Am I justified before God?

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 Romans 5



Therefore, since faith has justified us, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:1–5)

What would you say if someone asked you to explain God’s justifying grace? It is hard to comprehend the riches that are ours because of the justifying work of Jesus. Paul tells us in Romans 5 what we possess because of Christ’s perfectly righteous life, his anger-satisfying death, and his victorious resurrection:


To be justified by faith means:

1. We have peace with God. May we never devalue these words? It is a miracle of grace that we who were born in sin and are still giving in to sin can have peace with God. Born as natural enemies of God, we are now blessed with eternal peace with him—not because of anything we have done but because of what God did for us in Jesus.

2. We have a permanent standing with God. The peace we have with God isn’t temporary. Because of justifying grace, we stand forever at peace with God. He will never turn his back on us, turn against us, or unleash his anger on us. Our eternal standing with him is another miracle of grace.

3. We have eternal hope. We no longer live without hope in this world. Our hope in God will never fail, disappoint, or shame us. Because of Jesus, we have been liberated from the hopelessness of self-reliance and blessed with eternal hope.

4. We have sturdy joy. In Christ, we are blessed with undefeatable joy. Because our joy is vertical—in God and not in people, possessions, or circumstances—we have reason to be joyful no matter what. Redemptive joy is the strongest, sturdiest joy we could ever have, and it is ours in Jesus.

5. We have God’s love poured into our hearts. Because of the justifying mercies that are ours in Jesus, we are the objects of God’s eternal love. He hasn’t sprinkled a few drops of love over us and then walked away. No, God has poured his love into our hearts. No matter how you feel on a given day, your heart is filled with God’s love.

6. We have the gift of the Holy Spirit. He has animated our once-dead hearts. He lives inside us to convict us of sin, empower us for good works, and open our hearts to understand God’s truth.


This is what it means to stand before God as justified. These are the riches of his grace. This is the legacy of Jesus’s redeeming work. May we celebrate what is ours in Christ every day of our lives.

Paul Tripp

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