What does it mean that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2)?

But in verse 2 we have something more; not only have we peace with God as regards our sins, but "we have access by faith into this grace (favour) wherein we stand." As there were two parts in verse 1, so are there. in this clause. First, we stand in favour; second, we have access by faith into it. We ever stand, as Christians, in the unclouded favour of God: this is our portion. It does not enter here into what this place is, or how we are there; it simply states the fact. If it were asked, "What is this favour in which we stand?" the answer would be, in one word — Christ; for Christ is gone back to God as the risen Man, having glorified Him on the earth, and finished the work that was given Him to do; and now He is before God, in the most perfect acceptance and favour, and we, as believers, are brought into the same place — "My Father, your Father; my God, your God." (John 20:17.) His place is ours. But all this is only implied in verse 2: "This favour in which we stand." It is well for us to remember this: that if we are Christians at all, we always stand in the perfect favour of God; and God never hides His face from a true believer, because He never hides His face from Christ; and we are accepted in Him.

But there is more. Not only do we stand in favour, but we have access by faith into it; that is, by faith we enter now into what is our unchanging standing before God in Christ. We have not to wait to get to glory to enjoy it, but we enter into it now by faith. We are justified, and we have peace with God; we stand in favour, and have access into it. This is what we possess now. But although we have all these blessings, we have still these bodies of humiliation, we still bear the "image of the earthy," and are in the wilderness, encompassed with infirmity and failure on every hand; still there is something bright before — the glory of God, and we rejoice in hope of that; we possess all the rest that we have been speaking of now, but the glory is a hope, because we have not got it yet — "For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?" (Rom. 8:24.) It is not a hope in the sense of there being any uncertainty about it; but when Scripture speaks of anything in the future that we do not yet possess, it is called a hope. We do not hope to be justified, for we are justified; but we hope for the glory, because we have not got it yet. And not only are we going to be in glory, but the thought of that bright glory of God, which is to be our eternal home, where we shall be like Christ, makes us rejoice in the midst of suffering and infirmity here. Do you, dear reader, rejoice in hope of the glory of God? Is the glory such a bright reality to your soul, that it makes you rejoice even now? Once we had come short of the glory of God (chap. 3:23); but now we can rejoice in hope of that same glory; we have been made fit to be there, through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Connecting, then, this verse — indeed the first eleven verses — with the last verse in chapter 4, we have three things made sure to us. Being justified, accounted righteous, before God, we have, as to all our sins, peace with God, yet fully recognising His holiness and righteousness; and this, not through anything we have done, but through our Lord Jesus Christ; peace resulting from the blessed knowledge by faith that all our sins have been put away by the blood of Jesus, so that God can have no charge of guilt against us. We have peace, with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. As to the past, all is cleared away.

Then, in the second place: “By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand.” We enter by faith into the full, unclouded favour of God. This grace implies the free favour revealed in the redemption we have, being justified freely. This is our happy, abiding place. There we stand. What a wondrous, present peace! We need not say this cannot be enjoyed if we are walking carelessly, or allowing sin in any way.

And in the third place, as to the future, we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” We do not hope to be justified, or to have peace — these we have — but we hope, with rejoicing, for the glory of God. Is it not joy to our hearts to know that we shall soon be in the scene where all is to the glory of God, all suited to Him; all pure within and without? Yes, sinless purity suited to Him, when He who has redeemed us has come, and taken us to Himself. Can anything give our hearts such joy as this, to be with Him, and like Him?

In verse 1, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is well to see that peace is not a primary thing, but the consequence of justification. Peace flows from “being justified by faith.” This word, “being” is afterward repeated twice in this section — interestingly and instructively (vv. 9,10). Yet let us never fail to remember that this “peace with God” is only “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Access” also “into this grace wherein we stand” (a place of liberty and confidence in the presence of God) is by Him alone, through the simple exercise of faith. Do we carefully consider this? — that communion with the God who has dealt with us (and does deal with us) in grace, having freed us from all guilt, is given and maintained only through the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, as well as salvation, all enjoyment depends upon our attitude toward Him. Then we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” The glory that begets only dread in the heart of the natural man, has become to us a prospect of joyous anticipation. Blessed miracle of grace! Naturally, we “come short of the glory of God,” but the grace of God has made sure our full and unhindered participation in it.

Then it proceeds, moreover, to say, "We … rejoice in hope of the glory of God" — that is our destiny, that is our future. What an asset it is to have a prospect. I wouldn't give much for the prospect of this world. I was recently telling some Christian young fellows in Scandinavia that they need not fret themselves because they belonged to the minor nations in Europe; the prospects as to future conflicts amongst the nations are far too dark, and the minor nations are less likely to be involved. Men are concerned about the development of chemical science. Alas! for human skill, human knowledge! They are digging the grave of this world by scientific inquiry. What are its prospects? Go and ask the politicians, and you will get some very grave looks. Ah, the Christian has prospects; glory is the prospect of the Christian: we are rejoicing "in hope of the glory of God."

This favour is a present reality. We shall never be more in favour than we are now, though our enjoyment of it will be greatly increased in the day when our hope materializes. Our hope is not merely glory but the glory of God. Who would not rejoice with such a hope as that!

The glory of God. — Further, as we think of Him who "was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification," the heart within us leaps with desire, and our new-born affections crave that we may behold Him who loved us and died for us. Like the cleansed Samaritan leper, like the renewed Gadarene, we would be with Him, at His feet, and behold some gleams of that glory of God which shines in the face of Jesus Christ. But why think such vain thoughts? Who are we to indulge such bold aspiration? How dare mortal man think to approach Him who sits on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens? Ah, it would indeed be becoming on our part to chide ourselves unsparingly for such presumption, had we not God's own sanction in His word for the longings of the new nature within us. We are permitted to expect "a bright tomorrow." Every justified one is authorised, because he is justified, to hope for the glory of God, not with the feeble vagueness which necessarily accompanies every human effort to peer beyond the present instant, but with the serene confidence that springs alone from the knowledge that the eternal God has spoken as to our future, and has irradiated the dark beyond with His coming glory. No wonder that in consequence we are filled with holy exuberance we "rejoice in hope of the glory of God." We are transported with the prospect of it, and we love to let our very souls be flooded in anticipation with the life-giving beams of Christ in His coming glory.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Our sins dealt with "through faith in His blood;" justified and having peace with God — we now stand in the limitless ocean of God's grace, His boundless favour resting upon us. This is our present portion, the abiding unchanging favour of God is that to which we have access now. We rejoice in hope of coming glory — a certain hope with no consciousness of "coming short" of it, and as awaiting that wonderful day we stand on ground brought into evidence as a consequence of the death and resurrection of Christ, where the power and sweetness of an everlasting love, based on righteousness, is our present and abiding possession.

The blessed results of justification are next revealed. What justified believers possess and what they may enjoy is the theme of the opening verses of this chapter. The first thing mentioned is that all who are justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace was made in the blood of the Cross, He who died for our sins is our peace. His greeting to the assembled disciples on the resurrection day was "Peace be unto you," and then He showed unto them His hands and His side, and again He said, "Peace be unto you." This peace with God we have as believers in Christ. It is settled forever and can never be disturbed. Some times Christians ask others if they made their peace with God. They mean by it, turning away from sin, repentance, conversion, surrender, etc., as if those actions from our side could make peace with God. This is incorrect and the reason why so many professing Christians lack the assurance that they have peace with God is in this very fact, that they are constantly trying what they term "to be right with God." Peace does not need to be made, it was made when Christ died for our sins. And into this peace we enter when we believe on the Lord Jesus and are justified freely of all things. We may live sober, earnest and useful Christian lives for fifty years or longer and at the end of such a devoted life we have not more of the peace with God than we had the moment we trusted in Christ. And our failures and stumbling walk as the "beloved of God, called Saints" our sinning, can never disturb and undo that peace.

The second result is that we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We have a perfect standing before God in Christ, and perfect access. We stand in grace, accepted in the beloved One and this grace keeps and sustains. We are the children of God made nigh by blood. Grace makes us nigh. We can draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Our faithfulness cannot increase this standing in Grace, nor can our unfaithfulness decrease it, for the simple reason that it is Grace. The third result of justification is "the hope of the glory of God" in which we can now boast. The only title to glory is the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has secured the glory for us and has made us sharers of His own glory He received from God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. People speak of fitting themselves for heaven by living good lives. No one can be fitted for heaven. The only fitness is the new nature, received in the new birth. And that nature is given to the justified believer when he is justified by faith. That there are, special rewards for sacrificing service is very true, but to be in glory is a matter of grace and is given along with justification. The glory of God is the Hope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5). These three things cover the past, the present and the future. Past; Peace was made. Present; Standing in this Grace. Future; The Hope of the Glory of God. The approach to God in the tabernacle illustrates this beautifully. First the brazen altar, the type of the sacrifice of Christ; then the laver for washing, the candlestick, the table--typifying the cleansing, light, food and fellowship, the grace wherein we stand. Then behind the veil the glory of Jehovah, which ere long God's people shall reach when He calls them home. How happy God's people should be in possession of such precious things with the knowledge of sins forever put away!

Peace with God has been secured to us then in a way which never can be disturbed: faith has given us access into a place in which we stand in grace — the free favor of God, which as such cannot be forfeited. As a consequence, the future also is absolutely clear: "we boast in hope of the glory of God." It is not a doubtful hope that one can boast in. That out of which, even in its representative on earth, man under law had rigidly to be kept, is now wide open in its own heavenly dwelling-place. Saul of Tarsus saw it, as Stephen had seen it, with the Son of man standing in it; and that which goes out now, as we have seen, is "the gospel of the glory." We have not indeed, as far as we have yet reached in Romans, what is ours in its fulness in that central Figure standing there; yet we know that He is gone in, and the way thither is henceforth open.

This hope beyond all doubt is an immense thing to boast. But is it not a well-founded boast, if it rest upon Christ and Christ's work by faith? Nevertheless it is as simple as it is sure. It is no question of man's desert, but of Christ's; and Christ will not leave His own separate from Himself in heaven. He has already entered glory, and He will have those that are His own in the same glory as Himself. "The glory which Thou hast given me, I have given them" (John 17:22). Therefore it is that in Revelation 21:10-11, the holy Jerusalem, the symbol of the glorified church, is seen "having the glory of God" in the day that is coming.