08 Holy Spirit Pledge and Seal: Romans 5:1-5

by Krisan Marotta | Oct 28, 2020 | 01 Podcasts, Holy Spirit, Romans

As a new believer, I thought the Holy Spirit was like the “force” in Star Wars: something I had to access to find success. Paul has a different view in this passage. The Holy Spirit is the active love of God intervening to make us people who will persevere in faith.

This series has been building to this podcast. In this podcast we put it altogether.

Review

The Holy Spirit is God’s agent of change in this world.
Broadly speaking, his work can be categorized as: universal and individual.
The universal work of the Spirit is the work the Holy Spirit does in every believer to give us saving faith.
The individual works of the Spirit are the gifts and opportunities to serve the kingdom of God that the Spirit gives one believer but not another.
Revelation is an individual work of the Spirit given to God’s chosen messengers, such that they can explain God’s word to the rest of us.
Understanding is the receptivity to embrace and believe God’s message as wisdom, which is a universal work given to all believers.
Most of the discussion of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament concerns the individual work of the Spirit empowering particular individuals as judges or kings to protect, defend and guide Israel, or as prophets so that they can proclaim God’s word to His people.
However, both Testaments speak of the need for God to transform His people through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance in the kingdom of God and he is the mark that guarantees we belong to God.

Background

Paul is writing this letter to the church at Rome, a church he has never visited in person.
In Romans 1-4, Paul explains that we are saved by faith and not by keeping the law.
Then in Roman 5, Paul answers the question: so what? What difference does it make that we are saved by faith rather than law-keeping?
Paul says because we are justified by faith: 1) we now have peace with God; 2) we rejoice in our sufferings; and 3) we rejoice in our reconciliation.
We only look at the first part in this podcast.
For the entire passage: see 06 Romans 5:1-11 The Hope of the Gospel.

Passage

^5:1Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ²Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and 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. – Romans 5:1-5

The word translated “rejoice” (καυχάομαι; Strong’s G2744) means to boast, to glory, to exult or rejoice.
The things about which I boast/rejoice are the things I that are true about me that I am not ashamed of, but rather rejoice about.
Christians have reason to “boast” in what God had done for us, not in our own accomplishments.
Hope is a confident, eager expectation that something good will happen.
Glory is the quality something has when it is praiseworthy, radiant and beautiful.
In Romans 3:23, Paul said we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. In Romans 5:2, Paul says we have a hope that one day we will no longer fall short of the glory of God.
Our first boast is that we will share in God’s glory.
Our second boast is enduring through trials because that gives us tangible personal evidence that we in fact believers who stand to inherit the promises of God.
When our faith perseveres through trials and sufferings, it is shown to be genuine, giving us evidence that our faith is real.

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. – Romans 5:1-5

A hope that puts you to shame is a hope that doesn’t come to pass.
Paul is addressing the fear that my hope will fail me because I lack what it takes to make it to the finish line.
Why can we have confidence in that hope? Because God loves us.
God’s love takes a very active form in our lives through the work of His Spirit. When our faith is tested, we are not going through that test alone. The Spirit of God is at work in us.
Our hope won’t disappoint because God loved us enough to give us His Spirit. His Spirit will transform us into the kind of people who will persevere.
This is why the Holy Spirit is our down payment and God’s seal on our lives that marks us as God’s.
Perseverance is evidence that God is at work through His Spirit and His Spirit will get us to finish live.
The Holy Spirit is NOT optional help along the way that we must choose to use like the force in Star Wars.
The Holy Spirit is the active love of God intervening in our inner spirits to accomplish God’s plan for us.

For more detail and explanation, please listen to the podcast.