Romans 5:1-8 (NRSV)
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.
As we move on to Chapter 5, the reader should know that some scholars will make Chapter 5 the end of Part II, while most scholars make Chapter 5 the beginning of the next major section. I am going to approach this chapter as the conclusion of the argument in Part II. Paul draws out the consequences of this new perspective of faith he has described in Chapter 4, first for the individual believer in the present and the future. Then, on a salvation-history scale that sums up the whole sweep of human history from creation to consummation in the two men Adam and Christ, the one marking out the era of sin and death, and the other of grace and life. We see Paul continuing the universalistic thrust of his mission by showing that Christ fulfills Jewish apocalyptic hopes, and in so doing fulfills universally human hopes.[1] Paul throughout Chapter 5 connects the fate of humanity with the death of Christ. The Law itself links with a general anthropological relation between sin and death that makes the death of Jesus relevant to humanity in general, and not just those who lived within the historical particularity of the Israelite covenant.[2]
Chapter 5 is also a bridge from Paul to the Roman community. Here occurs the first use of “we” as a pronoun since the opening, semi-formulaic verses, and from this point forward in the letter, Paul writes with the assurance that he and the Romans form one community. Paul feels free to do this because, summarizing his rhetorical strategy very broadly, first, in a classic act of group identity, he has established who he and the Romans are not: They are not lascivious pagans (1:18-32), hypocritical judges (2:1-16, 22-24) or boastful Jewish teachers (2:17-24). With boundaries well established, he then explains that all Gentiles and Jews have the same God and come into right relationship with God through the actions of Abraham and Jesus (chapters 3 and 4). As Paul and the Romans are now of the same family of God, he can address them as “we,” the “justified by faith.”[3]
In Romans 5:1-5, Paul gives a summary of the character and qualities of the new life in Christ. Paul shifts to legal terminology. “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 the door to our pardon and 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, the fact that Jew and Gentile alike are under the power of sin, have a consequence in judgment. 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. The death of Christ has the expiatory effect of removing the reasonable consequences of human sin in eschatological judgment from God. Human beings can experience the effects of the event of expiation through the response of faith that brings the person into a new covenant. The death of Christ breaks the vicious circle of act-consequence that would have meant the destruction of humanity. 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, as the Father unites with the Son in the cross. 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. Yes, this passage is an important source for the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. Would it be possible for the great, true, real God to look like Jesus? After all, that is what the church has always claimed: Not simply that Jesus was God, but that God was Jesus. From the beginning, this is what all the fuss was about. The doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that God has met us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was not an invention of the early church to make Jesus God, but was an attempt on the part of the early church, using the language and philosophy at hand, to try to describe the God whom they met in Jesus. It is our claim that when we look at Jesus, we see as much of god as we ever hope to see. The new relation rests upon the hope of the inheritance of eternal life by the resurrection from the dead.
Romans 5:1-2 are important in considering the notion of justification by faith. 1Therefore, since we are justified (Δικαιωθέντες). Paul now wants to discuss the results of justification. The word "justification" comes from the ancient Roman law court. In that setting, the judge had the power, even when he knew the accused person was guilty as charged, to pronounce the defendant free anyway. And that, of course, is an essential part of what a pardon does. Behind the idea of justification is the reality that all of us are sinners and are unable to accomplish our own righteousness. God can grant us that, however, as an act of grace and mercy. The difference between a commutation and a pardon is significant: A commutation shortens the sentence of a convicted offender still incarcerated but does not change the fact of the conviction or imply innocence. A pardon does not signify innocence either, but it does give full legal forgiveness, set aside any ongoing penalty and restore all civil rights to the person. Such justification occurs by (or from, out of) faith (πίστεως), the key to the new relationship we have with God. The example of Abraham in Chapter 4 has brought this truth into a new light through Christ. Clearly, Abraham experienced blessing from God apart from the giving of the law or adhering to the law. In this context, the term “faith” appears to be capable of having more than one reference. The example of Abraham in Chapter 4 suggests that Paul is here referring to the faith the believer has in Christ.
Through our justification by faith, we have peace (εἰρήνην).[4] To have peace is to end the hostility between God and people. It brings about a condition of creative harmony. This harmony is in the total environment, since God is both creator and ruler, and thus brings inner security and serenity. Our peace is with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith brings us into a new covenant within which we have peace with God. Therefore, the first effect of justification is that the person who turns toward the event of Christ with faith has peace, the fullness of right relationship that justification itself implies and of all the other bounties that flow from it. When human beings enjoy a correct relationship with God, their condition may be one of inner calm and quiet composure, of undisturbed conscience, but the essential thing is that the human relation to God has changed, whether we feel it at that moment or not. Those who are now at peace with God are no longer objects of eschatological wrath. The obedience with which Christ led his life, even to the point of his death upon the cross, has removed wrath. God has provided reconciliation. Paul does not exhort human beings to manifest toward God a peaceful attitude but is instead stating the defacto situation in which they find themselves, one of peace and reconciliation issuing from divine grace and mercy and guaranteeing the hope of salvation, for they are no longer under wrath. How and on what basis can humanity have this peace with God? By the Word, in Jesus Christ, by faith in Christ, and by the Holy Spirit who awakens faith. Ultimately, every human question now has its answer in the grace of God, the coming of God to humanity that its ground in itself and others can know it only by it. The subjective knowledge expressed in this confession and rising far beyond any mere opinion or suspicion rests in the objective knowledge that the gracious justification of humanity is the work of the eternal righteousness of God. The point here is that we need peace with God, not that God needs peace with humanity. God already has that peace. God does not need reconciliation with us, but humanity needs reconciliation with God. Such reconciliation has already taken place.[5] We can see the power of this new relationship in the access to grace.
Thus, 2 through Christ we have obtained access to this grace (χάριν). The state of grace is a space fenced in which the Christian enters. Grace is not only God’s loving disposition toward us, but also is something God gives us, even if it is self-giving. Having access to grace, we can now proclaim in which we stand. The verse continues this emphasis on our miraculous new relationship with the Divine. Paul states that only through Jesus Christ we have gained "access" to the grace we so desperately require. "Access" in this usage relates to the idea of social introduction, especially an introduction to royalty. Christ makes possible our introduction to God's divine grace and moves us so close to the presence that we may "stand" in that grace. Such “standing” in Paul is similar to “abiding” in John. From this new experience of proximity to God, we may even hope to share in the "glory of God," that is, to experience the divine radiance or brightness of God in our own lives. Such a conviction, made possible only by grace, is, in a typically Pauline word, worth "boasting" about.[6]
Justification brings peace and a right standing with God in which we boast (καυχώμεθα). Paul does not condemn boasting per se, but only certain instances of it. Further, it is not clear that the Old Testament, particularly the Greek translation of the OT in which scholars assume Paul received his training, has a singular attitude toward boasting. The verb appears (in one form or another) more than 40 times in these texts. The earliest texts seem to condemn boasting, particularly that of warriors who believe victory is due to their own efforts and not to the work of the Lord (for example, Judges 7:2; I Kings 20:11). However, later books use the verb where the Hebrew texts and their English translations clearly indicate exultation in the gifts and deeds of the Lord. For example, NRSV of Psalm 5:11 has, “Those who love your name may exult in you.” Sirach, a deuterocanonical text composed around 100 B.C., does it all: At 11:4, Sirach condemns rejoicing at the misfortune of others; at 24:1, the author tells how Lady Wisdom amid her people rejoices in her glory. There is an enlightening discussion in Sirach 39:1-8 about those who devote themselves to the law. They search throughout the world for wisdom and, in their prayerful study, God may fill them with understanding and wisdom. Then, they will glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant (v. 8). Because of this brief word study, we can see that neither in the writing of Paul nor in the Old Testament does "boasting" always receive condemnation. One may — perhaps even should — boast of God’s gift of a divine relationship, expressed in Sirach as obtaining wisdom and understanding through study of the law, and expressed in Paul as the relationships created by God in response to the faithfulness of Abraham and of Jesus Christ. They are no longer objects of wrath, as in 1:18ff, for the event of Christ has removed wrath.
People who have responded to the event of Christ with faith boast in our hope (ἐλπίδι) of sharing the glory (δόξης) of God. The glory of God is humanity’s true character and destiny as created in God’s likeness, but which it has lost because of sin. However, God will restore it, and we have hope in that triumph. This restoration belongs to the new age to come. It may refer to the Shekinah glory, only partially communicated here, but fully communicated in the future. It transforms the whole person. To hope is to be confident of receiving the eschatological gifts, the resurrection of the body, the rich inheritance of the saints, and eternal life.
In Romans 5: 3-5, the faith and hope of which Paul has just written will issue forth in our transformation through the love of God that comes to us in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit to us. To bolster the position of humanity before God, Paul now explains how, because of such justification and salvation, human beings are at peace with God, and now God’s love further manifests itself toward them. The faith we have in the event of Christ, and the hope we have to share in the glory of God and therefore arrive at our destiny, has a transforming effect through the subjective personal presence of the Spirit. The Spirit brings about a condition of creative harmony. Paul and the Romans can together exult, glory and boast in a mutual relationship, grounded in the love of God poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, which itself brings hope, trials, endurance and character. As there is one God who loves them all, so they unite in this development. This harmony is in the total environment, since God is both creator and ruler, and thus brings inner security and serenity. As he often does in his writings, Paul lifts up the qualities of faith, hope, and love as special gifts. Suffering becomes the proving ground for the qualities of faith, hope, and love. These verses detail how the believer should visibly demonstrate confidence in access to this grace. These verses begin to sketch out Paul's primary plan for the particulars that one may find in a virtuous Christian's life. Our works do not justify us. Nevertheless, our justification should issue forth in certain attitudes and actions, habits and habitats. Paul is reflecting on his own experience and knows that justified Christians do not flee from the troubles of this world, in which they still live. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Paul moves from this description of the access to God in Christ, to the nuance of the celebration of sharing the glory of God with discussion of how suffering relates to this experience. This communion in the glory of God offers Christians the opportunity to rejoice in (not merely endure) their sufferings. Modern psychological sophistication may find this concept of suffering-as-a-virtue a red flag for a masochistic, self-despising faith. However, Paul is not touting suffering as a virtue in and of itself. Suffering is only worthy of a positive, boastful interpretation when, like our hope, it participates in the glory of God. As with all the other characteristics Paul will mention this kind of suffering points toward the redemptive act of Christ and the presence of grace in our lives. There can never be such a thing as "noble suffering" in the Christian list of virtues, only "humble suffering," experienced in the realization of Christ's own suffering for our sake. Such suffering arises from the honor and respect that Christians offer to those in authority. They do not fight it. Rightly understood, therefore, this suffering itself produces a second positive attribute: endurance (in most cases throughout Scripture, "endurance" is a better translation than "patience"). Again, misinterpretation of this characteristic suggests a kind of passive victimization or waiting on the part of the believer. However, Paul has no such attitude in mind. Endurance produced through suffering for Christ's sake is an active, positive response. Paul's understanding of Christian endurance is more recognizable to us as courage.[7] 4 Further, endurance produces character (δοκιμήν). Paul imagines that suffering improves the character of believers. Whoever patiently persists in trouble and suffering will prove to be dokimos, “tested.” No matter how strong the affliction, its goal is hope attained with God’s assistance. The very act of enduring, of living faithfully for Christ despite the suffering it might entail, develops Paul's third virtue: the virtue of a distinctive Christian character. The term used here for character means literally "the state of being proved and tested."[8] Our response to suffering and our ability to endure tests our integrity. The virtue of Christian character, the testing and trying of integrity which stands up and comes out true, is the positive outcome of meeting these challenges head-on. Lest we begin to think that we are wholly responsible for creating and maintaining this quality of virtuous character, remember that the ability to suffer and endure is still a divinely given gift, dependent upon grace. We cannot "build" our own Christian character through the effect of good works and better intentions. We are able only to open ourselves to a more complete understanding of our dependence on this graceful gift of justification. Further, character produces hope. Paul has returned full circle to the original quality of the expectation of believers before God that he mentioned in Romans 5:2: hope. This hope, according to Paul, is trustworthy because through this reconciling action of God in Jesus Christ, believers have had the very love of God poured into their hearts through yet another gift, that of the Holy Spirit. The entire unit proclaims the transformed existence that God has given to Christians through Jesus Christ. 5 Finally, hope does not disappoint us. Suffering and affliction become precisely the point at which one encounters hope and hope proves itself. The function of hope in Christian life is to motivate and develop conduct, endurance, and character. The sense of God’s love is enough to enable Paul and all Christians to contrast the suffering and affliction with the hope that does not disappoint. Hope does not disappoint because God’s love (ἀγάπη) has been poured into our hearts. The image of God pouring out life-giving water is one Paul now applies to God’s life, the divine energy manifesting itself in an overwhelming embrace of once godless creatures smothered with divine openness and concern for them. The pouring of divine love into our lives is through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of divine giving without restraint, in a way unparalleled by any human love. It is impossible for a human being to imagine the dimensions or bounds of divine love; humanity knows of it only because God has graciously willed to pour it out and make it known. The “Spirit” denotes the divine presence to the justified Christian. Paul finds the essential content of the history of Jesus in the fact that the love of God for the world finds expression in it. Here, Jesus constantly addresses us with the love of God. The Holy Spirit is a pledge of this love and bears witness to it. The Holy Spirit is not only a miraculous dimension, but also an inward principle of new life. This hope will not be illusory because we have already begun to realize the love of God. This love is not merely a fact about God, but a reality conveyed and realized. Paul identifies this grace, God’s love, and Holy Spirit closely. Faith is our response to this love, peace is the consequence of the response to God’s justifying act, and hope is our confident expectation that what God has begun God will complete. We should pay careful attention to the close relation between grace as favor and grace as gift. Here, God has poured out the love of God into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit refers to the grace in which we have achieved a firm standing. This means it will not do to set personal grace, as the love of God in divine condescension to us, in antithesis to the idea of a gift of grace that God grants to us. Rather, the two belong together. In fact, grace and the love of God here mean the same thing.[9] Believers are sure of their fellowship with God, the link between love and Spirit showing plainly that this event is from God, imparted by the message of the gospel, and into which God takes up believers, has the character of power. The focus in the New Testament is on a love coming down from God to the world. Christian love, in fact, is largely participation in the love that God has for the world. His point is that love of neighbor participates in the move of love God has for the world. In love of God and love of neighbor we do not have two wholly different realities but two aspects of human participation in one and the same love of God that the Holy Spirit has poured into the hearts of believers.[10] We can approach this passage as shedding light on our adoption as the children of God and justification. While only the eschatological future of God will consummate this revelation of divine love, the gift of the Holy Spirit makes believers already certain of it. Those reconciled to God live now in a state of peace with God. The declaring righteous of those who linked to Jesus Christ by baptism and faith has only a partial function in descriptions of the event, or its result, that Paul elsewhere called regeneration. Paul could also call this reconciliation to God, or peace with God. Defining this state of adoption into the filial relation of Jesus to the Father takes us deep. Declaring righteous is just one element, the establishing of the reconciliation without which we could not speak of believers sharing in this filial relation to the Father. Being in this relation is the true content of the new relation to God because of regeneration. The same applies to the fellowship with Christ created by faith. This is certainly primarily a fellowship with Christ on his destined way to crucifixion and resurrection. However, its core lies in participation in the filial relation of Jesus to the Father and therefore in the intra-Trinitarian life of God. On this there rests the hope of the inheritance of eternal life by resurrection from the dead.[11]
The modern and secular culture in which we live feels new, and it is. It was not that long ago when it would have been unusual for someone not to have God as part of their background assumption and value the church in upholding that view. Today, as centuries of modernity steadily moved to the person in the street, the background assumption is that God is unlikely, and the church is an impediment to the attaining of happiness. In that sense, everything feels new. Our technological advances have made the ordinary lives of the masses very different from the ordinary lives of the ancient masses. As part of the masses, I am glad for that. Yet, somehow human nature itself seems to be the same. We have no new types of tears. We cry the same tears as those of the ancients. We feel the same pain, joy, and hope, as did the ancients. Even if religion as historically known becomes increasingly hard to justify in our setting, the yearning of our hearts for meaning, significance, and purpose, to know that our lives matters, remains the same as those of the ancients. That is why ancient texts, when read with open minds and hearts, can still speak a powerful and transforming word that reaches out across the centuries to us. Human beings have not changed that much. We can learn from the struggles of the ancients as they found their way through the journey of life in a way that will help us through our journey.[12]
Paul is applying justification and the peace we have with God to the transformation of our lives through the Holy Spirit. In verses 3-5 Paul uses a flow of thought regarding the transformation of our lives that still speaks powerfully.
What is the peace that comes on God's terms? It is a peace that is worthy of boasting, Paul says. For, the goodness of God belongs to those who believe. We boast in the hope that the glories of God are part of the shower of grace. There is simply nothing else to brag about, Paul says, except that God has won the battle and God has given us a share in the victory. The sad reality is that we are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves. We are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.[13]
What is the peace that comes on God's terms? A peace that leads us to boast even of our troubles, Paul says. For we know that "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character, hope." Here, perhaps, is the greatest mystery, for those who do not stand in grace. It is, as Luther said, the very opposite that seems true: "suffering produces impatience, and impatience rejection, and rejection despair, and despair eternal confusion." However, those who bear the cross and not the sword know endurance, character, and hope. Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel said it well: "I used to admire intelligent people. As I grow older, I admire kind people."
Robert Mitchum had a difficult and challenging upbringing that included everything from growing up in New York’s “Hell’s Kitchen” neighborhood, to being a hobo riding the rails, to spending time on a Georgia chain gang and even doing a stint in the boxing ring before becoming a Hollywood star. Mitchum defined peace of mind as, “becoming the person I always wanted to be.” No matter the circumstance, Mitchum recognized that peace of mind is the result of an internal orientation. It is not dependent on what one accomplishes or accumulates.
Psychologists tend to agree with Mitchum. Psychologically speaking, peace of mind is the result of cultivating an intimate knowledge of oneself, knowing and valuing the person you are and want to be and living fully in the present moment.
Most people who recite theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer — a favorite of the Twelve-Step recovery movement — only quote the first line: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” However, there is more to it than that. Here are the remaining, seldom-quoted lines:
“Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace; taking, as [Jesus] did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next.”
What cancer can't do
Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love,
It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot corrode faith,
It cannot eat away peace,
It cannot destroy confidence,
It cannot kill friendship,
It cannot shut out memories,
It cannot silence courage,
It cannot invade the soul,
It cannot reduce eternal life,
It cannot quench the spirit,
It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.[14]
Peace with God leads to the peace of God, and that is a peace that produces actual peace of mind within us. We have freedom from anxiety and panic because God is present with us in the Holy Spirit. Such peace does not depend on circumstances but on faith that God is at work in us and is caring for us. We can have joy and peace when it matters most, especially when we are amid trying times. It is this kind of inner peace that makes us resilient people, and that makes us stand out in contrast to an anxious world. People who have this kind of peace are attractive to others because they want to have that kind of peace for themselves. Many people have endured horrific circumstances in their lives and yet have a deep peace about them — people who have experienced loss, grave illness or unfair treatment, and yet still have peace.
Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.
Refrain: Standing, standing,
Standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing,
I’m standing on the promises of God.[15]
People who are at peace with God and have the peace of God are non-anxious; they do not panic when life gets hard; they do not react negatively when circumstances do not go their way. Rather, they worry less; they endure suffering with grace and, as a result, have strength of character and hope for the future. It is not about simply pretending things are okay or “fake it ‘til you make it,” but it is about an inner peace given by the Spirit’s presence. As Paul puts it in Philippians: “The peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (4:7). The peace of God is the fertile ground in which peace of mind can really grow when the Spirit cultivates it.
Every situation of life contains what happens and how we respond to what happens. How we respond has its source in the kind of person we are and the type of belief we develop concerning life. Granted, if our view of life is that it is chaotic and meaningless, then our suffering is just part of the general mess. Yet, Paul is reminding us that God is, despite the mess, chaos, and apparent meaninglessness. If that is true, then we may hope that each event is part of the unfolding of some coherence and meaning.[16]
What is the peace that comes on God's terms? It is a peace that comes through the love of Jesus. It is the shalom of those whose shattered lives are held together by his life. This peace sets aside anger, resentment, self-righteousness, sometimes even the demand for justice, all for the sake of forgiveness and love. Peace on God's terms begins with faith in the one who won the battle by giving up his life for us while we were still sinners. Any other peace we may seek is tentative and costly. Any other peace is limited and vain.
Peace was not just something for them to have as an inner feeling, but something they extend to others. Later in Romans, Paul puts it this way: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (12:18). When we have peace with God, we also receive the peace of God, but that is to lead us to become the peacemakers of God. We extend God’s peace to others. This is the essence of what Paul means when he includes “peace” among the fruit of the Spirit — it’s the peace we share that really matters (Galatians 5:22).
What does this kind of peace look like? We get a clue about what living “peaceably with others” looks like toward the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans (12:9-21). How do people of peace act peaceably? They show genuine love to others (v. 9). People who live peaceably hate evil and hold fast to what is good, serving one another in mutual affection and showing honor to one another. They are enthusiastic, serving the Lord with the fire of the Spirit (v. 10). People of peace are not the “frozen chosen” but are genuinely excited about serving and doing the work of the Lord. They have hope no matter the circumstance, being patient in suffering and fervent in prayer (v. 12). They contribute to the needs of the saints and show hospitality to strangers (v. 13). They can bless their persecutors instead of cursing them (v. 14). They are empathic, rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep (v. 15). There is no jealousy, but a genuine hope for the well-being of another. They live as part of a community where they see everyone as equals and are humble about their own abilities (v. 16). In addition, they do not seek revenge when wronged. Instead, they care for their enemies and let God handle the rest (vv. 19-21). Instead of overcoming evil with revenge and retaliation, they conquer evil with good to the point that their enemies are embarrassed. Peace with God leads to the peace of God that leads to peacemaking in the power of God. If the people of God were to live this kind of peace, it would change the world.
Given the realities of war in our time, it would be irresponsible of me not to share with you the struggle for peace on the world scene. In 1899, on the eve of the 20th century, diplomats from the leading governments of the world gathered in The Hague for what they called the First International Peace Conference. They held it, not to conclude a war or to settle conflicts, but to focus on building a world of lasting peace. It dealt with issues of disarmament, international law, and dispute settlement. They held a second conference there in 1907. They canceled the third one. World War I had begun and, somehow, it got in the way of discussions about world peace. The century that followed was the bloodiest in history. Those of us who study the Bible read of many wars. We become upset over the many times when Israel engaged in war. We think they were somehow more barbaric than we are. Yet, during the 20th century, various wars killed over 93 million people around the world. In May of 1999, the world got around to holding that third peace conference in The Hague. Over 10,000 people met for a week in the Netherlands to discuss again, issues of disarmament, international law, and the settlement of disputes. The hope was to strive to make the 21st century an era of world peace. Nevertheless, if we have learned anything at all about peace since that first conference, it is this: peace is hard to come by. Tearing down the walls will not be easy. To paraphrase St. Paul, the lack of peace seems to pass all human understanding.
In one sense, everyone wants peace. Tyrants always want peace. Even the villains of the 20th century wanted peace. They just insisted on peace in their own terms. Stalin, Hitler, the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, and Islamic militants, all wanted peace -precisely on their terms.
As much as we may want peace, we recognize that not even peace is an absolute value in this world. The view that we should have peace at any price is one that, I hope, died with Neville Chamberlain. I suppose one could have peace with Al Qaeda, if one agreed to all their demands for a Muslim culture in the world. Peace that offers honor and respect for all the parties involved is the only peace worth having. The notion of peace at any cost should also have died the last time we surrendered something valuable to our lives and faith simply to have peace with another individual. Peace that requires me to submit to everything that you want me to be is not peace, but oppression. On the global scene, human beings engage in the paradoxical activity of waging war in order to win peace. We still need armies for that reason. This human world is far from perfect. It often calls upon us to make such paradoxical, conflicting choices. Among the many things for which I am grateful is that during the 20th century, American soldiers have liberated millions of people from oppressive forces in the world. I believe American armies have continued to bring such liberation in this century as well. Such battles are part of the harsh realities of an imperfect, sinful, alienated world that conducts itself far from the pattern of life God desires for this world.
When we listen to the Gospel story, we find people often impatient with Jesus. He had charisma. He knew how to speak. He knew how to hold an audience and sway a crowd. Some thought that if only he would resort to violence, we could have a real leader. Today, some people value politics so much that they desperately want to interpret Jesus as a political reformer or economic revolutionary. People would follow him anywhere. Nevertheless, he did not take up a sword. As Christians, we need to pay far more attention to the way God is present to the world in Jesus. Desmond Tutu once said, “The habit of war is hard to break.” Even during the darkest moments of apartheid, he never considered the possibility of war.
I want to suggest a possibility. In our sinful, separated, wall-building world, we will need conferences and armies for a long time. However, if you want to wage peace in this world, the best way will always be to bring more people into a way of life in which they follow Jesus by taking up the cross rather than the sword. The Gospel of John describes Jesus as the Word of God. God comes to us as a word of communication, not with the full exercise of military power. The only weapon Jesus possessed was his word. He sought to persuade. John also says that in Jesus we see the glory of God. One aspect of glory in the Old Testament is that of beauty. God was present in Jesus in a way that attracts us rather than oppresses us. Our faith is not in an insurrection, but in a resurrection. Genuine peace will come if we follow what God has done in sending Jesus, not to coerce us, but to walk with us, persuade us, and attract us.
If you want to work for world peace, wage a peace rooted in Christ.
In Romans 5:6-8, through justification and reconciliation, we also possess the Holy Spirit, whom the grace of God gives to us. The fact is that while we were rebelling against God, God was still reaching out to us. God pours out the Holy Spirit upon the very people who were under the judgment of the wrath of God, thereby embracing godless people. While only the eschatological future of God will consummate this revelation of divine love, the gift of the Holy Spirit makes believers already certain of it. Those justified before God live now in a state of peace with God. God has poured out the love of God into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit refers to the grace in which we have achieved a firm standing. This means it will not do to set personal grace, as the love of God in divine condescension to us, in antithesis to the idea of God granting to us a gift of grace. Rather, the two belong together. In fact, grace and the love of God here mean the same thing.
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 weak humanity was present in this event.
6 For while we were still weak, ungodly, separate from God, in rebellion against God, and undeserving, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. We were incapable of atoning for our guilt or throwing off our bondage. The coming of Christ was not an accident, but rather was a purposeful act of God, which in turn shows so movingly God’s love for us. What has made a difference is the death of Jesus. Paul affirms the historical event in a theological assertion stressing the vicarious character of that death, especially its spontaneous, gratuitous nature. Jesus’ death is the mode in which God chose to manifest the love of God. The obedient suffering of Jesus relates to the many and their salvation, for it is what the Father had in mind in sending the Son. It was also the will and work of the Son.[17] Paul may express a form of martyr theology, suggesting that Christ is the willing self-sacrifice of one on behalf of many. Jesus Christ is a fellow-human being. Only as Christ is with us can Christ also be for us. Every fellow human being impinges on us in a most penetrating way. We could not fulfill our human existence if we refused to fulfill it as a fellow human existence in relation to, and in encounter with, those who are near to us and implicitly those who are far away from us. He is our example and shows us the way. We have a form of discipleship and fellowship with Christ. What took place in Christ in the redemptive happening of the event of Christ has a parallel to all human existence. Human life is with and for others. Christ is for us in himself, quite independently of how we answer the question that his life puts to us concerning our fulfillment with or after Him. He is for us in acting in our name and therefore for us in all matters of reconciliation with God and of our redemption and salvation, representing us without any cooperation on our part.[18] 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. Paul slips in this phrase in a practical way. He admits that someone might die for another if the other is worthy. We can think of many other reasons that a person might die for others, as in battle for comrades, or for family. 8 Nevertheless, God proves his love (ἀγάπην) for us. Note how closely Paul has connected love and grace. While only the eschatological future of God will consummate this revelation of divine love, the gift of the Holy Spirit makes believers already certain of it. Paul affirms the historical event in a theological assertion stressing the vicarious character of that death, especially its spontaneous, gratuitous nature. The death of Jesus is the mode in which God manifested the love of God. We were there, for there took place there the dying of the Son of God for us.[19] The obedient suffering of Jesus relates to the many and their salvation. Thus, God demonstrates love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Paul is making it clear that we are not okay. Becoming part of the people of God is not a matter of being good people, but of recognizing our need for transformation. As Paul will put it in Chapter 6, we unite ourselves with the death of Christ and unite ourselves with his resurrection. We are the type of beings who need resurrection. The faith, hope, and love of verses 1-5 become possible because the God who loves us has rescued us. Unlike the death of a heroic individual on behalf of another righteous person, Jesus' heroic and martyr-like death occurs at a divinely appointed time and for a divine purpose, on behalf of ungodly people who do not deserve it.
Many people, like myself, find it hard to think of ourselves as sinners. We attend corporate worship and prayer. We engage in the fellowship of the community. We have fellowship with other believers and devout people. Precisely because we are alone with our sin, we do not have the breakthrough to fellowship that we know we need. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner, so we conceal sin from ourselves and from the fellowship. We dare not have the fellowship of sinners and would in fact be horrified if a sinner showed up amid the fellowship of the righteous. The result, of course, is that we remain in the worst kind of loneliness, for we are alone in our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. Facing who we are as sinners is the step many of us need to take to experience genuine fellowship with God and with the people of God.[20]
[1] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 207.
[2] Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man, 262.
[3] Patricia MacDonald, “Romans 5:1-11 as a rhetorical bridge.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 40 [1990], 81-96.
[4] I should note that the manuscripts of the letter do not agree as to whether this peace with God is an accomplished fact (we have peace) or an exhortation to action (let us have peace). The majority of the versions carry the sense of accomplished fact, and indeed the larger context of Paul's argument in the chapter bears out that Christ's death and resurrection have brought about reconciliation between God and God's people, and that this is not dependent on the intentions or the faith of believers.
[5] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [58.1], 83, [61.2], 538, IV.1 [57.3], 74.
[6] Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2 [37.3], 600.
[7] Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.4 [56.3], 676.
[8] (Matthew Black, Romans: Based on the Revised Standard Version, The New Century Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 75).
[9] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 199, 202.
[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 183-187, 193-94.
[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume III, 235-36, 645.
[12] Inspired by David J. Wolpe, The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God, (Penguin, 1990) 106-107.
[13] Thomas Merton
[14] Anonymous
[15] Verse 2 and refrain of the hymn “Standing on the Promises of God.” Lyrics by Russell Kelso Carter.
[16] Sam Shoemaker, I Stand By the Door.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume II, 305.
[18] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.1 [59.2], 229-30.
[19] As Barth puts it in his Romans commentary.
[20] “He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone in our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community, trans. John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 110.
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