Peace with God
Peace with God
Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (CSB)
2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (CSB) When we become a new creation, according to 2 Peter 1:4, we get to participate in the divine nature. In addition, verse 17 of this chapter tells us we are also given righteousness. Indeed 2 Corinthians 5:21 goes so far as to say we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
This idea of peace and righteousness are linked together. Isaiah Chapter 32:17-18 says this, Isaiah 32:17–18 “The result of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever. Then my people will dwell in a peaceful place, in safe and secure dwellings.” (CSB) What a great picture of the peace we have with God, of how we enter his rest. It’s almost like we’re reading about Eden.
And that blissful peace is what it's talking about here in the first verse of Romans chapter five. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Colossians 1:19–22 we read, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him” (CSB)
This is us, Saints!
He was reconciling everything to Himself and making peace and by His physical body, through His death presented us, holy and faultless and blameless in His sight.
Do you see it?
This is what peace with God looks like. According to 1 Corinthians 6:17, we’re one spirit with him. We are fused into him in a way we can't explain. He is in us, and we are in Him. As we are told in 2 Corinthians 5:19, in Christ, God reconciled us to Himself.
Through His death and resurrection, we are forgiven and made acceptable and compatible with God. We are given His righteousness as a gift and as we saw in Isaiah, the work of righteousness is peace and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever.
When righteousness is at work in us, there is this quietness, this assurance. We dwell in a peaceable habitation, in a sure dwelling, a quiet resting place. This is the rest we read about in Hebrews 4:9, which tells us that there is a Sabbath rest that remains for God's people.
Hebrews 4:11 goes on to urge us to, “make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience. (CSB) This is such an amazing and powerful thought.
Entering God’s rest, that rest and peace that were given to us through the work Jesus finished on the cross can require effort, but don’t misunderstand. It's not about trying to do more and be more. It isn’t working for acceptance or status or security.
It’s working to remember as we live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death that our life is lived by faith in Him and not by our senses and in our own strength. It's about allowing him to live through us.
The world counsels us to work harder and do more; to get our act together and clean ourselves up. The Kingdom functions differently. In the Kingdom, life is derived from the Source of Life, and we live by faith in Him trusting that He is accomplishing His will in and through us.
Because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are at peace.
We are at peace with God.
Peace dwells within us, given by the Lord Jesus Himself.
We are just branches bearing fruit.
We let him be the one who's doing all the work.
We yield to Him, allowing Him to be the one whose Life is displayed, whose Life is manifested in us.
Through us.
To the world.
With Paul we say, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (CSB)
