Romans 5:1-5 We Have Access To The Throne Room Of God
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.
Do you lock your doors at night? I didn’t used to, until one night, probably fifteen years ago, when some guy came walking into my house around two in the morning. I heard him coming up the stairs toward my bedroom. It startled me, but it was just some harmless drunk, who didn’t know where he was, and he walked into the wrong house. When he saw me, he just said, “Okay. Which way to the door?” I pointed, and he turned around and left.
A couple months ago, it happened again, during the day this time. A woman came walking into my living room and said, “Hi, I’m Sarah. What can I do for you?” It turns out, she was sent by a hospice service. Her GPS led her to the wrong house, and she just let herself in without knocking (the back door for some reason, so I didn’t hear her come in) because she expected to find an invalid who’d have trouble getting to the door. Once again, harmless. But strangers aren’t supposed to have access to our homes, our bedrooms, our personal spaces. That’s why we have locks and keys, if we use them. In our homes, we use them to keep people out. In prisons we use locks to keep people in.
Locks and keys are actually an extremely old technology. The Egyptians were using wooden locks on their doors at least a thousand years before Joseph ended up locked up in a prison there for a while for something he didn’t do. Back when the world’s very first crime was committed, when Adam and Eve took the fruit that didn’t belong to them, God didn’t use locks and keys, either to lock them up in prison or to shut them out of the Garden of Eden. He used an angel with a flaming sword. That’ll do the job. And he didn’t have to then build a prison for all of this world’s criminals, because we’re all criminals. The whole world is our prison. Suffering, sorrow, pain, and death came into our world to remind us that we’re living in a prison. No locks were needed in our prison, but he did lock us out of his own personal space. The only place we could ever find true and perfect freedom, heaven and the throne room of God—we’re locked out. We won’t stumble into his house by accident. His doors are locked.
And they would have remained locked, forever. But God sent his Son to open the gates of heaven to sinners and criminals like us, to make us members of his own family, so we’d belong there, with him forever. And he sent his Holy Spirit to grant us the faith that grants us a place in his home and in his love.
Today is Trinity Sunday. We ponder the mystery of the Trinity, that God is three persons and one God. Once again, we’re going to fail miserably in trying to explain how that’s possible. God is so far above us, so transcendent, so beyond our understanding, so inaccessible to human minds, we can only know what little we do know about him because he has revealed himself to us. Well, that’s not quite accurate. We would know a few things even if he had kept himself silently closed off to us and never given us his Holy Word. Just by examining the world around us that God created, we could figure out for ourselves that God must be incredibly powerful, incredibly wise, and incredibly good. But we’d never guess that he was Triune, or figure out his name, or know that he has a home of perfect glory and righteousness that we’ve been locked out of.
Because he’s so far beyond our experience, we’d never have known him personally, who he is and what he’s like. And because he is so holy and righteous, we could never, ever approach him or his heavenly throne. But Paul explains in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans that, although we are all sinners and criminals, who deserve to be locked out of God’s presence forever, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but by grace through his Son. He sent his Son that we might know him and his forgiveness, his justification—declaring us not guilty and released from all punishment, by grace alone through faith alone.
So now, chapter five tells us what that means for us. Therefore, since we’ve been justified and declared not guilty once and for all, we have access to God. The doors are unlocked. Heaven is open. We can wander right into the very throne room of God, and he won’t kick us out. We have peace with God. Two-way peace; he is at peace with us because he harbors no more wrath or anger at our sins. None. And we are at peace with him, because we’re no longer afraid. We’re no longer at war with him. We’re no longer rebels fighting against him or strangers who want nothing to do with him.
We have peace with God the Father. We have the love and indwelling of the Holy Spirit whom God has poured out into our hearts. We have Jesus, our brother, to thank for all of this. We have the Triune God—still a mystery how exactly they are all related and united as one God, but he’s our God.
All this talk about justification, about the unimaginable, ineffable, transcendent nature of the Triune God, might sound like something that’s good to know but not very practical, not very useful in our day-to-day lives. I mean, how do I “use” the doctrine of the Trinity? How do I get any practical use out of justification that’s going to be of real help for me today or tomorrow as I go about my business? What difference does it make?
Paul says it makes all the difference in the world. It gives us confidence as we approach God with our prayers and ask him for help with every problem—and prayer is truly powerful and effective—we need to make more use of it.
And it helps us to understand our daily problems. You can’t solve them if you don’t understand them. You see, at one time we would have been right to think of our whole world and our whole life being a sort of prison. One side of us thinks we’re free; we can do anything we want, go anywhere we want. But the other side of us knows we’re guilty, we’re sinners; it knows that suffering and sorrows are the consequences of our own sin and guilt, and it fears death as the ultimate consequence. The sinful side of us can only view suffering and sorrows, and all the things that go wrong in the world, and either say, “It’s not fair; I don’t deserve this,” and rail against God in anger and frustration, or say in desperation, “It’s useless. What’s the point?”
But now, by the Holy Spirit’s enlightening, we’re not in prison anymore. There is still suffering and sorrow, but it’s not punishment. Paul says there is absolutely no punishment, no condemnation, no wrath of God, and no unfairness in whatever life is going to give us. We’re free. This isn’t prison; it’s a training ground for hope, faith, and righteousness. Paul explains that, now that we are at peace with God, these things serve a good, wise, and gracious purpose.
We can actually “rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.” We are stronger for having suffered. We are better people. We are more patient, both in waiting out our trials without despairing or growing frustrated, and more patient with others, learning how to accept them in their weakness and help them become better people.
Patient endurance produces tested character. That’s when your heart has the strength of character to make the difficult but right choices, and your whole life reflects what’s in your heart, so people can know they can trust you, your honesty and your faithfulness and consistency.
Character produces hope. Your heart grabs hold of God’s promises and won’t let go. Hope. And hope doesn’t disappoint because God himself is faithful to his promises, every single one. He’s poured out his Spirit into our hearts to share his love with us, and to share his love to the world through us.
All of these gifts—faith, forgiveness, patience, character, and hope—they’re all ours because of Christ our Savior’s redemption. Think of how different your life would be if you didn’t have that. Justification? You might think, “How am I going to use that?” But you’re always using it in the very way you view, perceive, and understand everything in your life. It’s as practical as practical can get.
The doors that Christ has unlocked for us, not just to heaven and the throne room of God, but the doors to opportunities and joys and peace and contentment, the doors into Christ’s home, his Church, where we find a whole family where we belong, the doors to prayer, as Jesus urges us, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”—it’s all open to us in Christ our Savior, in God our loving Father, and in the Holy Spirit, our Comforter. This is our Triune God who has unlocked heaven to us and given each of us access into the grace, the wonderful, free, and undeserved love of God in which we now stand. In the name of our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice confidently on the basis of our hope for the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope. And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.
Do you lock your doors at night? I didn’t used to, until one night, probably fifteen years ago, when some guy came walking into my house around two in the morning. I heard him coming up the stairs toward my bedroom. It startled me, but it was just some harmless drunk, who didn’t know where he was, and he walked into the wrong house. When he saw me, he just said, “Okay. Which way to the door?” I pointed, and he turned around and left.
A couple months ago, it happened again, during the day this time. A woman came walking into my living room and said, “Hi, I’m Sarah. What can I do for you?” It turns out, she was sent by a hospice service. Her GPS led her to the wrong house, and she just let herself in without knocking (the back door for some reason, so I didn’t hear her come in) because she expected to find an invalid who’d have trouble getting to the door. Once again, harmless. But strangers aren’t supposed to have access to our homes, our bedrooms, our personal spaces. That’s why we have locks and keys, if we use them. In our homes, we use them to keep people out. In prisons we use locks to keep people in.
Locks and keys are actually an extremely old technology. The Egyptians were using wooden locks on their doors at least a thousand years before Joseph ended up locked up in a prison there for a while for something he didn’t do. Back when the world’s very first crime was committed, when Adam and Eve took the fruit that didn’t belong to them, God didn’t use locks and keys, either to lock them up in prison or to shut them out of the Garden of Eden. He used an angel with a flaming sword. That’ll do the job. And he didn’t have to then build a prison for all of this world’s criminals, because we’re all criminals. The whole world is our prison. Suffering, sorrow, pain, and death came into our world to remind us that we’re living in a prison. No locks were needed in our prison, but he did lock us out of his own personal space. The only place we could ever find true and perfect freedom, heaven and the throne room of God—we’re locked out. We won’t stumble into his house by accident. His doors are locked.
And they would have remained locked, forever. But God sent his Son to open the gates of heaven to sinners and criminals like us, to make us members of his own family, so we’d belong there, with him forever. And he sent his Holy Spirit to grant us the faith that grants us a place in his home and in his love.
Today is Trinity Sunday. We ponder the mystery of the Trinity, that God is three persons and one God. Once again, we’re going to fail miserably in trying to explain how that’s possible. God is so far above us, so transcendent, so beyond our understanding, so inaccessible to human minds, we can only know what little we do know about him because he has revealed himself to us. Well, that’s not quite accurate. We would know a few things even if he had kept himself silently closed off to us and never given us his Holy Word. Just by examining the world around us that God created, we could figure out for ourselves that God must be incredibly powerful, incredibly wise, and incredibly good. But we’d never guess that he was Triune, or figure out his name, or know that he has a home of perfect glory and righteousness that we’ve been locked out of.
Because he’s so far beyond our experience, we’d never have known him personally, who he is and what he’s like. And because he is so holy and righteous, we could never, ever approach him or his heavenly throne. But Paul explains in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans that, although we are all sinners and criminals, who deserve to be locked out of God’s presence forever, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but by grace through his Son. He sent his Son that we might know him and his forgiveness, his justification—declaring us not guilty and released from all punishment, by grace alone through faith alone.
So now, chapter five tells us what that means for us. Therefore, since we’ve been justified and declared not guilty once and for all, we have access to God. The doors are unlocked. Heaven is open. We can wander right into the very throne room of God, and he won’t kick us out. We have peace with God. Two-way peace; he is at peace with us because he harbors no more wrath or anger at our sins. None. And we are at peace with him, because we’re no longer afraid. We’re no longer at war with him. We’re no longer rebels fighting against him or strangers who want nothing to do with him.
We have peace with God the Father. We have the love and indwelling of the Holy Spirit whom God has poured out into our hearts. We have Jesus, our brother, to thank for all of this. We have the Triune God—still a mystery how exactly they are all related and united as one God, but he’s our God.
All this talk about justification, about the unimaginable, ineffable, transcendent nature of the Triune God, might sound like something that’s good to know but not very practical, not very useful in our day-to-day lives. I mean, how do I “use” the doctrine of the Trinity? How do I get any practical use out of justification that’s going to be of real help for me today or tomorrow as I go about my business? What difference does it make?
Paul says it makes all the difference in the world. It gives us confidence as we approach God with our prayers and ask him for help with every problem—and prayer is truly powerful and effective—we need to make more use of it.
And it helps us to understand our daily problems. You can’t solve them if you don’t understand them. You see, at one time we would have been right to think of our whole world and our whole life being a sort of prison. One side of us thinks we’re free; we can do anything we want, go anywhere we want. But the other side of us knows we’re guilty, we’re sinners; it knows that suffering and sorrows are the consequences of our own sin and guilt, and it fears death as the ultimate consequence. The sinful side of us can only view suffering and sorrows, and all the things that go wrong in the world, and either say, “It’s not fair; I don’t deserve this,” and rail against God in anger and frustration, or say in desperation, “It’s useless. What’s the point?”
But now, by the Holy Spirit’s enlightening, we’re not in prison anymore. There is still suffering and sorrow, but it’s not punishment. Paul says there is absolutely no punishment, no condemnation, no wrath of God, and no unfairness in whatever life is going to give us. We’re free. This isn’t prison; it’s a training ground for hope, faith, and righteousness. Paul explains that, now that we are at peace with God, these things serve a good, wise, and gracious purpose.
We can actually “rejoice confidently in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patient endurance, and patient endurance produces tested character, and tested character produces hope.” We are stronger for having suffered. We are better people. We are more patient, both in waiting out our trials without despairing or growing frustrated, and more patient with others, learning how to accept them in their weakness and help them become better people.
Patient endurance produces tested character. That’s when your heart has the strength of character to make the difficult but right choices, and your whole life reflects what’s in your heart, so people can know they can trust you, your honesty and your faithfulness and consistency.
Character produces hope. Your heart grabs hold of God’s promises and won’t let go. Hope. And hope doesn’t disappoint because God himself is faithful to his promises, every single one. He’s poured out his Spirit into our hearts to share his love with us, and to share his love to the world through us.
All of these gifts—faith, forgiveness, patience, character, and hope—they’re all ours because of Christ our Savior’s redemption. Think of how different your life would be if you didn’t have that. Justification? You might think, “How am I going to use that?” But you’re always using it in the very way you view, perceive, and understand everything in your life. It’s as practical as practical can get.
The doors that Christ has unlocked for us, not just to heaven and the throne room of God, but the doors to opportunities and joys and peace and contentment, the doors into Christ’s home, his Church, where we find a whole family where we belong, the doors to prayer, as Jesus urges us, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”—it’s all open to us in Christ our Savior, in God our loving Father, and in the Holy Spirit, our Comforter. This is our Triune God who has unlocked heaven to us and given each of us access into the grace, the wonderful, free, and undeserved love of God in which we now stand. In the name of our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
