Security of the Believer #1 – Anchored in the past –Peace with God
Romans 5:1
Character of Peace with God
peace . . . Rom 3:17, Luke 1:79
Not the peace of God, but peace with God. The peace he is talking about is not psychological tranquility. It is not emotional security. It is not feelings of confidence or well-being. It is not subjective at all. It is not even talking about the kind of peace you feel or the kind of peace you sense or the kind of peace you experience. It is talking about an actual relationship that can be defined as a relationship of peace. You see justification by faith, that is God declaring you righteous, God declaring you just, that very act of God establishes a new relationship between you and God. Whereas before you had been at war, you had been the enemy of God, you are now at peace. That's the issue here. It's talking about an objective peace. The issue is not your attitude of confidence. It is not your emotional sense of well-being. It is not the absence of fear and doubt. It is not the presence of tranquility. That's not what he's talking about. What he's talking about here is a relationship of peace rather than animosity. You have ceased to be an enemy of God and you have become a child of God. You have ceased to be a hater of God, and you have become a lover of God. You have ceased to be a child of Satan and become a child of God. You have been passed out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear son and the relationship of animosity has been dramatically altered and become a relationship of intimacy and loving fellowship. (Mac Arthur)
Condition prior to Peace with God with God
Prior to our conversion, we are under the Wrath of God Romans 1:18 the wrath of God Rom 5:9, we are enemies to God Rom 5:10, we are at enmity with God Rom 8:7, we are children of Wrath Eph 2:3 and we are alienated from God Eph 4:18.
The unregenerate man is the enemy of God. He hates God and God is angry with him. He is at war with God and God is at war with him (Ephesians 2). He is the target for the eternal wrath of God. God is the enemy of Satan and God is the enemy of sin and since every unsaved soul is in sin and under Satan, God is at war with that soul. We are under condemnation. We are the enemies of God and the enemies of righteousness. And God is angry with the wicked. He is troubled and afraid, disturbed and unhappy. d and the Scripture indicates that God will act destructively against them. Ps 7:11 The unjustified man is afraid of God, he has a craven fear of God. He is afraid of the very idea of God. He feels that God is some tyrant waiting to crush him. He dares not think of death or the grave to follow. There is no peace between such a man and God; rather is he troubled and afraid, disturbed and unhappy. He tries to find peace but cannot. He is afraid of God, afraid of death, and afraid of judgment.
. . . before there can be peace between such a man and Go, man has to deal with this. Job 4:17 (Jones)
Comfort present because of Peace with God We have
Past Realization the knowledge of not having peace
When awakened to the truth about God and himself his thoughts would be something like this: Ah, there is a God in His absolute holiness and here am I, a sinner and ‘in sin”. There is God’s holy Law and its pronouncements. I have sinned against it and cannot erase my past. How can I possibly stand in the presence of God? He realizes that he cannot and is troubled, disturbed and unhappy. Romans 7:24, Eph 2:1-3
Present Reality Eph 2:11-21
This peace is something that has already been accomplished by Christ on our behalf. We now take possession of this peace. It is present reality, not a future hope. It is a certainty that we can hold on to. The wrath and enmity that we once had with God is forever removed we have a permanent peaceful relationship with God. There is nothing that we can do to destroy this peace, because there was nothing that we did to secure it. Notice the text doesn’t say that the Christian is hoping that he has peace It says we have been justified by faith, we have peace. We are not looking for it, we are not hoping to get it, we have it, we have got it, we are rejoicing in it. (Jones)
Peace with God means the war is over. Peace God with means God is no longer fighting us nor we him. He is not our enemy any longer. Peace with God is the new status. It's the new estate. It's the new definition of our relationship that flows out of reconciliation. It is the peace of reconciliation that we're talking about. Our sin paid for in full on the cross by Jesus Christ propitiates or satisfies the justice of God on our behalf and God in his great mercy accepts Christ as our substitute, treating him as if he lived our lives and treating us as if we lived his by imputing his perfect righteousness to us. (MacArthur)
Lloyd Jones suggests that six test to affirm we are justified and have this peace:
1) Our Mind has to see grasp and take hold of the truth of Justification
2) We must know that God loves us in spite of the fact that we are a sinner and sin.
3) We have to be able to answer the accusations of our conscience.
4) We have to be able to stand against the accusations of the devil. Rev 12:11 They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony- Their testimony was a testimony concerning the blood of the Lamb.
5) We no longer have a fear of death or a fear of judgment.
6) We are able to live out this truth even when we fall into sin.
Jones list Fiver Characteristics of false peace:
1) When one gives Intellectual assent to certain truths or propositions James 2:19
2) When one rests on his “work” rather than on Christ and His work Rom 3:19-20
3) When someone is never troubled by doubt. Mk 9:14-29, Jn 20:24ff , Lu 7:18ff
4) When someone is only interested in forgiveness and not holiness Acts 8:18ff
5) When someone falls into sin and takes it much to lightly 1 John 2:19
Jones list Four Characteristics of true peace:
1) He is never glib or light-hearted – a true sense of his redemption 1 Pet 1:18-19
2) He has a sense of wonder and amazement in God Ps 145:1-2
3) He is humble James 4:6-10
4) He is always careful about his life. 2 Cor 13:5, Ps 139:23-24
Procurer of Peace with God Through our Lord Jesus Christ
God's justice being satisfied, Christ's righteousness being granted to us, we entered into peace with God. It isn't through anything we did or can do. All spiritual blessings are in Christ including peace with God. That is a spiritual blessing of monumental significance that like all other spiritual blessings in the heavenlies are in Christ. We have entered into a relationship of permanent eternal peace with God because our sins have been paid for and the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. That is the peace with God. God was fully satisfied with the penalty being paid by Christ. And if God was not fully satisfied, Christ would need to die again and again and again or they would no peace exist. But at the time of salvation, you entered into a permanent relationship of peace with God not based on your merit but Christ's; not because of what you did but because of what he did not because you've maintained a perfect life but because God has imputed the perfect life of Christ to you. You have entered into peace with God not because of what you've done but because of what God has done in Christ in granting you his righteousness. That peace is an unbreakable peace because the justice and wrath of God has been fully satisfied at the cross. . . . we know that, being justified, we are now at peace with God because there cannot be any more demands made against us. All that was against us, Christ took away (Spurgeon)
Faith is like a needle on the compass. It will always point to magnetic north. But if you introduce a very powerful magnet at some other point of the compass it will the draw the needle over to it and cause it to swing backwards and forwards and be most unstable. But it is certain that the true compass needle will get back to its true center . . . the same is true of faith. The mere fact that we may be tempeted to doubt, , , , and go over the whole question again, does not mean that we have not got faith, In a sense it is a proof of faith. (Jones)
The penalty cannot be exacted twice. It were neither in accord with human or Divine righteousness that two individuals should be punished for the same offense unless both were guilty. When God devised the plan of Substitution, the full penalty demanded of the guiltless Surety was clearly intended to bring exemption to the guilty sinners. That Jesus should suffer vicariously and yet those for whom He paid the penalty in drops of blood should obtain no acquittal could not be! When God laid sin upon Christ, it must have been in the intent of His heart that He would never lay it on those for whom Christ died. So then, there stands the man who was once guilty, but he is no more condemned because Another has taken upon Him the condemnation to which he was exposed. Still more, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ came voluntarily under the Law, obeyed the Law, fulfilled the Law and made it honorable according to the Infinite purpose and will of God, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer. While Christ stands in the sinner’s place, the believing sinner stands in Christ’s place! As the Lord looked upon Christ as though He had been a sinner, though He was not a sinner, and dealt with Him as such, so now the Lord looks upon the believing sinner as though he were righteous, though, indeed, he has no righteousness of his own! And He loves him and delights in his perfect comeliness, regarding him as covered with the mantle of his Redeemer’s righteousness and as having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing! “I find that I sin every day and I hate myself for sinning. I cannot get to my bed at night but I feel grieved in my soul that I am not more like Christ and that I cannot grow in Grace as I desire. I do not seem to make the advance in the Divine Life that I hoped I would and I am full of sin. Whatever I do is stained with defilement. Wherever I go, I seem to fall one way or another into something that wounds my conscience and hurts me.” Yes and the Lord never said that you should have peace with sin. I am delighted to find that sin stings you and that you hate it. The more hatred of sin the better! A sin-hating soul is a God-loving soul. If sin never distresses you, then God has never favored you. Unless you hate sin, you do not love holiness, and if you hate sin, you cannot have any peace with it. You will never be satisfied till you are perfect—and when will you be perfect? Why, when you wake up in your Lord’s likeness! That will be the hour of your perfection, but till then sin will vex you. . . . , when the last enemy is slain, when sin is extirpated and you shall be near and like your God! You have no promise of peace with sin, nor need you wish for one, for you have peace with God!
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