Our peace with God was not just accomplished by Christ; instead, Christ himself is our peace with God. We are in union with Christ (which was accomplished for us 2000 years ago at the Cross without God asking our permission) and therefore we participate in Jesus’ standing with, and relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. In Christ we have been set in God’s irreversible grace. In other words, we have the same favor on our life that Jesus has because he is the embodiment of all of God’s grace to us, and that can never change. In Christ we have been made righteous, but not just any kind of righteous; We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ, and that was a free gift we didn’t ask for either. God didn’t just let us off the hook for our sins; he changed who we are by placing us in the life of Christ, who shares his nature with us. We are totally new people from the inside out. I love the way Paul puts it in Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the finished work of His Son, much more, as the reconciled we shall be saved in His life.”
We weren’t capable of reconciling ourselves to God, and so Christ Jesus did our part for us. God in Christ actually reconciled us to himself. He did that without asking our permission, either. We are just standing, sopping wet in the grace of God in Christ. We have been placed in the life of Jesus, and in his life, we have been saved from the consequences of our sin, our separation from God, from any future wrath, and moment by moment, we are being saved from our weaknesses and brokenness as he lives his life through us in the daily grind of this fallen world. No wonder Paul said in Romans 5:2, “we (that means all of us who are Christians) are exulting (holding our head up high and boasting) in hope of the glory of God that is ours in Christ to enjoy. Basically, Paul is saying, “We rejoice and glory in our existence” – reigning in life through the one Christ Jesus.