raised enough and he picked the cruise that looked the most attractive and rejoiced that at long last he would realize his dream. But the ticket had taken almost all of his savings to buy and he knew that he would not be able to afford any of the elegant food that was on the ship, so he used his scant resources to bring along a week’s supply of bread and peanut butter. Well, he was thrilled by the first few days of his cruise, but by midweek he began to notice that he was the only one on the ship not eating luxurious meals. Every day he watched the porters bringing plates by him for the other people. By the fifth day of his cruise he could take it no longer. His bread was stale and the peanut butter seemed tasteless. Even the fresh air and sunshine no longer seemed special. The cruise was becoming a nightmare.
“Finally he stopped a porter and exclaimed, “Tell me how I might get one of those meals! I’m dying for some decent food, and I’ll do anything you say to earn it!” “Why, sir, don’t you have a ticket for this cruise?” the porter asked. “Certainly,” said the man, “ But I spent everything I had for that ticket. I have nothing left with which to buy food.” “But sir,” said the porter, “didn’t you realize? Meals like that are included with your passage. You may eat as much as you like!””
The point of the story is clear. Many Christians live like that, because their ideas and thoughts about their salvation just go to the point of “getting saved”. Once they get to that point, they have a vague idea that they should go to church maybe once a week and be thankful to God for saving them, of course, but other than that they go on like any unbeliever, going to work, enjoying the world’s entertainments, raising a family, collecting things for this life and then getting mad at God for any times where things don’t go well in the way that they had expected. For too many Christians, prayer and study of the word are “extra tasks for the advanced religious types”. Churches languish without accomplishing any real evangelism or discipleship because the members just don’t see the point. There is no real heavenly focus because they think that they are already at their destination. But in reality they have just been set on the path to glory. They need to look up – rather we need to look up and see the glory that surrounds us!
So in verse two Paul tells us that we are standing in a new place: “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand”. Grace is not just the door of the house of our salvation. It is the foundation that holds up the house, it is the floor that we walk on, it is the walls around us and it is the roof over our head. We don’t just get saved by grace! We STAND IN GRACE. It is where we are, and it is where we will stand for eternity. Look up! We need to stop inspecting our shoes and stand confidently and with hope. Which is exactly what the next few verses are about.
So having reviewed the text up till now, let’s step forward together. We are in a new POSITION. Let’s check out our new PERSPECTIVE.
I. A New PERSPECTIVE – HOPE (2b-4)
When you are in a new place your perspective changes, and when your perspective changes it affects your mental and emotional state. From my own experience, looking out of the windows from the ground floor gift shop in the Seattle Space Needle evoked a completely different state of mind than the view from the observation deck 520 feet above the ground did. Looking down through the wire cage up there and feeling the wind blowing at me produced fear, anxiety, a racing heartbeat and tingly ankles. The only distressing thing in the gift shop was the prices of the trinkets for sale there. In the same way, my own feelings about my own size and significance was quite different playing with my toddler grandkids than it was standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Well, standing in grace and at peace with God, we have a new commodity that we did not have before: HOPE. Now when we read about hope in the Bible it means something completely different from what we think of in today’s culture. Nowadays we use hope to describe what a little girl might mean when she says “I hope I get a pony for my birthday”. She really wants one, but down inside the chance is nil unless she is in a rich family and lives on a ranch somewhere. That girl would say in today’s language “I am going to get a pony for my birthday”, because she had already gone with her parents to pick one the pony she wanted and now it was due to be delivered the following day. It was a future fact that she was confident about.
“Hope” in scripture really is like that second scenario. Biblical hope is something that you are assured of and find consolation in. The modern type of hope produces longing and sadness. Biblical hope produces rejoicing! Paul talks about this in the next few verses. Actually he is going to talk about two different types of hope which in turn lead to two types of rejoicing. The first is obvious, but the second is definitely what we would call “counter-intuitive” as we will see in a few minutes.
To look at this hope and our reaction to it, we need to read through verses 1-11 again because there is another word that I haven’t mentioned yet but which is mentioned three times here, and which describes our reaction to the blessings of salvation. There is a chain of events here: First we are justified through faith, and that connects us with peace, grace, hope and love. The result of all of this is to rejoice. The word rejoice is found in verse 2, 3 and 11. Let’s talk about this rejoicing before we proceed.
The English word “rejoice” is not a complete translation of the word in this passage. In fact, I know that just in this sanctuary there are some bibles that translate the word as “rejoice” but others use the word “boast” and still others use “exult”. The word is the verb kauchaomai, which has the meaning to boast or exult in something. It differs from the usual Greek word for rejoicing, chairō, which is used in Philippians 4 by Paul when he commands us to “Rejoice always” and to describe the reactions of the shepherds who were told by the angel of the birth of Jesus. Kauchaomai, rather, is usually translated boast – but this would seem to give us a problem here in Romans, because it is the same word used by Paul in Romans chapter 2 and 3 to say what saved people will not do. In Romans 3:27 he says specifically
Romans 3:27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul wrote that we were “saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves…” – why? “So that no man may boast”. So someone might say: “Paul, you just said that the gospel excludes boasting. But now you proudly talk about Christians boasting three times just after talking about how they are justified by faith. What gives?” The answer is simple, and the use of the word here is actually powerful. For a clear explanation, let’s turn to the first letter to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
In other words, when we stand before the throne of God at the judgment, nobody will be “blowing their own horn”. We will not be bragging about what we did for God. None of the redeemed will be bragging about anything but what God did for them when they were helpless. Just a few verses ahead in Romans 5:6 we read “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” So there is no boasting about our part in salvation. But the verses that we are reading today don’t say that we boast about what we do now that we are Christians. That would be spiritual pride. It would also be unjustified and it is odious to God.
These verses describe a different kind of boasting entirely. This boasting glorifies God only, and it flows from a heart filled with hope. Let’s look at these two types of hope, and the boasting/exulting/rejoicing becomes appropriate and understandable.
II. The Reference Point: Hope for Eternity
Romans 5:2b and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The first rejoicing source is “hope of the glory of God”. The first change in our perspective that comes from our justification and peace with God is infinite in scope. We move from a finite, earthly view to an eternal and universal one. Our life before was limited to what we could accomplish in our short lives, what we could experience with our flesh. It was concerned with comfort, bodily functions, health, and accumulation of wealth – all of which we will lose when we die. Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes spoke of life “under the sun” with his famous lament: “vanity of vanity, all is vanity”. The meaningless life “under the sun” was summed up by him as “…man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” (Ecc 8:15) Our familiar modern equivalent was formulated in the old commercials for Schlitz beer which told us "You only go around once in life. So, grab for all the gusto you can." That is the limited perspective of the unredeemed. Indeed, there can be no other.
But when we have been justified by faith our position changes. Now we find that we have peace with God, and we stand in Grace, and when we look up we can look to eternity. And what do we see as our great reward? We get to look upon and live in the glory of the eternal, holy, omnipotent, glorious King of the universe. What does glory mean here? According to James Montgomery Boice the Greek word here, doxa, came from a word that meant “to believe”, or “to think”. From this came “doxa” which originally meant “an opinion”, or “a right opinion”. It eventually came to mean “renown”, “reputation” or “honor”, and finally came to mean only the very best opinion of only the very best individuals. The used it to speak of the “glory of kings” and eventually of God, “the King of glory.” As Boice puts it, “God is the King of glory because he is the most glorious of all beings. He is the one of whom only the highest opinions should be held.” The Hebrew word for glory came from a word meaning “reputation” or “renown” and came from a root meaning something that is weighty or substantial.
In our sinful state as humans, we have been separated from the visible glory of God. John writes that nobody has seen God. Moses begged God to "Please show me your glory." (Exo 33:18) but God told him "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." Nevertheless Moses was given a peek at his glory in a mitigated form and it left the skin of Moses’ face glowing with glory so that nobody else could stand to look at him and he had to cover his face to talk to people after talking with God. All through scripture we see people being physically knocked out when they just see angels reflecting the glory of heaven. But the redeemed will be able to see God’s glory someday in all of its fullness.
In Revelation we see the heavenly city coming down to the new Earth from the new Heavens in glory. Two parts of the description are remarkable – First we read that the streets of gold are actually transparent. Why would streets be transparent?
Revelation 21:22-24 22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,
In heaven we will bask in the glory of God for all eternity, without injury and without fear. And this is the hope of all of us who have been living in sin and darkness here on earth. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mat 5:8) Back in the days of the Patriarchs, Job gloried in this same hope when he said: “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God”. (Job 19:26) This was all paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ through his work on the cross. In the minutes before his arrest and crucifixion He prayed for all of the redeemed a very special prayer:
John 17:24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
That is our hope – to see the Lord in his full glory. When we are quickened by God’s spirit and brought to faith and justification, it is because God has given us a glimpse and a hunger to see and experience his glory:
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The culmination of this will take place when he brings us to be with Himself. At that time we will be made into creatures that can see and appreciate his glorious radiance, and it will not leave us unchanged! As John writes. “
1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
How will this be accomplished? Not by our efforts or might. As we are reconciled to God and stand in his grace, our completion is guaranteed by his power. This causes all of us, if we are justified, to have one overriding goal – to exult in the hope of his glory. This is our inheritance! It is our eternal hope!
Ephesians 1:11-14 11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
How then can we do anything but rejoice, exult, glory, and boast of what God has done for us!
III. Hope for Right Now
Overwhelmed yet? But Paul is only getting started. (Remember: “But wait! There’s More!”)
Romans 5:3-4 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
Yes, having a hope of glory makes everything look different. Not only is the future glorious, but the present is illuminated with the radiant beams of that eternal glory. Knowing that ‘it all works out in the end’ gives us the ability to endure the present problems and setbacks that are part of this life. As Paul will conclude in chapter eight:
Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
BUT - Paul points out here that there is more than looking at a future paradise to get us through today. We don’t just rejoice (or boast) in our current problems just because they are temporary. This is a very important distinction! If we only rejoice because we will be free of these sufferings when we get to heaven, we are going to be like the person who mopes away at his or her job Monday through Friday and whose only light comes from the fact that there is a weekend coming up. But this leads to two problems: First, if that is our only hope at work we will spend 6/7 of our week feeling miserable – 5 days because we will hate our work and all day Sunday dreading Monday again. Secondly, if we see no purpose to our work during the week we will do a poor job and disgrace our testimony to others by our lousy attitude.
So again it is not enough to just look at our eventual glory to glorify God now in our suffering. We rejoice in our sufferings now because they are part of God’s plan for our good right now. Nothing comes into our lives as Christians that is not part of God’s plan for our glorification and blessing. In the same chapter as the previous quote, Paul assures us that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.” (Rom 8:28b) So there is also hope in the ‘right now’, and that is what Paul is talking about here.
In verses three and four Paul lays out what is the source of hope from within our current sufferings. And that source is (at the risk of stretching my alliterated outline more) PURPOSE. We can have confidence that every point of testing and stretching in this life comes from God’s gracious, intentional will. And looking forward to verse 5 we see Paul says that this hope will not disappoint and will not leave us ashamed because of our trust in Him. And this is because of his love (but that is the next sermon in the series). Let’s look at verses 3 and 4 here to see the chain from suffering to hope.
Verse three starts with a declaration: “we rejoice in our sufferings”. Again the same word kauchaomai is used, meaning not that we are dancing around, enjoying our suffering, but rather boasting, exulting, and thrilling in the work that God is doing a wonderful work in our lives. We are not masochists who enjoy suffering. We are a work of art that God, the great master artist, is making into an image of Him. Taking broken sinners and remaking them is a mighty task that only God is up to.
The word for suffering here is the Greek word thlipsis, which was used to describe the threshing of wheat to get the grain, or of the crushing of grapes to get the juice from them. Just like the grapes we tend to let out a little ‘whine’ when we are put into God’s wine press. But this is not the wine press of revelation where the blood of God’s enemies will flow for miles. This is the process, sometimes painful, by which we are made into a fine and glorious vintage in God’s master craftsman hands. We rejoice in these sufferings, Paul says, because of our knowledge. What do we know?
We know, he says, that suffering produces endurance (Greek hypomonē – hoopahmoanEY) which means steadfastness, patience, sustaining, loyalty and constancy. Just like physical muscles need to be exercised and pushed to get stronger, unfortunately there is no quick fix to develop patience. But endurance is essential to the Christian, and it is an attribute of God which we benefit from daily. And we know deep down that this is how we grow. As parents we endure the crying of our children who want to have that toy or that cookie RIGHT NOW, knowing that to become a functioning adult they will need to take a longer view of life, and that it does not come naturally to sinners of any age without practice. How much more will we need to become like God?
But the chain does not stop there. What else is part of this knowledge that leads to rejoicing? “and endurance produces character”, Paul writes in verse four. The Greek word translated as character is interesting. The word dokimē (dahkeeMAY) refers to value that is proved through testing. Think of testing of metals to determine their purity. The opposite of that word meant “disqualified”. Our coins often have ridges around the circumference to prevent people from trimming the precious metals from the rim and trying to pass off the coin as good. In ancient days if a coin had been debased like this it was declared adokimos and therefore no longer had value as the money it was supposed to be. Paul himself used that word when he declared “…I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:27)
When we are proven through trials, we find hope in our current sufferings, because we know that they are for a good purpose and that they are not random but specifically tailored for our eternal happiness and glory. They are not pleasant now, but we can exult in them now. So where does boasting come in during suffering? Again Paul sets the example and leads the way by example:
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
Do you boast in your sufferings as well as in your hope of the glory of God? Can you? Have you? I am not talking about the games of one-upmanship that we play in conversations where we try to outdo our friends in recounting who had the worst week. That is just selfish and gross. What I mean is can you be like the apostles in Acts who rejoiced when they were beaten because it meant they were worthy to suffer in Jesus’ name? That is the boasting of a child that knows that they are loved.
As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Conclusion:
From our new POSITION in our redemption, we have an entirely different PERSPECTIVE. I want to finish with the words of a song from an old Christian music album that I bought many years ago. A singer named Benny Hester had a song called “Squeeze You”, and I want to finish with the lyrics of that song:
SQUEEZE YOU
Well you say that it’s been Smooth sailin’
But it won’t be long ‘Til that’ll be changin’
You must grow So I want you to know
(chorus)
He’s gonna squeeze you Just because He loves you
And you’ll know Him better For the trials He brings you through
He’s gonna squeeze you And you’ll learn to trust Him
He wants you to be faithful and true
(Verse 2)
When times get hard Well go ahead and praise Him We’ve gotta be thankful For all that He brings
He said He’ll make you strong So I know it won’t be long
(repeat chorus)
(bridge)
You’re gonna wake up in the mornin’ And say Lord what have you done
And you’ll find that He’s been makin’ Your spirit and His into one
(Verse 3)
Then one day When it’s time to be leavin’ You’ll hear His voice callin’
And when you get to heaven He’ll reach out His arms
(the song finishes with the same chorus but now the meaning is completely changed)
He’s gonna squeeze you Just because He loves you
And you know Him better For the trials He’s brought you through
He’s gonna squeeze you, ‘cause you’ve learned to trust Him
Good servant you’ve been faithful and true
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