Dive into Romans 5-8 as we explore the deep theological theme of justification by faith. This episode takes you through a heartfelt conversation about the intrinsic conflict between human nature and divine peace. Discover how having faith grants you peace with God, despite the guilt and shame that cloud the mind. Embrace the transformative journey as faith challenges and reshapes your mental experience.
00:00:05 Understanding Peace Through Justification
So we’ve begun this marvelous new section in the book of Romans, Romans 5 through 8, and the first chapter, chapter 5, is talking about freedom from wrath, freedom from God’s judgment through Jesus Christ. And therefore we have peace. But I have to warn you of something right now. Your mind will not agree with what I said yesterday. Your mind will never agree with it. What do I mean? Well, the message is, Romans 5 verse 1, Therefore, having been justified, that is declared innocent by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Your mind will not agree that you have peace with God, for your mind is part of the natural fallen humanity that we live in. Don’t think of our fallen humanity as simply dealing with fleshly things like sex or drink or drugs, and the mind dealing with spiritual things. No, the mind is part of the flesh. The mind is part of the fallen, broken human nature. and it is full of guilt, and it is full of shame, and it is full of fear. Now, when it’s full of guilt, it will tell you, you have no peace with God, and you have no right to have any peace with God. So quit fooling yourself. That’s what your mind will tell you. So you understand how faith is a critical dynamic. It is something… catastrophic, one might say, that enters into your mental experience. Your mental experience is used to trouble, used to misery, used to breakdown, used to chaos, used to guilt and shame and fear, and here comes a message from Jesus Christ, from the Father through His Son, that you have peace with God.
SPEAKER 01 :
How do you deal with that? You have to understand that faith is an enemy.
SPEAKER 02 :
It is a friend, but it is an enemy to your mind. It is a friend ultimately to your whole human existence, but you understand when you realize the conflict between faith and your mind that you have introduced a drama into your being. Faith is not something that is trivial and small, although it is called something small like a mustard seed, Jesus said, but it is absolutely capable of growing into a massive tree to be the inhabitation of many, many of God’s creatures. What we need to understand is that a war is being set up. a war in our mind between faith and the mind. So let’s think of this. Therefore, having been justified, we have been counted justified, declared innocent by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now what is this peace?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, think first of all, what is God’s wrath, the opposite of it? God’s wrath is motivated by love. But if God’s wrath is motivated by love, and God, through the sacrifice of his Son, takes away God’s wrath, then what do we have left in regard to this peace? How different is it? If God’s wrath is motivated by love, well, peace is motivated by love. So what’s the difference? Well, wrath breaks down. God’s judgment is determined to bring the forces of the world, including the forces that you have operated under without Christ, to nothing. God’s wrath is determined to bring the forces of the world and your dynamic to nothing. so that in that nothingness, when you come to the end of yourself, you call out to God for mercy. He positions you for mercy, so that he may have, as it says in Romans 11.32, God has imprisoned all under sin, that he may have mercy upon all. So now, if God’s wrath… is God’s loving action to bring everything to nothing in your life outside of Christ, then what does his peace do? What is God’s peace through Jesus Christ? It is to bless you abundantly non-stop, and to move everything that you are operating with by faith, to move everything into blessing, to make everything turn into something that is going to benefit you in the end, even the troubles. Once you are in God’s love and grace and freed from God’s wrath, then everything that troubles you does not break you down, but does the very opposite. It builds you up. That’s what you and I have to come to believe. Do you see what we’re training you in here? Faith training. is like injecting some powerful antidote into your body that is so shocking to the system that it rejuvenates that system almost overnight. And this is what faith is doing for us. Let’s think of it in the most practical way. You have fallen again into your drug addiction or your alcohol addiction, and you are deeply troubled by it, and you feel that you are under the burden of God’s judgment, under His wrath. And then your faith kicks in and says, Father, I praise you that I am not under your wrath, for Jesus took your judgment upon himself. You, Lord God, in your Son, took my judgment upon yourself. And therefore, dear God, my failure is no longer bringing my humanity and all its dynamics to nothing so that I may call upon you because I’m already a believer. What is happening, dear God? is that my defeat is reminding me of my peace with you through Jesus Christ. I have peace with you, Jesus. I have peace with you, dear Father, not because I’m innocent and good and have overcome everything. I have peace with you through Jesus Christ. And so you take out your hymn book and you sing a song. You meditate on the Lord and you lift your heart in praise. You choose to dance around your living room if you want. Anything that elevates the truth to you that you have peace with God. When God has finished his wrath, which he has done by finishing it in himself, then his heart towards you is to do nothing but prosper you. But does that mean that your finances suddenly turn around and you become a millionaire? Does that mean that your ill health suddenly becomes brimming with health and prosperity? Does that mean your relationships change? Not necessarily. What God is prospering you in is his peace and an awareness of his peace, and faith gives an increasing awareness of the joy we have in God. Therefore my heart is glad, says the psalmist in Psalm 16, and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in shell, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Now your emotions may not feel those pleasures forevermore. Your heart may not feel that fullness of joy in God, but your faith affirms it and speaks it out and talks it back into your mind and talks it back up to God. Lord God, I thank you that in your presence is fullness of joy. Father, I praise you that there are pleasures forevermore for me. But again, you see, your mind will revolt because your mind trivializes the truth. Your mind is part of the fallenness and brokenness of your human nature. And you say, that can’t be true for you. It may be true for others, but you are a sinner and you have particularly failed even today. So you can’t claim that. You can’t claim peace with God. But then you come back to the truth which is expressed here in Romans chapter 5. We are justified. Justified? What does that mean? We are declared innocent. We are accounted innocent. How can I, a guilty man, how can I, a man full of guilt and shame and fear, how can I, who does not want anyone to know my past, how can I be declared innocent? Well, I am not declared innocent by the record of my life. I am not declared innocent by a tally of the number of sins I have or have not committed. I am declared innocent through Jesus Christ, therefore having been justified by faith. Faith in what? Faith in the fact that Jesus took my judgment upon him. No judgment… befalls me as a believer. Maybe trouble, maybe trials, but not judgments in those troubles and trials. Even troubles and trials I may have brought upon myself. I need to learn to believe that those are not judgments of condemnation. I am justified, declared innocent in Christ Jesus, through our Lord Jesus Christ. That phrase at the end, through our Lord Jesus Christ, is not simply a filler that Paul stuffs at the end of a sentence to make it a little more appealing to us. It is the truth of that sentence altogether. I am accounted innocent in my Savior Jesus Christ so that I can claim that peace. I can say, Father, whether I feel that peace or not, I thank you that there is a peace relationship between me and you through the services of your Son, Jesus Christ, that means that everything that is in my life is working towards my eternal joy.
SPEAKER 01 :
Do you see then how you and I need to get tough with this faith?
SPEAKER 02 :
This is bold faith. This is faith that has courage. This is not faith that’s whistling in the dark. This is faith that says, in the dark, God is with me. God is present with us, Emmanuel, God with us because of Jesus. And so, I start singing faith, I start talking faith, I start praising God with faith, I start dancing with faith. It’s not that I’m becoming idiotic, I’m not becoming mindless and stupid. It is that I am countering my mind. countering the message of my mind with the eternal reality of Jesus Christ. Only then will my mind begin to make little shifts and move because faith is injecting itself into my mind’s darkness. Thanks so much for listening today. Colin Cook here, and you’re listening to How It Happens, which you can hear anytime on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com or Apple or whatever, and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. and then you can hear the program any time of the day or night. Please consider a donation. This program is listener-supported radio. This ministry has been going for many decades, but it needs your support. You can send a donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. Or you can make your donation online at faithquestradio.com faithquestradio.com I do appreciate all your support over the years, over the months, or just last week. Thank you so very much. I’ll see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
