Peace with God (3rd Sunday of Lent)

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One of the main themes of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is Justification. In Justification, God makes the sinner righteous. It is both an action that takes place at a moment in time and a process that continues throughout the Christian’s life. As the Catholic Bible Dictionary puts it: “As an action, justification is the moment when God makes righteous the one who believes in Christ and establishes him or her in a covenant relationship with himself. As a process, justification is the growth in righteousness and grace that takes place in the believer who embraces the demands of the gospel and yields himself or herself to the leading of the Spirit.” (pg. 496)

The basis of this Justification is the fact that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). Christ’s death is what satisfies for the sins by which we separate ourselves from God. We remember this whenever we go through the Stations of the Cross, when we say, “by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world.”

The result of this justification is that “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1). Peace means we are no longer separated from God, and He no longer regards us as enemies, but as friends and beloved children. Even when we go astray, He always extends His arms to welcome us back if we repent.

Finally, as a result of this peace, we have hope for the future. The Baltimore Catechism defines this hope as “the virtue by which we firmly trust that God, who is all-powerful and faithful to His promises, will in His mercy give us eternal happiness and the means to obtain it” (#123). This hope “does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (5:5).

As those who have been Justified by grace through faith in Christ, we should be constantly resting in the hope that the Gospel provides, and place our confidence that, as Paul says elsewhere, “he who began a good work in you will complete it at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

J. Luis Dizon