What does it mean to have peace with God?

By our Lord Jesus Christ the believer is led into all the blessed results that flow from the accomplishment of righteousness, and the putting forth of the power of God to deliver us from the consequences of our sins, and give us righteousness in His presence in Christ. Peace with God results from being justified by faith. We no longer dread the judgment to which we were righteously exposed on account of our offences; that judgment having been meted out to our blessed Substitute on the cross, who was delivered to bear it. We not only know that we have been forgiven, but we know that we have got a righteous standing in the presence of God, and that He has acted consistently with His nature and character in giving us this standing. We were sinners surely, and our sins have been forgiven us, every one of them according to the omniscience of God; but not only is this true, but He has dealt with them in unsparing judgment, and we know it so that our consciences are set at rest in His presence, we are perfectly assured that they can never come up against us again. They are all gone in the death of Christ, and though He has been raised again, it has been for our justification, there has been no resurrection of our sins. Therefore it is all peace between us and God, and our Lord Jesus Christ delights to lead us into the calm that has resulted from the fact that the storm of divine wrath against sin has spent itself upon His devoted head, and the place which He now occupies can never be visited by a single disturbing element.

There are two things in this verse; first, we are justified by faith; and secondly, we have peace with God, the latter the result of the former. It is God Himself, as we have seen, who has come in, and in love given His Son for our sins, and has now raised Him from the dead, and has perfectly justified us who believe; and what is the blessed result? "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." How blessed! And this peace with God belongs to every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ; it is not confined to those only who are fathers in Christ, or to advanced Christians, but it is the common portion of all who are justified. It is so beautifully simple when we take Scripture as it stands. In Acts 13:39 we read, "All that believe are justified;" and in Rom. 5, "Being justified, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, blessed be His name, it is all through Him that we have this peace with God. Many are trying to find peace by looking in at themselves, or by waiting, for some inward change or feeling. But, dear reader, you will never find peace that way; it is not God's way; the ground of peace, and God's way of getting peace, is found in these verses we have been considering. (Rom. 4:23 — 5:1.) And what does the Holy Ghost occupy us with in this passage — our experiences or feelings? No; but with Christ, and God's raising Him from the dead. He occupies us with an object outside of us altogether. We are justified who believe; and "being justified, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." We possess peace; for the expression," peace with God," does not simply mean that we are saved, but that we know that God has nothing to lay to our charge, and that we can be in His presence without fear. That is the first step, and till we know this peace with God there can be no growth in spiritual things or advance in truth.

Firstly: Our peace with God depends upon our being justified by faith; and hence, since to be "justified" is to be "righted," and thus to be right with God, we may say that to be right with God is the only basis for peace with God. Peace on any other basis must be but a delusion and a snare.

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.

Peace with God (Rom. 5:1). This is judicial. It comes to us from a transaction which took place between God and our Lord Jesus Christ, when Jesus was delivered up for our offences, when the chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him. The whole question of our sins having been settled by divine justice, God raised Christ from among the dead for our justification; and, possessing this on the principle of faith, peace with God is consequently ours. It is unchangeable. It rests upon a solid basis of righteousness. It cannot be altered. Though we have it, yet we did not make it. It was made between God and Christ for us, and it is eternal. God was the author of it and Christ the procurer of it. Wars can neither make it nor mar it. Peace with God is ours through the work of another. He made it, and we take it by faith. It is fundamental and abiding.

Reconciliation is, to use familiar language, making all straight; and even primarily, I believe, used in money-changing as that which makes the sum even, so that there is satisfaction of the parties in the matter; and thence passing into the more ordinary sense of making all smooth between alienated parties, and reconciling one who is alienated or at enmity. But it is not simply the change of mind from the enmity, though that be included; nor is it justification. It is the bringing back to unity, peace, and fellowship what was divided and alienated. We must not confound in Scripture "making reconciliation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2:17) with "reconciliation" in 2 Corinthians 5, Colossians 1, Romans 5:10-11. The former is making propitiation, atonement (ilaskesthai and ilasmos), propitiation (1 John 2:2); while on the contrary "atonement" in Romans 5:11 should be reconciliation (katallage). Compare 1 Corinthians 7:11, "Let her be reconciled to her husband." where it is not merely her mind being restored to affection and good feeling, but matters made straight between them — the relationship made good. So it is between us and God; but the alienation was on our part. It was not alienation on God's part, but righteous judgment against sin in His creature, and that righteousness must be met in order to bring back the alienated creature into relationship with God. Only now it is much more than bringing back, because of the purposes of God in Christ, and the infinite value of the work by which we are brought back to God. Still it is an establishing a blessed and peaceful relationship with God, and us in it.

Justification, it is allowed, must have a adequate basis, or (according to men's ordinary theological language) rest on an duly meritorious cause. But the antecedent ground before God must not be confounded with the means or principle by which the soul is brought into it. If scripture decide, a man is not justified until he believes in Christ, and has consequently peace with God. Peace with Him is a state of mind that the man cannot have without knowing that he has it. It is dangerous work, and ruinous to the soul, to tell a man that he has peace with God, if he have no enjoyment of it. Peace is that blessed change which possesses the soul when, through believing in Christ, he gives up warfare against God. When he receives, not only the Saviour, but the atoning work which the Saviour has effected, he rests upon Him before God. Then, and not before, having been justified by faith, he has peace with God to the praise of Christ, not of his faith, though without faith it cannot be.

A word on peace. There are three statements about it, each expressing something which the believer is privileged to enjoy. 1st. Peace with God. 2nd. The peace of Christ. 3rd. The peace of God. The first concerns the conscience, the second the heart, and the third is to garrison the heart. The first, peace with God, the believer has consequent on being justified by faith, and it rests on the knowledge that every question between God and the guilty one has been settled, and settled for ever, by the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. The consciousness of guilt makes the sinner afraid of God, as Adam confessed (Gen. 3:10), "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." The knowledge of the Lord's resurrection for our justifying, having been first delivered for our offences, assures us that all is settled; hence, justified by faith, we have peace with God. The second, the peace of Christ is Christ's gift to His people (John 14:27). It is what He enjoyed on earth in the midst of all that He passed through in His testimony for God, and it is to rule in our hearts (Col. 3:15). The third, the peace of God, reminds us of the unruffled atmosphere in which He dwells. This He has promised shall guard the heart of each weak, tried, and it may be persecuted saint, who in simplicity and reality unburdens his heart to God in prayer (Phil. 4:7).

Now peace has been made. No one has "to make their peace with God." Nor could they make peace with God if they had to do it. Christ is the Maker of peace. He made it, not by His life of singular beauty and perfection, but by His death. We of course are to enjoy the peace, and that is what is spoken of in Romans 5:1. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God." By faith we have the peace in our hearts, and what a wonderful peace it is! Here however the point is the making of the peace at the cross. The only possible basis for the peace enjoyed inside us is the peace made outside us when the blood of the cross was shed.

As the result of our justification we have peace with God. Observe the distinction between this and what is stated in Colossians 1:20. Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross. Thereby He removed every disturbing element. This He did once for all, and because that work is done peace becomes the enjoyed portion of each who is justified by faith. We enter into it one by one. When Paul knew by faith that he was justified, peace with God was his. When I knew that I was justified peace was mine. When you knew, peace was yours. And until we did know peace was not ours. Instead of having peace with God we had doubts and fears, and probably plenty of them.