Paul has spent a lot of time establishing the problem of our sin, and how we are justified through faith in Christ. Now he will move on to the implications of this for our life, and how it affects the second key aspect of salvation, namely our transformation. Remember we have two basic needs: we need to be forgiven and we need to be transformed.
"We have peace with God". Justification, being declared right with God, is essential. If we had no peace with God then all our efforts would be futile. Instead it means we can approach every aspect of life with hope. When tackling problems it is easy to be filled with despair. We think we have got things too wrong, or have failed too many times, or that we have got too much "baggage". In Christ that is no longer true. We have been justified, we are in right standing with God.
Because of this we have gained access into grace. We stand in a place of grace. We are not under judgement, we are not under a curse, we are not at the mercy of random events. We stand in the grace of God, we have the favour of God on our lives.
We boast in the hope of glory. What does this mean? When we talk of the glory of God we tend to think of God's glory shining all around. That is part of it, but it also includes moral excellence and significance. I have said this before, and have said it again, because it is so important. We were created in God's image, we were meant to be wonderful, but sin ruined everything. In Christ the way is open for us to become all that we were meant to be, all that God intends us to be.
There should be hope and expectation in our lives that we will become what God wants us to be.
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