Romans 5:1-8 Commentary

At the beginning of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson Paul carries forward the theme with which he ended last Sunday’s Lesson: Jesus’ followers’ “justification” (4:23). In verses 1-2a the apostle writes, “Since we have been justified [dikaiothentes*] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [prosagogen] by faith into this grace [charin tauten] in which we now stand [hestekamen].”

This verse, to say nothing of the rest of this Lesson, oozes rich theology. Preachers who wish to review commentaries that address some of its themes might turn here (mine from 2023),  here (mine from 2020),  or here (S. Hoezee in 2017).

However, preachers who seek a slightly different “onramp” to this text might consider verse 2b’s “we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand [italics mine].” The Message lyrically paraphrases this as “We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand – out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace.”

This profession may offer preachers an opportunity to let the Spirit help us contemplate just what it means to “stand in” God’s grace. In fact, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers some clues about what that means. Under the Spirit’s guidance, we might even choose to organize this Sunday’s message around that vivid if somewhat mysterious profession.

This marvelous place that is God’s amazing grace is not something we can enter on our own. Jesus’ friends don’t “stand in” God’s grace because we’ve somehow earned the right to be or even moved there. No, Paul insists God has graciously granted us prosagogen (“access”) to this wondrous “place” of God’s grace. To use an imperfect modern analogy, we don’t have a “card” that we’ve “swiped” in order to enter God’s grace. The card God has swiped for us is the rescuing life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

As a result of Christ’s saving work, God’s dearly beloved people hestekamen (“stand”) in the utterly glorious space that is God’s grace. Since the Greek verb is in the perfect tense, it suggests a permanent stance. Paul implies we don’t just stand in God’s grace now, but that we’ll also stand there forever. One can hardly read this profession without hearing its echo in Martin’s Luther’s reported testimony before the Diet of Worms: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.”

But to what does Paul refer when he speaks of standing in God’s grace? Preachers might follow the Spirit’s promptings to find some commonalities about what Romans 5 says about that space. Among other things this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson rejects much of our culture’s conventional wisdom.

The apostle suggests standing in God’s grace sees glory in both expected and unexpected places (2b-3a). Those who stand in God’s grace, what’s more, view Christian suffering in counter-cultural ways (3a). Those who stand in God’s amazing grace also admit we are naturally powerless (6a), ungodly (6), and unrighteous (7).

Romans 5, what’s more, at least suggests that to stand in God’s grace means, what’s more, to be hopeful. We don’t join our world and culture in caving in to despair. Jesus’ friends who stand in God’s grace are, for Jesus’ sake, completely confident that in the end, God and God’s purposes will graciously have the last say.

Standing in God’s grace means, among other things, fully trusting that God has made peace [eirenen] (1a) with us through the saving work of Jesus. Because of what Christ did, his followers are no longer the enemies of God we naturally make ourselves. To stand in God’s grace is to know we are instead, by God’s amazing grace, God’s adopted children. We no longer have to do anything to make peace with God. God has made peace with us. Christians can use the energy we might have expended in pursuit of that peace to both celebrate our peace with God and make peace with our neighbors.

Those who stand in God’s grace also “boast [kauchometha] in the hope [elpidi] of the glory [doxes] of God” (2b) as well as “glory [kauchometha] in our sufferings [thlipsesin]” (3a). Paul admittedly makes a rather unlikely pairing here. Those in whom the Spirit lives aren’t surprised by the apostle’s summons to rejoice in the prospect of the revelation to us of God’s full doxes (“glory”) at Christ’s return. Paul may surprise us, however, by inviting us to praise God in the midst of our thlipsesin (“sufferings”).

To stand in God’s grace means, what’s more, that we anticipate a grace-filled chain reaction of suffering for Jesus’ sake. Suffering naturally leads to fear, despair and sometimes even anger. In verses 3-4 Paul suggests God’s adopted children, instead, “glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance [hypomonen]; perseverance, character [dokimen]; and character, hope [elpida].”

God’s dearly beloved people “rejoice,” according to the paraphrase of The Message, even “when we’re hemmed in with troubles.” Not because of the misery they sometimes cause. But, instead, because of how the Spirit uses them to bolster our confidence in God’s loving care. Standing in God’s grace includes trusting the Spirit who lives in us will graciously work in the midst of our problems in order to deepen our elpida (“hope”).

Those who stand in God’s grace, on top of all that, believe Christ died for us when and even though we didn’t deserve it. “At just the right time [eti kata kairon],” Paul marvels in verses 6-8, “when we were still powerless [asthenon], Christ died for the ungodly [asebon]. Very rarely [molis] will anyone die for a righteous person [dikaiou], though for a good person [agathou] someone might possibly dare [tacha tolma] to die. But God demonstrates [synistesin] his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners [hamartolon], Christ died for us.”

We’re not exactly sure just what makes Christ’s coming at “just the right time.” The phrase certainly suggests a timeliness to Christ’s incarnation. He arrived neither too early nor too late. Christ came, in fact, when we were still asthenon (“powerless” or “weak”). He didn’t wait for his adopted siblings to first make ourselves right with God. No, Christ graciously came when we were still too weak to rescue our world and us from the colossal messes we’ve made for ourselves.

Verses 6-8, what’s more, remind Jesus’ friends of the desperate circumstances we found ourselves in when Christ came. We  desperately needed the grace he brought with him when he came to us and in which we now stand. We were, writes Paul in verse 6, asebon (“ungodly”). While God had deeply loved God’s people from all eternity, by the time Christ came we’d done all we could to make ourselves utterly unlovable. While God creates us in God’s own image, we’d badly blurred that image.

We were, quite simply, hamartolon (“sinners”). We didn’t just miss the mark that was joyful obedience to God. Jesus’ friends didn’t even naturally, in fact, aim poorly for that mark. We didn’t even try to respond to God’s love by loving God above all and our neighbor and ourselves. In fact, the apostle uses the same adjective that we translate as “sinners” to describe us that he used to describe the self-righteous religious leaders of Jesus’ day and those who crucified Jesus.

Christ was, completely human (and divine). He was like us in every way, except that he was perfect. Yet Paul reminds us how fundamentally different he was from us. Christ’s followers might choose to sacrifice our lives for people who are righteous and good. But we’re generally very reluctant to give our lives for other people. While we were still sinners, however, while we were still unrighteous people, Christ died for us. While we were still horrible candidates for anyone to rescue us by dying for us, Christ died for us.

To stand in God’s grace is to know with our whole selves that we did absolutely nothing to deserve that grace. Yet to stand in it is also to believe with our whole selves that God in Christ came to us to give us that grace anyway.

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

Illustration

Few people talked or wrote about grace more eloquently, lyrically and sometimes provocatively than Robert Farrar Capon. In his book, Between Noon and Three: A Parable of Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace, he explores the ramifications of grace as suggested by Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.

He writes about how in that parable “the fatted calf is the supreme sacrament. Grace is in order for the celebration of life: ‘Let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead, and is alive again, he was lost and is found.’

“Indeed, grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance and the elder brothers finally take the fingers out of their ears.”

It is in that wildly celebratory grace that God’s dearly beloved people now stand, by God’s grace that we can only receive with our faith.