In Chapter five Paul gives us a list of all the things that faith produces in our lives.
Declared righteous vs. 1
Peace with God vs. 1
Access into grace vs. 2
The hope of the glory of God vs. 2
Ability to rejoice in affliction vs. 3
Endurance, proven character, and hope (hints to the process of sanctification) vs. 4
God’s love vs. 5
Receive the Holy Spirit.
These are benefits of faith in Jesus Christ that every believer gets at the point of genuine faith in Christ. Jesus talked about the different types of faith in Matthew 13. It could seem to someone that they genuinely believed, but the test of genuine faith is endurance (Mark 13:13, Rev. 14:12). Without endurance, we will be unable to withstand the afflictions of this life. This is why many people leave the faith because they lack endurance and a lack of endurance shows a lack of genuine faith. Some may object to this because of personal experience. Maybe they or someone they know left the faith even after many years of “producing fruit.” We can be fooled by others, and we can even fool ourselves, but God knows our hearts and knows if we genuinely believed or not. In Romans five and elsewhere God says that the true believers will endure to the end.
Paul goes on to explain to us the greatness of God’s love toward us in verse 8.
“But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!”
Romans 5:8 HCSB ( https://www.bible.com/72/rom.5.8.hcsb )
This verse should bring hope into the hearts of all people, even those that believe there is no God. God in His holiness could have demanded that we reach a certain point of goodness before offering salvation to us through Christ. He could have said that a certain percentage of people had to reach a level of 75% goodness and then you could trust in Jesus through faith. Instead, Jesus came and gave His life for ours when we were swarming in our sins. God knew that even our best effort only increased our guilt. Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus God has extended His love to us. Our responsibility is to open ourselves up to receive God’s love through faith in Jesus.
In the last section of this chapter, Paul talks about how death came into the world through our representative Adam. This death spread to all of humanity. Every male and female is born in spiritual death because of Adam. The spiritual death is passed on through the deed of man. This is why Jesus, being born of the Virgin Mary, did not have a sinl nature like ours. Paul tells about how condemnation passed to everyone, but through Jesus there life-giving justification available to everyone.
“So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone.”
Romans 5:18 HCSB ( https://www.bible.com/72/rom.5.18.hcsb )
Paul is not saying that everyone will receive this life-giving justification, he is not proposing universal salvation. He is simply saying that this life-giving justification has been made available to all that have faith in Jesus.
“so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 5:21 HCSB ( https://www.bible.com/72/rom.5.21.hcsb )
Eternal life is only found in Jesus. There is no other way to receive the forgiveness of your sins. Paul has made this very clear throughout the first four chapters of Romans. Showing that everyone is guilty of sin and deserving of eternal death. It is because of the grace of God that salvation has been offered to us. It is our free choice to believe or reject.
Through this chapter, we see that we should praise God that He did not leave us in our helpless and hopeless situation. That righteousness and eternal life have been given to all that believe in Jesus.