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For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.

Romans Romans 5 ¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 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. ³Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And 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. ⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! ¹⁰For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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Perhaps you are a church leader, a pastor, or a mature Christian. But in dark moments, do you still worry about your sinfulness? Look again at verse 1. ‘Therefore…’ signifies a culmination of Paul’s argument in the previous chapters. Here is good news! No longer do ‘we’ (Paul includes himself) need to be oppressed by our sinfulness. Keeping the law served to teach God’s people what sin was, but—as they learned—our own efforts cannot save us. Praise God that, now, we are justified through faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 1). We can stand confidently before God, clothed in his undeserved mercy.

Consequently, more than this, we have ‘hope’ (vv. 2, 4, 5). Whatever your personal struggles as you live in this troubled world, this hope is not the uncertain expression of wishes, but is based securely on what God has done for us. It is this which sustained the Roman believers in Paul’s time and can sustain us now. Living in this hope, we are equipped to endure our sufferings—be they physical or mental. As we persevere, we grow in Christ, as does our hope in him (vv. 1—5). Moreover, it’s not just a future hope; we have peace now (v. 1). It’s as if the timeless truth of God’s peace and hope invades our lives today. The Holy Spirit is at work—pouring God’s love into our hearts (v. 5).

Be encouraged, then, as Paul reminds us of the security of God’s once-for-all salvation: ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (v. 8)! Christ is alive, and we live in him. Whatever the state of our broken world, we are reconciled with God through him. We are people who live, experiencing his peace and certain hope.

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