Bible Commentaries

Romans 5:1-11

1. Therefore being justified by faith [justified therefore by faith], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2. By whom also we have access [through whom also we have had our introduction] by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

3. And not only Romans 11:15, and 2 Corinthians 5:18-19]

Justification By Faith

No man can understand the fifth chapter who has not read the Epistle from the beginning; specially is it needful to read the chapter immediately preceding. This is the difficulty of having chapters at all. The Epistle should be read in its argumentative parts as a whole, straight through, from beginning to end, if we would see what a very vehement and tumultuous mind is aiming to say. The Apostle Paul is not a neat writer; he is urgent, strenuous, pressing on with ineffable energy; having a goal in view, his great object is to reach it and glorify it. So the Apostle Paul has written many things hard to be understood. Blessed be God, there is no need to understand them in their literal significance; it is enough to come within the exhilarating and renovating influence of their atmosphere. We know the touch of earnestness; we are well aware of the difference between painted fire and real fire: it is enough, therefore, now and then to feel the glowing heart of Paul, without pretending to settle his letters in order, which he himself seldom condescended to do.

"Therefore": that is an argumentative word, connecting what is about to be said with what has already been said, and coming out of what has been said as the flower comes out of the root,—"being justified": this has unfortunately become a theological term. There is no need that the term should be theologised in any difficult and repellent sense; let us substitute another word:—Therefore being made right,—being rectified, having that which was crooked made straight, having that which was lacking introduced; having now become right—not by works, which it was impossible ever to do, but having become right by a new and greater life, by a sixth sense, called faith—a great and glorious harvest has fallen to our lot. The Apostle has been anxious to wrench from any hands that would greedily and exclusively grasp it the whole message and the whole kingdom of God. The Apostle will deal out his kingdom fairly; he says it belongs to all nations, through all times, and no section of humanity has any right to urge an exclusive claim to the kingdom of grace. He had great difficulty here. It is not comfortable for any man who imagines himself to be elected to have anybody sitting near him whom he does not himself introduce to that high position and that inextinguishable honour. There is nothing more tempting to fallen man than that he should imagine himself to be elected, and should then sit in judgment upon the rest of his fellow creatures, and allocate them to heaven, to hell, as his ignorance or indigestion may permit. The Church has been ruined by its self-elected saints. They are odious every one of them, wholly ill-skinned and ill-favoured and bad at the innermost marrow that is hidden in their bones. The Lord does not know them; they do not begin to understand what is meant by love, redemption, forgiveness, charity, sanctification, heaven; they have been living—if life it may be called—upon the alphabet; and no man was ever fed into great stature and massiveness and majesty of mind by repeating the letters of the alphabet. The Apostle Paul will clear the horizon of all the clouds which sectarian ignorance has breathed upon it. From every point he will have streaming sunshine. He cannot allow that Christ has died for half a world, for then he would be but half a Saviour; he will have the heart of the Son of Man satisfied, and that soul cannot be satisfied while twos and threes are saved and millions are damned because he himself would not save them. Paul's gospel is more on a heaven than on an earth. No earth could hold it. The earth cannot hold the flowers, they are all trying to escape; the earth holds the roots well, but every flower says as it rises to the sun, I want to go to my native land. So the Lord's Gospel is not sent to this locality or yonder district, but to all the world, in its uttermost parts; the darker the blackness that conceals those parts, the more determined should be the light-bearers to carry the glory where the night is thickest. Faith is a new word, and is much made of by those who first got hold of it. Faith is not an Old Testament word, yet faith had an Old Testament action. Many ages have lived our words before we got hold of the words themselves. Sometimes the later age has to translate the ages that went long before. There will arise in the Church an eloquent Romans 5:9-10

This is a favourite form of spiritual reasoning. I want the simplest reader to understand what is meant by a somewhat ungainly yet partially self-explaining term, "a fortiori." That is the kind of reasoning which is in great favour in all the Biblical books. Let those who understood the term long before any of us had the remotest idea of it be patient whilst I illustrate it to those less fortunate ones who really do not understand things until they are explained. Let the lightning minds do what they like for a moment or two, but I must insist that the very slowest shall be waited for, and carried forward if he will so permit. "A fortiori" is the subject. A fortiori means from one strength to another, stronger and stronger, more and more. Thus: If a man is. very particular about little things, how much more about great things! That is the meaning of it in substance. Or thus: If a man will risk his life for another, how much more will he put himself to some momentary inconvenience to oblige or assist those whom he loves! It is always—How much more! If he will do a certain great thing, how much more will he do a little thing: or if he will do a little thing, how much more ought he to do the greater thing. Now we are all on a level. Let us see how this a fortiori reasoning runs through the Scriptures.

"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Your fatherhood is a little ladder by which you can climb so far to heaven, to God. Whatever there is good in you, instinctively, naturally, or by any other law and process, that is so much on the way to God; only, when you have reached the end of your attainment, you are to say, How much more! Then will come in all the revelation of Divine light and beneficence, tenderness and compassion. It has pleased God thus to make us by experience annotators of his own personality and administration. When we would ask profoundly metaphysical questions about the Divine relation to human life and human infirmity, when we would put the puzzle into pompous polysyllables and would darken counsel with a multitude of words, the kind celestial voice says to us, Cease, this is the explanation of the whole of it, namely, "Like as a father...." What do you want with long words and metaphysics, and why should you presume to explain the Divine love in the action of forgiveness? Look within; let instinct interpret theology, let the everlasting love that comes with the child interpret your relation to God and God's relation to you: put away from you all long, intricate, and perplexing terms, and write after all the mysteries of God's action, "Like as a father." Why, that is Christ's inquiry:—"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more...." Human love is but a drop of God's love; human love is but a symbol of God's affection; human love is only a type, an index-finger, a little speck to begin with: when you know its agony, its passion, its pathos, its mystery of suffering; when you have fully comprehended the love that is in your own heart, multiply it by infinity, and say, This is the beginning of the love of God.

Jesus Christ fashions, another inquiry upon the same line of reasoning; he says, "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Man's temper is tested by circumstances. Here you have men struggling against difficulty, persisting in quenching the oppositions of nature; here you have men so obstinate that they have determined to overcome all natural difficulties and barriers: if they will do these things when circumstances are against them, and all nature seems to testify against their purpose, what will they do when everything falls easily into their hands? If they can climb the mountains in this way, how easily they will run down the valleys; if they can fight against nature, instinct, reason, family association, pastoral solicitude and guidance, how much more will they fall into the ways of the world when they live in the world sympathetically, and when all surrounding companionships constitute an environment of sympathy! There are men who have wrought wonders in the green tree—sappy, juicy tree; they have burned it, they have dried up all the blood of the plant, and have gone on towards conflagration and annihilation. There are men who have lived down all the mystery of the love of home. There are souls that have torn out of themselves every holy memory: if men can do these things when God seems to have surrounded them with saving and redeeming influences, what can we expect of those who are born in darkness, born in poverty, and who were doomed from the day of their birth to carry heavy loads and to toil under sweltering suns? Thus the Lord Christ, sweat Teacher, Sister-Monitor, comes down to spell out all things to us, saying, Open your eyes and see life in its daily aspects, in its continual mutations, and learn that within all the evolution of providence, sanctified or perverted, there is a revelation of God, thought, law, destiny. Why, if the pen-and-ink Bible were burned, God is rewriting it every page on the scroll of the passing days.

Another inquiry the Saviour bases on the same line of reasoning. They are all looking round and admiring the beauties and wonders of nature, and Jesus says, Who clothed this field with grass? The disciples said, The Lord our God did this. Then Christ retorted, being swift in all spiritual reasoning and tremendous in all moral application, "If then God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day Romans 5:15

This is a parallel. Let us honestly inquire what it means. Let us have no special pleading; no evasion of the solemn issue; let us ask ourselves earnestly, Is this parallel a piece of dramatic painting? or is it a reality? If a piece of dramatic painting, it is a mockery; if a reality, it is the grandest, sweetest gospel that the human heart ever dreamed. Do not run away from it. Many persons have walked round about this text, and have been very emphatic upon one of its members, and have treated the other part of the text as if it had but a remote and worthless relation to the general apostolic argument. If men could really believe this in their hearts, night would be dead, and there would be no more pain, no more sea, and no more trouble, and no more earth, or time, or sense, or enemy. So large and so bright is the heaven which lies within our reach! "If through the offence of one many be dead"—our theologians are very firm there, they will have no trifling at that point; they will not allow that one soul made in the Adamic likeness lives: but some of the theologians do not advance into the "much more" which follows that declaration—"much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one Romans 5:15-20—"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." How boundless! Tell me that sin cannot hunt my soul into eternity, and I will, I say, Praise God! But tell me that God's love can only deal with me in time, and will have no more to do with me simply because I have got rid of the body, and I am at least smitten with an infinite amazement. But if any man shall say, "Well, then, I will trust to eternity, and I may be saved there," that man commits suicide. There is the difference between reality and unreality, sincerity and insincerity. If a man shall say, Then I will play the devil's game as long as this body lasts, and when I get rid of that I shall attend some sanctuary in the other world, a man that can talk so cannot be saved; his is the unpardonable sin. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation": "Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." It is impossible for a man to make terms with the devil, to serve him all his time, and then to say, with mental reservation, I will see about God in eternity. God is not mocked!

Prayer

Almighty God, we bless thee that through Jesus Christ our Lord we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom. We bless thee for thine own sovereignty, for the monarchy of the Saviour, and for the rule of God the Holy Ghost. Once we would not have Christ to reign over us, now we cry, We will have no other king. Jesus is now to us King of kings, Lord of lords; the name is written upon his vesture and upon his thigh; behold, his throne is above all. May he rule in us, may he be our Master and Lord. We would learn the sweetness of obedience; help us to say always, Not my will, but thine, be done. Thou canst work this miracle in us. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts. We cannot work it in ourselves; we are rebellious, self-reliant, we mistake the near for the great, and the present for the eternal; we are full of error: Lord, help us by the mighty grace of thy Holy Spirit to say constantly, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. Help us to understand the kingdom of which we are subjects; enable us to feel its spirituality, to realise its nearness, its greatness, its divineness. Being subjects of such a crown, may we walk worthy of the kingdom of which we are members; may our conduct be good, noble, useful; may men constantly take knowledge of us that we have been in the garden with Jesus, that we have learned of Jesus, that we know his spirit, that we obey his command. Save us from all little, narrow, uncharitable, and unworthy notions of thy kingdom, thou who didst die to reign; may we not misrepresent thy rule, rather being taught by thy Holy Spirit may we present it to the world so that it may eventually become accepted of men. Lord hear us, behold our tears when we are in grief, behold us when we are weary through weakness, comfort us when all life is desolate; and bring us through all the wondrous experience of this poor grey cold time to see the meaning which thou hast hitherto hidden from our imagination, the meaning of thine own heaven. Amen.