Peace with God

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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."

Yesterday we talked about the Peace of God and how everybody wants to have that, but today we focus on the companion Peace with God.  The truth is, you cannot have the Peace of God unless you have the Peace with God.

Consider the fact that none of us come into this world having Peace with God.  Rather God has declared himself to be at war with every human being because of man’s sinful rebellion against Him and His laws.  Paul says in Romans 8-7, the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not only not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  We all start out being an enemy of God, but fortunately for us, Jesus is a gracious adversary, and He pursues us even when we were trying to kill Him.  He even pursued us so intensely that He went to the cross to die for our sins, even though we weren’t even sorry for them.

Fortunately, the resurrection of Jesus provided proof that God had accepted the sacrifice of His son, and would be able to be just and yet justify the ungodly.  God then justifies sinners on the basis of faith alone.  God overcomes our own weakness by giving us his own grace to be saved.  As Ephesians 2:8 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the free gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. He even gives us the gift of repentance to go along with faith to make us at Peace with God - an external objective reality.

This justification is a one time legal declaration with continuing results, and one of the first results of justification is that the sinner’s  war with God is ended forever, and he has been reconciled to God. So, the mechanism for how Justification works is that God pardons our guilt and the penalty of sin, and imputes Christ’s righteousness to the believer’s account - which provides the righteousness to be accepted by God.  In other words, my checking account was overdrawn and God not only paid my overdraft amount, he also put another $10,000 in my account.  The good news is that God is no longer our enemy, but our friend.