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Bold Faith

What gets us into the game and off the bench? It is faith in Jesus the Master, our Messiah.

Faith sets us in right standing with God. Faith makes us whole. Faith allows us to get our act together. Nothing else can do that. No manner of “being good” and following the rules helps. It is faith alone.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Master Jesus the Messiah. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.[1]

Romans 5:1-2

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“Therefore” introduces a conclusion based on Jesus’ having been “given over [to death] because of our trespasses” and “raised because of our being declared righteous” (4:25). So confident is Paul that faith “is going to be credited” as righteousness at the Last Judgment (4:24) that he now puts the declaration in a past tense: “since we’ve been declared righteous by faith.”

The declaration is as good as made already. As a result of being declared righteous, believers (to whom “we” and “our” refer) “have peace with God” in that he will no longer direct his wrath against them. He will no longer consider them his enemies but will bestow on them all the benefits of salvation that the word “peace” connotes.

“Through our Master, Jesus the Messiah” specifies him as the agent of this peace because he’s also the object of saving faith. As such he’s also and likewise the agent of access “into this grace,” which refers to “peace with God” as an ill-deserved gift. “In which we stand” refers to this grace as a standing place over against works of the Law as not a good place to try standing. For standing connotes stability, whereas the Law produces God’s wrath (4:15), not peace with him. And nobody can withstand his wrath.

Here “boasting” has the sense of exultation. “Boasting on the basis of hope [which means confidence and therefore equates with faith]” contrasts with boasting in the Law (2:23) and in works (4:2).

“For God’s glory” identifies the object of hope and has to do with sharing God’s glory in the eternal state.[2]

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 5:1–2.

[2] Robert H. Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament: Verse-by-Verse Explanations with a Literal Translation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 585–586.

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