Therefore,
since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in
which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And
not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering
produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and
character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because
God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has
been given to us.
6 For while we were
still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed,
rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person
someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us
in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
In 5:1-5, Paul gives a summary of
the character and qualities of the new life in Christ. “Justified” in Roman law
refers to a judge who knows the accused person is guilty but pronounces the
defendant free anyway. We might think of it as a pardon. Human beings receive
this pardon through the event or act of faith. Chapter 4 has explained that
Abraham received his pardon by his faith and obviously apart from the Law of
Moses. This event or act of faith that opens up our pardon gives us peace,
reconciliation, creative harmony, inner security, and serenity with God. The first
effect of such pardon is peace, in contrast to the wrath or judgment of God of
which human sin is a reasonable consequence. The human acts of rebellion Paul
describes in 1:18ff have a consequence in judgment. Yet, this divine judgment
shows itself in allowing human beings to reap the consequences of their
actions. Humanity reaps what it sows. Yet, the human situation is not hopeless.
A faith response on the part of a human being brings the person into a new
covenant. Christ has removed the reasonable
consequence of human sin. To clarify, we are the ones who need this peace and
reconciliation with God, which has occurred in Jesus Christ. God is already well
disposed toward humanity. Such peace with God gives us access in the sense of a
social introduction to the God who give us grace. Since God gives us this
grace, it represents the divine self-giving. We can stand or abide in this
grace. Christ brings us close God, so close that we hope to share in the hope
of the glory of God. The glory of God is human destiny, created as we are in
the divine likeness. This destiny is part of the restoration that will come in
the new age to come. Such hope has the orientation toward the eschatological
gifts of resurrection and life. Obviously, this destiny is not our present. Such
is the nature of hope. Our present includes suffering, even as the Lord Jesus
suffered. Our hope helps us to rejoice in suffering for Christ. Our hope helps
us to allow suffering to produce the virtue of endurance, perseverance, or
courage. It suggests living faithfully even as one suffers for Christ. Such courage
in the face of suffering will produce one who can withstand the tests of a
Christian life, which is character. Living faithfully through the tests of life
is a matter of our integrity. Yet, such endurance and withstanding of tests
derives from the hope we have for our destiny. We are standing or abiding in
this grace, which invites us to live faithfully and persevere among the tests
of life. Thus, the virtues of which Paul writes do not derive from our efforts,
but from the turn away from ourselves and toward the hope and grace with
experience through Christ. Withstanding such tests, coming full circle,
produces hope. Yet, this hope is not just wishful thinking or a nice idea. It has
its basis the love or grace of God seen in Jesus Christ and poured like
life-giving water into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the personal divine presence
that the pardoned believer enjoys. We have here the assurance of fellowship
with God in the link between love and Spirit. Christian love is participation
in the love God has for the world. The love of neighbor participates in the
love God has for the world. The love of God is the destiny of humanity, but the
present gift of the Holy Spirit is an anticipation of that destiny. Pardon,
then, is one element that opens us to deeper dimensions of our relationship
with God. The human situation is one that participates in rebellion from God. In
Christ, we receive pardon for that rebellion. However, God did not stop at
pardoning us for our rebellion. We have a filial relationship to the Father. Being
in this relation is the true content of the new relation to God due to our
regeneration through the gift of the Spirit. This new relation is primarily a
fellowship with Christ on his destined way to crucifixion and resurrection. The
new relation is participation in the filial relation of Jesus to the Father and
therefore in the intra-Trinitarian life of God. The new relation rests upon the
hope of the inheritance of eternal life by the resurrection from the dead.
In 5:6-8, Paul details further how
the death of Christ has brought about the new reality of which he writes. Many
people today struggle with this notion. How can the death of a man so long ago
still be something significant to me today? We will need to be open to the
importance of an event in history. The moment becomes significant, rather than
human rational reflection. It also means openness to the revelation or
disclosure. This will mean that human beings need to orient themselves to this
event if they are to discover truth. This means the event is an encounter
rather than a calm reflection on process. Paul has already referred to the
necessary event of the act of faith and the divine presence through the Holy
Spirit as the subjective encounter human beings will need. Paul stresses now
that our personal response orients us to the divine event of the death of
Christ. Human beings are weak in that they could not accomplish for themselves
what God has done in Christ. Their weakness is a sign of their ungodliness in their
turn from relying upon the creator to relying upon self. However, “at the right
time,” in a moment, in an event within human history, Christ died for these
persons too weak to save themselves. The event is a purposeful act of God. The event
has a vicarious character. The death of Christ and his obedience through
suffering is the means by which the love and grace of God shows itself to the
world. We may have here a form of martyr theology, suggesting that Christ is
the willing self-sacrifice of one on behalf of many. He is our example and
shows us the way. Christ is for us, independently of our response. God shows
divine love and demonstrates divine grace in the event of the death of Christ. This
death has a vicarious character in that it benefits others. In that sense, all
of weak humanity was present in this event.
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