Second Monday of Advent - Peace

Peace with God

Read Romans 5:1 – 5
Peace.  It’s a word we hear often.  John Lennon encourages us to “give peace a chance.”  The hippies in the 60s were famous for giving the peace sign.  We see the peace logo on T-shirts and posters.  In the Christmas season we say (and sing), “peace on earth and goodwill towards men.”  

Generally when people talk about peace they are talking about a state of quietness, harmony, or serenity.  It usually refers to a feeling or a state of mind.  It can be thought of as the absence of chaos, fighting and noise.

Paul writes in verse 1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ.”  Did you catch that?  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you have peace with God.  You are declared innocent in His eyes because of your faith in Jesus Christ.  You have been acquitted of your charges of sin.  You are now at peace with God.  It is not the peace from God which results in a quiet and fulfilled heart.  It is a declaration that the war I have been engaged in against God is over, and He and I are at peace with each other.  I am no longer at war with God in my being.  I am no longer fighting and resisting Him.  Douglas Moo writes in his commentary of Romans, “While the word is not used again in this paragraph, the language of ‘reconciliation’ in vv. 10 -11 picks up this concept… we must recognize that Paul conceives this ‘peace with God’ or ‘reconciliation’ as created out of a situation of hostility; while it was while we were ‘enemies’ of God that he reconciled us.  We were weak, ungodly, sinners when God in his love brought us into a new relationship of peace with him.”[i]

[i] Moo, Douglas: The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge UK:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996, p. 297