Romans 5:1-5

Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have peace with God.  The wrath of God is no longer on those who have faith in Christ, but remains on all that do not.  Human works or effort have nothing to do with receiving God’s grace, as Paul developed thoroughly in chapter four.  It is a free gift that comes through faith and all of the credit is to the glory of God.  God’s love has been poured into the hearts of believers as they have been born again by the power of God.  Their hearts of stone have been replaced with a heart of flesh or as Paul put it in chapter two verse 29, their hearts have been circumcised by the Holy Spirit.  It is by God’s grace and from his sovereign power that transforms a sinner into a new person that through faith has peace with God.  All the glory goes to God in changing a person from a sinner to a Saint.