The Why Of Easter (Romans5:1-11) Series

Happy Easter! He is Risen, He has risen indeed. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Romans 5. You might be a little surprised to be back in Romans, but a kind of weird thing happened. I went back to Romans this week because I wanted to get a jump on next week’s sermon, since I’m going to be out of town for a lot of this week, and so I was reading from where we left off in the series, which is Romans 5. And I realized, Romans 5 is the Easter story. I know it’s not the narrative of the women coming to the tomb, and finding the stone rolled away, and the angel saying “He is not here, He has risen, go tell the disciples.” That’s the “what” of Easter, and if you’ve grown up in church, or even if you only come to church once or twice a year, you’ve heard the “what” of Easter.

It’s also not the “how” of Easter. This past Friday a bunch of us got together and watched The Passion of the Christ, and for over two hours we saw a brutal depiction of how Jesus was beaten and whipped; how he was put on trial; and how he was crucified and died.

And Romans 5 doesn’t tell that part of the story either. What Romans 5 tells us is the why of Easter.

Why did Jesus go through all that He did for us? Why was He put to death? Why do we have to believe that Jesus really, literally, truly rose from the dead? Couldn’t that just be a metaphor, and as long as you understand that Jesus was a great teacher and we try to live our lives according to His principles, that would be enough?

The answer to all of those “why” questions, I believe, is found in Romans 5:1-11. So if you are physically able, I invite you to stand in honor of God’s word, and read this with me:

5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through 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. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 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.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray.

[Pray]

1. Because of the cross, we have peace with God (Romans 4:24-5:5)

The first “why” of Easter is this: Easter had to happen so that we could have peace with God. Romans 5:1: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

We talked a lot about justification when we left off our study a couple of weeks ago. And if you need a refresh on the definition, it’s on the back of the listening guide. Justification is declaring that someone is just before God. It is the Judge, declaring once and for all, that we are no guilty.

All of Romans 4 was about Abraham being justified by faith and not through keeping the law. Paul says in 4:16 that the promise of righteousness rests on grace and is guaranteed to all of Abraham’s offspring.

But then he begins this incredibly radical redefinition of what it means to be Abraham’s offspring. In 4:23-25, he says that it isn’t just the Jews, but it’s anyone who believes in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

This is what is counted to us as righteousness– what does “counted” mean? iIt means to confer a status that wasn’t there before. Righteousness is credited to our account if we believe that Jesus was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” And because righteousness is now credited to our account, we have peace.