Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Jesus gives us peace with God, our Judge. In court, just because the judge pounds his gavel and declares, “not guilty,” that doesn’t mean that he likes you. He probably isn’t going to have you over for dinner on Friday night. After all that’s been said in the courtroom, he might still regard you as scum.

With Jesus Christ, a “not guilty” verdict does mean that the Judge likes you. In fact, he loves you. He isn’t going to stop at a dinner date. He is going to make you a member of his own family. He isn’t just going to have you over for an evening. He is going to move you into his own home. Jesus has removed all the hostility. We are no longer objects of wrath, inmates on death row. Now we have peace in every way. The Judge has become our new best friend. Our life with God has been transformed in profound ways.

We can say even more about this peace. Peace in the biblical sense involves more than the relationship, more than the end to the hostilities. It embraces all of life. It is living with the peace of mind that everything, everything is “divinely normal.” It is living with the confidence that “God’s got this,” he is in control, even when all our experience seems to say just the opposite. Paul will flesh out what this means for us even more in the second half of these verses.

Because the not guilty verdict means that the Judge is our new best friend, we have access: “through whom (through Jesus) we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (Romans 5:2). With the right person, people will pay a lot of money for access. It’s why people give thousands to political candidates and millions to “political action committees.” If the person they support gets elected, they want access. They want an open door that allows them to come and ask for favors from the leader they supported.

Our access, however, comes for free. It’s another bonus of the faith. It is another feature of a transformed life with God. Our access is to God’s grace, the love that lays no conditions on us, that love that forgives us without counting how many times we have fallen or how many times we have needed it.

Our open door is infinitely better than the political supporter’s. For him it may be an occasional thing. It’s a kind of back-up plan or insurance policy. He will use his access if he needs it, but if all goes well, he may never step through that open door.

 Our open door leads to “this grace in which we now stand.” We have all gone through the door, and we never leave. “Grace” becomes our new reality. It’s where we are. It’s where we live.

Maybe you have thought to yourself, “I hope that when I die, I am not in the middle of some sin,” or “When Jesus returns, I hope that I am not in the middle of some sin.” That misunderstands both sin and grace. Sin isn’t just an action. Sin is a condition. It infects everything we do, even after we come to faith. We are sorry for it. We don’t defend or excuse it. But it’s always there. I can guarantee you that we will be in the middle of sin when we breath our last or Jesus appears.

But having faith means that you will also be in the middle of grace. We don’t just come and get some on Sunday mornings. We live in it all week. It’s the spiritual atmosphere we breathe. We go to work in it. We play in it. We sleep in it. Grace is a permanent attitude God takes toward us. Forgiveness is a constant state in which we live.

So enjoy God’s peace, because faith brings us more than a not guilty verdict. It transforms our life with God.