ROMANS 5:1-6:23

LESSON 6    PEACE WITH GOD

ROMANS  5:1-6:23

 He sums up his argument of the first four chapters: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith:” Six assertions.

The results of justification (5:1-11)

1. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (1). The pursuit of peace is a universal human obsession in society, in relationships, in our personality. Jesus Christ is the prince of peace. He made peace by his sacrifice on the cross, breaking down the wall of partition between us (Eph.2:14-18).
2. We have gained access by faith into the grace and favor of God to live in his presence (2a). It is a continuous privilege.
3. We rejoice in our hope of the glory of God (2b). This future assurance of our glorification in a renewed universe (see Rom.8) is a powerful stimulus in the present. “When I awake, I will be satisfied with your likeness” (Ps.17:15). To die is gain (Phil.1:21).
4. We also rejoice in our sufferings (3-8). Not to take pleasure in pain. Rather the recognition that there is purpose and a divine rationale behind suffering. As Jesus suffered so will we. Suffering can be productive, if we respond to it positively and not with bitterness. It produces perseverance or endurance. It tests us and produces character and hope. Through it we experience God’s love. God never lets us down and never gives us up. This assurance is given us by the Holy Spirit who pours God’s love into our hearts at the moment of our believing in Jesus (see the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost), who died for us on the cross. This costly gift proves how much God loves us. He died as a sin offering, bearing in our place the penalty our sins had deserved. We deserved the penalty because we are ungodly sinners, rebels against God, his enemies, hostile to God, powerless to rescue ourselves.
5. We shall be saved through Christ (9-10). The past, present and future tenses of salvation. What is the future salvation which Paul has in mind here? We shall be saved from God’s wrath. At the end of history there is going to be a day of reckoning. We shall be saved through his resurrection on the last day. The best is yet to be! “How much more…Having been reconciled, we shall be saved through his life.
6. We also rejoice in God’s mercies (11). The mark of believers is joy in God himself. We should be the most positive people in the world for God has reconciled us to himself.

The two humanities, in Adam and in Christ (5:12-21). Another “therefore”. The principle that many can be affected, for good or ill, by one’s person’s action. Adam and Christ are contrasted and compared. Through one man’s deed (Adam’s disobedience or Christ’s obedience) the many have been either cursed or blessed.

Adam and Christ are introduced (12-14). First, sin entered the world through one man. Secondly, death entered the world through sin. Thirdly, in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. In what sense have all sinned so that all die? All sinned in and through Adam and not just imitated Adam due to inheriting his tendency (the Pelagian interpretation). All died because all sinned in and through Adam, the representative or federal head of the human race (13-14). Universal death is attributed to a single, solitary sin (15-19). The analogy between Adam and Christ: as we are condemned on account of what Adam did, (so) we are justified on account of what Christ did. Adam was a pattern of the one to come (14b). Like Adam, Christ is the head of a whole humanity.

Adam and Christ are contrasted (15-17). First, the nature of their actions was different (15). Secondly, the immediate effect of their actions was different (16). Thirdly, the ultimate effect of the two actions is also different (17).

Adam and Christ are compared (18-21). God’s purpose is that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life (21). Nothing could sum up better the blessings of being in Christ than the expression ‘the reign of grace’. For grace forgives sins through the cross and bestows upon the sinner both righteousness and eternal life. Grace satisfies the thirsty soul and fills the hungry with good things. Grace sanctifies sinners, shaping them into the image of Christ. Grace perseveres even with the recalcitrant, determining to complete what it has begun. And one day grace will destroy death and consummate the kingdom. So when we are convinced that ‘grace reigns’, we will remember that God’s throne is a ‘throne of grace’, and will come to it boldly to receive mercy and to find grace for every need.

The scope of the work of Christ. The claim that this is universalism? We certainly have no liberty to insist that the word ‘all’ is invariably absolute and can never admit any qualification. In Romans 5 the ‘all men’ who are affected by the work of Christ cannot refer to absolutely everyone. Nevertheless, Romans 5:12-21 gives us solid grounds for confidence that a very large number will be saved and that the scope of Christ’s redeeming work, although not universal, will be extremely extensive.

The historicity and death of Adam. Many people assume that evolution has disproved and discarded the Genesis story as having no basis in history. We should certainly be open to the probability that there are symbolical elements in the Bible’s first three chapters. But the case with Adam and Eve is different. Scripture clearly intends us to accept their historicity as the original human pair. For the biblical genealogies trace the human race back to Adam. Moreover, nothing in modern science contradicts this. Rather the reverse. This homogeneity of the human species is best explained by positing our descent from a common ancestor. [Section on the age of human ancestors, p.164.] Human fossil records were likely to have been pre-Adamic hominids. Adam, then, was a special creation of God, either formed literally from the dust of the ground or whether he was created out of an already existing hominid. “The vital truth we cannot surrender is that, though our bodies are related to the primates, we ourselves in our fundamental identity are related to God.” How did Adam’s special creation and subsequent fall relate to the other pre-Adamic hominids? Derek Kidner suggests that, God conferred his image on Adam’s collaterals, to bring them into the same realm of being. Adam’s “federal” headship of humanity extended, if that was the case, outwards to his contemporaries as well as onwards to his offspring, and his disobedience disinherited both alike. Why did Adam die? “Death entered the world through sin.” (Rom.5:12) Scripture regards human death as unnatural, an alien intrusion, the penalty for sin, and not God’s original intention for his human creation. It was not just spiritual death or separation from God. Physical death was included in the curse, and Adam became mortal when he disobeyed. It appears that God had something better in mind for Adam and his successors. Something less degrading and squalid than death, decay and decomposition, something which acknowledged that human beings are not animals. [Translation or transfiguration?]

United to Christ and enslaved to God (6:1-23)

United to Christ, or the logic of our baptism (1-14) Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? The charge of antinomianism.

We died to sin (2). The erroneous popular view is that we are dead to the appeal and power of sin. But our experience is that we are not unresponsive to sin. Our fallen nature is alive and active. We are told to put to death our fallen nature. We have died to sin in the sense that through union with Christ we may be said to have borne its penalty. Paul is referring not to a death to the power of sin, but to a death to its guilt, that is to our justification.

We were baptized into Christ’s death (3). Baptism signifies our union with Christ. The essential point Paul is making is that being a Christian involves a personal, vital identification with Jesus Christ, and that this union with him is dramatically set forth in our baptism.

God intends us to share also in Christ’s resurrection (4-5).

We know that our old self was crucified with Christ (6-7). It cannot mean eliminate or eradicate but rather that our selfish nature has been defeated, disabled, deprived of power. Our old self refers to our former self, the person we used to be in Adam. I died to sin (in Christ) once; I die to self (like Christ) daily. We have been justified freely through Christ.

We believe that we will also live with Christ (8-10).

We must count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God (11) The major secret of holy living is in the mind. Through Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God. We are to recall, to ponder, to grasp, to register these truths until they are so integral to our mindset that a return to the old life is unthinkable.

We must therefore offer ourselves to God (12-14). Do not offer yourselves to sin because you have died to it; but offer yourselves to God, because you have risen to live for his glory.

Enslaved to God, or the logic of our conversion (15-23) Does grace sanction sin, and even encourages it?

The principle: self-surrender leads to slavery (16). Conversion is an act of self-surrender to slavery and slavery demands a total, radical, exclusive obedience.

The application: conversion involves an exchange of slaveries (17-18).

The analogy: both slaveries develop (19). The grim process of moral deterioration is exchanged for the glorious process of moral transformation.

The paradox: slavery is freedom and freedom is slavery (20-22). There is a freedom which spells death and a bondage which spells life.

The conclusion: the ultimate antithesis (23). Sin pays wages (you get what you deserve), but God gives a free gift (you are given what you do not deserve).

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR LESSON 7 

ROMANS 5:1 – 6:23

1. How can we experience peace with God?
2. What do you hope for in the future?
3. How can we endure suffering?
4. What is your understanding of “being saved”?
5. How does Paul’s understanding of Adam and his legacy compare with modern scientific teaching?
6. Why do we still sin when Christ has died to deliver us from sin?
7. How can we overcome sin in our lives?
8. How does the picture of slavery help us to understand the human condition?