Peace with God - evangelical Caucus/Devotional

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

Peace with God is the first link in the chain that securely binds a true believer to Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the most significant attack Satan wages against Christians is raising doubt about the reality and security of their salvation. He continually promotes the destructive notion of a works-righteousness system as a means of salvation, thus making the preservation of one’s salvation totally dependent upon the believer’s faithfulness.

To counteract such a misguided interpretation of what the Bible teaches about salvation, the apostle Paul wrote Romans 3 and 4 to establish that salvation comes only on the basis of God’s grace working through man’s faith. Quoting Genesis 15:6, Paul said, “‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’” (Rom. 4:3).

Because some might have questioned if good works, which offer no security at all, were then the conditions under which a person preserved salvation, Paul wrote Romans 5:1-11 to further cement in believers’ minds that our hope as Christians is not in ourselves but in our great God (cf. 2 Tim. 2:13; Heb. 10:23). Six links bind us to our Lord and Savior, and our passage for today describes the first: peace with God.

It’s hard to imagine that we were ever enemies of God, but the sad fact is that all unbelievers are at war with God and He is at war with them (Rom. 8:7; Eph. 5:6). Yet every individual who has been justified by faith in Christ receives reconciliation with God, which also brings peace with Him. And this peace is permanent and irrevocable because Christ “always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).

Not only did Jesus Christ establish eternal peace between us and God the Father, but also “He Himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). That emphasizes Christ’s atoning work as the basis for our assurance. Such absolute and objective facts are what allow you to stand firm under Satan’s attacks. They free you from focusing on your own goodness and merit and allow you to serve the Lord with the confidence that nothing can separate you from your Heavenly Father (Rom. 8:31-39).

Read Romans 3—4. What verses establish that salvation is solely the work of God? Keep a list for reference when Satan may attack your faith.

“Because some might have questioned if good works, which offer no security at all, were then the conditions under which a person preserved salvation, Paul wrote Romans 5:1-11 to further cement in believers’ minds that our hope as Christians is not in ourselves but in our great God... That emphasizes Christ’s atoning work as the basis for our assurance.”

It appears that this conflates security in salvation with assurance of salvation. They are different.

Christ’s atoning work is the basis for our security, but it is not the sole basis of our assurance. The Bible describes the security and certainty of our salvation as being dependant upon the work and power of God (first and foremost of which are demonstrated in Christ’s death and resurrection):

I Peter 1:5 NKJV
[God’s elect] are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Our being kept by God, our security, our perseverance (i.e the fact of it), the certainty (i.e. the fact of it rather than our awareness or realization of it) refer to the same thing: the reality that salvation of the believer relies totally upon the work and power of God.

Philippians 1:6 NKJV
Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

2 Timothy 1:12 NKJV
For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

However, God’s keeping is not the same thing as our assurance of salvation. Our assurance is based on three things:

1. The reality of our security as declared by God in the Bible. So, yes, MacArthur is correct that our security is a basis of our assurance, but it is not the sole basis.

2. An awareness of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV
Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.

Colossians 1:27 NKJV
To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Romans 8:9&11 NKJV
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His... But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

I will also point out that the Biblical concept of our “hope of salvation” is the same as our “assurance” of salvation. Biblical hope is assurance.

1 Thessalonians 5:8-9 NKJV
But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hope (”elpida” in the Greek) means the expectation of what is sure or certain.

3. Our assurance is further predicated upon continued obedience. To be clear, all believers sin and are disobedient to God at times, and these failures do not take away the reality of security, but they take away our assurance.

1 John 3:18-20 NKJV
My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

I believe it is helpful to understand the difference between security of salvation and assurance of salvation in the Bible. A proper understanding of these things can also help us to address the very real danger and possibility of a false assurance. A false assurance of salvation is the confidence we can experience that we are on our way to Heaven when in reality we are not. This false assurance seems to come primarily from basing the certainty of our salvation on our own righteous works.

Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV
Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

This confirms that MacArthur’s assertion that our good works provide no security at all is correct. Our “hope (assurance) of salvation” is a powerful weapon in spiritual warfare that we put on by trusting in God and engaging in frequent self-examination that leads to confession of any known sins, an awareness of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, and living in obedience to God.

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