Romans 5:1-5 Commentary

Hope is not just the name of my alma mater’s most heated rival. It’s also that without which no image bearer of God can truly live. While their hearts may beat and brains may still function, people who have no hope are, as Lewis Smedes once noted, basically walking dead people. Conversely even if their hearts no longer beat strongly and brains don’t function well, people who have hope have life.

Hope, however, seems like an endangered species nearly everywhere we look. Despair has unseated hope in countless hearts, lives, relationships and even communities. This might offer preachers an opportunity to explore both the death of hope and its  resuscitation by the Holy Spirit.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers a wonderful opportunity to do just that. It’s not just that on this Trinity Sunday it contains references to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s also that Romans 5 uses the word “hope” [elpis*] three times in its five verses. This is, in other words, a deeply hopeful passage.

Biblical scholars have long wrestled with where to theologically “place” Romans 5. Some view it as Paul’s conclusion of his treatise on justification. But the New Testament scholar Douglas Moo suggests that it actually serves as a bridge between Romans’ proclamation of the doctrines of justification and assurance.

Scholars have written whole books on the concept of justification. But perhaps those who preach on Romans 5 need to say little more about it on this Sunday than this: God’s justification is God’s acceptance, because of Christ’s saving work, of those who receive God’s grace with our faith. God both views and treats those God justifies as if we were as perfectly righteous as God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

This acceptance, says Paul in verse 1, results in all sorts of wonderful graces. “Since we have been justified [Dikaiothentes] through [ek] faith [pisteos],” he writes there, “we have peace with [eirenen pros] God through [dia] our Lord Jesus Christ.” Even though God creates us in God’s image, we naturally make ourselves God’s enemies.

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, however, Paul reminds us that God no longer considers Christian to be God’s enemies we’ve made ourselves. God doesn’t treat us the way we naturally deserve. Because of Jesus’ rescuing work, the people God justifies are those whom God graces with peace with himself. For Jesus’s sake God, in The Message’s paraphrase of verse 1, “Set[s] us right with God [and] make[s] us fit for him – we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus Christ.”

What’s more, Paul celebrates, because of Jesus’ work, “we have [also] gained access [prosagogen] by faith [te pistei] into [eis] this grace [charin] in which we now stand [hestekamen].” Jesus’ friends no longer have to find our confidence in our own goodness. Because of Jesus’ faithfulness, God has, as it were, opened the door for us to rest in God’s gracious acceptance of us. So while lots of things may worry us, those who receive God’s grace with our faith never have to worry about how God views or treats us.

In verse 2 Paul speaks of Christian hope for this first time in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. Yet it’s an admittedly rather puzzling introduction. “We boast [kauchometha] in,” writes the apostle, “the hope [elpidi] of the glory [doxes] of God.” Since Christians at our best cherish the gift of humility before God and each other, we may shy away from boasting about anything.

Perhaps The Message can help us get at what the apostle wishes to communicate here. It paraphrases verse 2b as “standing tall and shouting our praise.” This suggests that the hope of God’s glory produces in those to whom God has given it a spirit not of braggadocio, but of celebration and praise. Those who “boast in the hope of the glory of God” unashamedly relish and look forward to the glory of God for which we hope.

This profession offers preachers an opportunity to reflect on the biblical concept of hope. Virtually all uses of the word “hope” contain an element of uncertainty. I hope that the Detroit Tigers will win baseball’s World Series this year. I may even hope that it snows tomorrow. But I have no guarantee that either of those things will happen.

God’s gift of hope contains no such element of uncertainty. We can count on the things for which God gives us hope because God guarantees them. Romans 5’s Paul can promise Jesus’ followers will someday fully see and experience God’s glory because our trustworthy God always keeps God’s promises. Our Christian hope is sure because the God in whom we hope is completely reliable.

That helps Jesus’ followers begin to understand verses’ 3-4’s shocking “chain reaction.” There Paul insists that we don’t just boast in the glory of God. Jesus’ friends “also glory [kauchometha] in our sufferings [thlipsesin].” Our suffering causes pain. However, it also, by God’s grace alone, causes us to rejoice. Christians’ misery somehow ignites within us shouts of praise.

Preachers can admit that this is a counter-intuitive profession. It, frankly, sounds almost masochistic. As we admit that, we might note a couple of things. First, Jesus’ followers don’t rejoice in the suffering of others. We, instead, weep with those who weep. But we also note that it isn’t our suffering itself that causes us to celebrate. It’s what God produces in us through our misery that launches our praise.

“We glory in our sufferings,” writes the apostle in verses 3b-4 “because we know [eidotes] that suffering produces [katergazetai] perseverance [hypomonen], perseverance, character [dokimen], and character, hope [elipda].” Jesus’ friends don’t have to do all that we can to avoid suffering. We can, instead, celebrate it – not for the misery it causes others as well as us, but because of what God is creating in us through it. The Message’s paraphrase of this profession is typically lyrical: “We know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.”

Much has been written and might be said about this startling chain-reaction of providence. Preachers might consider pointing out how it could not happen without the gracious work of the Spirit. Suffering doesn’t naturally produce endurance any more than perseverance naturally produces character. This can only be a work of grace wrought by the Holy Spirit.

What’s more, Paul asserts that the outcome of all this work of the Spirit is hope. Love may be, as he insists elsewhere, greater than hope and faith. But the Spirit inspires the apostle to put hope, not love or faith at the end of Romans 5’s chain of grace. That may be because Paul understands that without hope, even the most optimistic of Christians are lost.

What’s more, while Romans 5 affirms the value of perseverance and character, it at least implies that they’re largely steppingstones to the final goal that is Christian hope. So while Jesus’ friends want to cultivate patience and character, we want more anything to cultivate hope.

This might, however, be a place for preachers to consider the importance of putting our hopes in the right people, places and things. It’s tempting to put our hope in politicians and improved policies. But both have an uncanny way of disappointing us. God alone can be counted on to always give us what we need – if not always exactly what we want.

That’s, in fact, one point of Paul’s conclusion of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. In verse 5 he insists, “Hope does not put us to shame [kataischynei], because God’s love has been poured out [ekkechytai] into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given [dothentos] to us.” So much hope lets us down and disappoints us. My hopes the Detroit Lions would win this year’s Super Bowl were dashed again.

But, we join Paul in professing, Christian hope never lets us down. It never disgraces or embarrasses God’s dearly beloved people.  We can wholeheartedly count on everything for which we hope in Christ, including being accompanied by him all the way into the new creation.

Suffering sometimes makes even Jesus’ most loyal followers question whether God will keep all God’s promises to us. Even our patience wears thin. Our character too sometimes wobbles. But hope in Christ never lets us down. Why? Not just because God is utterly faithful. But also because it’s the very Spirit of God who plants hope deep within God’s adopted children.

I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In her brilliant book, When We Fly Away, Alice Hoffman imagines what Anne Frank’s life was like before she began keeping her famous diary. In one scene Anne’s father Pim insists his friend Charlie Straus will arrange for the Franks to flee the Netherlands. ‘We’ll go to New York or Boston,’ her father vowed. ‘It’s only a matter of time.’ ‘And then on to California?’ Anne said in a small voice. It was the way you said things when you didn’t really believe in them anymore. ‘Then wherever we please,’ Pim said.

“Her dear father, who was always so kindhearted and generous, who believed in the best in people, now couldn’t look at his own daughter for fear she’d see the truth in his eyes. She saw it anyway. Nothing was certain. ‘We can hope,’ Pim said.”

Hoffman then closes the scene by poignantly noting, “No one could argue with that. Hope was all they had (italics added) now.”