Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." (Rom. 5:1-2)
After Paul has presented his most detailed discussion of justification in Romans 3 and 4, he concludes that we therefore have peace with God. What is that peace? In some parts of the world, peace may mean the end of armed conflict even though the old hatreds and armaments remain. This situation is not so much peace as a cease-fire. Or peace may be referred to a situation like the American sector in Berlin after World War II. Fighting had stopped, arms laid down, and hatreds abandoned (by Germans thankful that they were not in the Russian sector), but only devastation and rubble marked the reality of life after the peace. Paul has something much more positive in mind when he thinks of peace in Romans 5:1. He thinks of the "way of peace," a phrase from Isaiah 59:8, which he quoted in Romans 3:17. For Isaiah the way of peace stands for holiness, love, justice, integrity, truth, contentment, and righteousness. It is the straight path of life with a loving and redeeming God in contrast to the crooked path of the wicked.
In the immediate context of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul juxtaposed peace with the just punishment for sin (Rom. 3:25) that God in his wrath (Rom. 4:15) would visit upon the wicked (Rom. 4:5). The reality of sin and the reality of God's justice and holiness are essential elements of a Christian outlook on the world. One of the tragedies of so much contemporary Church life is that the truth about the holiness of God and his wrath against sin has all but disappeared from view. In an effort to "connect" with contemporary non-Christians, the Church has given much of its energy to teaching self-acceptance. The implication is that the great human need is to have peace with yourself. But such a view is far from both the biblical revelation and from true Christianity.
In a Christian view of reality, the first function of the law in a fallen world is to teach the sinfulness of sin (Rom. 3:20) and that those lost in sin do not know the way of peace (Rom. 3:17). The peace in which Paul rejoiced is the peace of sin covered, wrath averted, and justice satisfied so that believing sinners are fully reconciled to God as their loving, heavenly Father in Jesus Christ.
Paul's reflections on peace as the fruit of justification may well depend in part on Isaiah 57. Of the contrite, God says, "I have seen his [sinful] ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, creating praise on the lips of the mourners of Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near" (Isa. 57:18-19). But of the wicked, "'There is no peace,' says my God, 'for the wicked.'" (Isa. 57:21). The wicked are those who are indifferent to the covenant of the true God and have formed a false righteousness for themselves. God says of them, "Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me, and have neither remembered me nor pondered this in your hearts? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me? I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you" (Isa. 57:11-12).
Objective and Subjective Peace with God
John Calvin, in commenting on Romans 5, explained this peace as the believer's "serenity of conscience, which originates from the awareness of having God reconciled to himself." Notice how Calvin has highlighted the objective and subjective dimensions of the peace. Objectively, peace with God means that God is in fact reconciled to us because of the saving work of Christ. Subjectively, peace with God means that we come to know that God is reconciled to us and that knowledge brings us serenity in our consciences that would otherwise accuse and condemn us. The union of these objective and subjective elements is the glorious peace enjoyed by the children of God.
On the objective side, Jesus has done everything for us to win us that reconciliation with God. Jesus fulfilled the law, not just for himself, but also for us so that our reconciliation means that we stand before God with all of Christ's law-keeping reckoned to our account. Jesus bore the penalty for our sins on the cross so that he has propitiated the wrath of God and expiated our sins. Jesus imputes both his active and passive obedience to his own. As Calvin put it, "When, however, we come to Christ, we first find in him the exact righteousness of the Law, and this also becomes ours by imputation."
On the subjective side, such serenity or peace is missed, Calvin argues, by two sorts of persons. The first are those whose consciences are still filled with fear and a sense of God's anger with them as sinners. "No one will stand without fear before God, unless he relies on free reconciliation, for as long as God is judge, all men must be filled with fear and confusion . . . wretched souls are always uneasy, unless they rest in the grace of Christ." Such people either do not understand the work of Christ in its fullness and completeness or they have not rightly understood the implications of the gospel for themselves. The former are filled with fear because they think they have failed to augment what is lacking in the work of Christ. These people demean Christ, thinking to add their works to his without realizing that such an addition is always a subtraction (like adding a mustache to the Mona Lisa). The latter do not grasp that the full benefit of Christ's work is theirs by faith alone. They are like hypochondriacs who, although healthy, do not enjoy their healthy state.
The second sort, according to Calvin, are those who see no danger for themselves. "This serenity is possessed neither by the Pharisee, who is inflated by a false confidence in his works, nor by a senseless sinner, who, since he is intoxicated with the pleasure of his vices, feels no lack of peace…. Peace with God is opposed to the drunken security of the flesh." Here again are two kinds of people. The former actually are secure in believing that their works are good enough to gain them some claim on the divine goodness. They utterly fail to know that even our best works are flawed in the sight of God. The latter-perhaps the majority in our world-have no sense at all of any danger from the wrath of God. They are like the dying man who when asked if he had made his peace with God, responded that he did not know they had quarreled.
Faith Rightly Understood
The only true antidote to either fear or self-satisfaction is faith. Faith is that trust in Christ and his work, which looks away from all the valid grounds in ourselves for fear and from all the vain flattery of self-satisfaction. Faith alone looks to Christ alone, and Christ alone justifies those who have faith alone.
The tragedy of contemporary evangelical fuzziness on-or betrayal of-the Protestant doctrine of justification should now be clear. Justification is not some irrelevant squabble over technical bits of theology, nor is it a doctrine subordinate to Christian cooperation and activity. The doctrine of justification determines the way in which we understand the gospel we have to preach, the legitimate bounds of cooperation, and the motivation for good works. Where the biblical doctrine of justification is not kept pristine, true peace with God is forfeited.
Again we can listen to Calvin as he puts the objective and subjective dimensions of our peace with God together: "We see now how the righteousness of faith is the righteousness of Christ. When, therefore, we are justified, the efficient cause is the mercy of God, Christ is the substance (materia) of our justification, and the Word, with faith, the instrument. Faith is therefore said to justify, because it is the instrument by which we receive Christ, in whom righteousness is communicated to us." Here is the true peace that the world needs and that Christ gives.
