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No attribute of God has been more abused or misused than the love of God. A few years ago, Rob Bell wrote the book Love Wins. His point was that God loves and saves everyone. Impugning the truth of an eternal hell, he taught that Jesus redeems everyone. Many people think of God’s love as if there were no final judgment on sin. God loves everyone unconditionally. You can go on in your rebellious, selfish, sinful way of living and God is okay with that because He loves you just the way you are. “You’re perfect the way you are.” “He gets us,” the new marketing promotion says. “Jesus was judged too. He gets us.” Nothing is said about Christ’s death on the cross for sinners.
Samuel Sey wrote an article a couple years ago asking, “Does God love LGBTQ people?” Yes, He loves them by telling them the truth. God does not whisper about sexual sins. He loves us enough to tell the truth about pornography, homosexuality, lesbianism, same sex marriage and all the other sins He warns us will lead to eternal judgment. On the other hand, God loves sinners and sent His Son to save sinners from their sins. So God loves all kinds of sinners, as we’re going to see this morning. That would include LGBTQ people or prostitutes or thieves or any who repent of their sins and turn to Christ. God loves us enough to cleanse us of our sins.
Paul has exulted in the glories of justification by faith alone which brings believers into peace with God. Paul exulted in the grace of God and the hope of coming glory. He even exulted in tribulations because God uses them to help us grow our faith. He assured us that our hope in God will never be disappointed because of one great truth in verse 5 – “God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom He gives to every believer.” Now Paul is going to magnify God’s reconciling love for sinners so that when he finishes in verse 11, we are left praising, rejoicing, and exulting in our God who so loves sinners. There are four aspects to this love in these verses.
GOD LOVED US AT OUR WORST
Romans 5:6, For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly… v. 8 while we were yet sinners… v. 10 while we were enemies.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarded verse 6 as “one of the greatest verses in the whole Bible.” These four descriptions of the kind of people God loves could not be any worse. Our depravity couldn’t be any deeper, but praise God, His loves goes deeper than our depravity.
Before we look at these four descriptions, notice when God sent Christ to die for sinners – “at the right time.” God had His plan of saving sinners all worked out in eternity past. Before there was an earth or sun or moon or universe or one second on earth’s clock, the triune God had determined in the eternal council of God’s decree to plan for sin – Adam’s fall didn’t take God by surprise – and then to send the second person of the Godhead to join the human race at just the right time. After the thousands of years of the Old Testament times, Christ was born and lived a sinless life. But He said during the three years of his earthly ministry, “It’s not my time yet.” Toward to end of his earthly ministry He crossed the Jordan River, went through Jericho, leading thousands up the steep incline to Jerusalem. Then He entered Jerusalem in that triumphal entry. The right time was approaching. In the upper room He instituted the Lord’s Table, went out to the garden and prayed to His Father. Right on time Judas and the officers arrest Him. Right on God’s schedule they took Him, falsely accused Him, and took Him out to crucify Him between two thieves. Finally, at just the right time He died for the ungodly! He arose, ascended to heaven, and at just the right time He’ll come into the clouds to rapture the church. Seven years later at just the right time, He’ll come back to earth with His heavenly armies, destroy His enemies, and set up His millennial kingdom. All things happen at just the right time as determined by God from eternity past. Nothing is by chance, haphazard, or plan B in God’s great redeeming plan.
Let me add that God’s sovereignty over your life and your salvation was also at just the right time, thank God! Before we socked ourselves away into hell with a fatal accident or heart attack or cancer or a broken neck, at just the right time when we were helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies, Christ saved us. Why? Because He loved us!
God loved us while we were helpless (v. 6). Left to ourselves we had no strength to move a muscle toward God. We were helpless to understand spiritual things or respond to God. We were no more able to respond to God than a corpse could obey a command to get up out of the coffin! God loved us while we were helpless.
God loved us while we were ungodly (v. 6). Remember, God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. Ungodly emphasizes our godless disgust to God. God created us to reflect His glory, yet here we are, ungodly and disgusting to Him. Yet He loved us when we were disgusting to Him. This is why no one as long as they are breathing is outside the possibility of salvation. We were ungodly, resented God’s sovereignty and holiness, insisted on living in total opposition to God’s will. And we didn’t want our sinful actions to be called into question. We demanded everyone affirm whatever sinful behavior we chose. Yet, God loved us while we were ungodly.
God loved us while we were sinners (v. 8). To sin is to miss the mark God designed for us. We aimed our lives completely away from the mark of God and His glory. We didn’t live for Him, but we lived for ourselves. We lived for this world and our own pleasures and desires rather than God’s glory. God loved us while we were sinners.
God loved us while we were enemies (v. 10). Not only were we helpless, ungodly, and sinners, but in our sin God was so opposed to us He regarded us as enemies. We weren’t just a little unfriendly; we were in the enemy camp. Plus, we were hostile toward God. Thomas Watson said in our natural depraved condition we would “ungod God” if we could. This is when God loved us – at our worse.
Why do we keep harping on our sinfulness? Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote, “The people who have appreciated the love of God the most have always been the people who have realized their sinfulness the most.” God loved us at our worse.
GOD LOVED US WITH HIS BEST
Romans 5:7-8, For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
People may occasionally die for a righteous man or a good man. Soldiers go to war to lay down their lives for their wives and families and beloved nation. But would they go to die for their enemies? Back in 2017 Andrew and Lucy Foster traveled from Wales, England, to Yosemite to do some rock climbing. They were celebrating their first year of marriage. As they were climbing along there was a massive rock fall of the face of El Capitan, a vertical rock formation there in Yosemite. Andrew saw Lucy was in grave danger so ran to her and shielded her from vehicle-sized sliding rocks. He saved her life, but the rock slide fatally crushed him. He loved her and gave his life for her. But would he have done that for a stranger, or an enemy?
But that’s exactly what God did for us. He loved His enemies with His best. He sent us His own dearly beloved Son to do what it took to deliver us from the wages of our sin. While we deserved wrath, God sent us redeeming love in His Son who laid down His life for us. He didn’t come to show us the way or provide an example. His teaching won’t save us. It’s not just “He gets us” to make Jesus sound relevant and cool. He came and died for sinners. Paul wants us to thoroughly understand the nature and character of God’s love for us. God will never love sinners more than at the cross.
Notice how often in this one passage Paul points to the death of Christ:
Verse 6 – Christ died for the ungodly.
Verse 8 – Christ died for us.
Verse 9 – Being justified by His blood, speaking of Christ’s violent death on that cross.
Verse 10 – Reconciled through the death of His Son.
This is the depth and height and width and breadth of God’s love for sinners. He could not love us more! He could not give us more than when He gave us His Son. He loved us with His best. Verse 8 begins with “demonstrates,” not only present tense but in the emphatic position. This is how God demonstrates His own love for sinners – by sending His Son to die in their place. And if God loved you at your worse, He’ll never stop loving you. Romans 8: 39 assures you and me, nothing in the entire universe “can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Look at God’s unique love in action for sinners in Mark15:16-20.
16 The soldiers took Him away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium), and they called together the whole Roman cohort. 17 They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him; 18 and they began to acclaim Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 They kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him. 20 After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him.
It’s that last phrase that demonstrates the depth of God’s love for us – “to crucify Him.” And even that doesn’t fully demonstrate God’s love. It was while on that cross he drank the full cup of divine wrath against our sin. When the world turned dark. When the Father’s Son cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” He died, the just for the unjust. He died for the ungodly. He died for sinners. He died for His enemies. He died for us! He loved us at our worse with His best. God will never love sinners more than He loved them on that cross outside Jerusalem those many centuries ago.
“Love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.””
GOD LOVED US FOR OUR GREATEST GOOD
Romans 5:9-10, Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
“Much more then.” MacArthur says, “What follows is even more overwhelming and significant than what preceded, astounding and wonderful as that was.” Remember that great truth, that chief article according to Luther, the main hinge on which Christianity turns according to Calvin: justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. This is the work of God for sinners to bring us into relationship with Him.
Since we now are justified, what’s next? We shall be saved from God’s wrath through Christ. What an assuring promise. To think that outside of Christ, if we died not having Him as Savior, we would enter into an eternal judgment, an eternal, unending suffering in the wrath of God. But God promises, “You’ll be saved from My wrath,” right here!
Why? Because God reconciled us to Himself. Reconcile is a great Bible word. He reconciled us. We didn’t form a committee, make our way with our white flag up Jacob’s ladder to the throne room to ask for terms of peace. No, God took the full initiative. Paul’s talking about God, through Christ, bringing us from enemy status to being eternally His friend. Here’s how Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5.
2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
And Paul adds, we’ll be saved by Christ’s life. Jesus said in John 14:19 “Because I live, you will live also.”
GOD LOVED US TO HIS ETERNAL PRAISE
Romans 5:11, And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Paul has been anticipating this statement, “AND NOT ONLY THIS!” All of this, but there is so much more. It’s like bringing out Christmas presents and when they are all opened, Dad says, “And not only this, but I have something more.” Paul says while all I’ve said so far is so glorious about God’s reconciling love, here is something I want you to take with you. We already exulted in the hope of coming glory back in verse 3 and we exulted in our tribulations which God brings for our good, but now we exult in God Himself. Everything we’ve talked about is from God. God is the initiator and completer of our reconciliation and all because of His great love for sinners. God deserves all the praise and glory.
We love and praise and thank our loving God because He reached down into the filth and mire and picked us up and put us on the Rock, Christ Jesus, and gave us an eternal home, secure in His fellowship forever! S. Lewis Johnson wrote, “A triumphant, abundant entrance into glory is assured the saints for whom He has died…. We will enter His presence exulting in Him and His work of grace for us.”
“More secure is no one ever than the loved ones of the Savior.”
SO WHAT?
This security will never end. Nothing can destroy it. His reconciling love for us should motivate us to face and handle anything this world of sin and devils throws at us. This reconciling love stands unique in all of human history, completely unmatched. And yet we are in it and it is poured out in us by His Spirit if we have come in simple faith to Jesus Christ, confessing our weakness and sinfulness and believing in Him alone as our Lord and Savior. Have you done this? Do you have this hope and confidence that you are reconciled to God through faith in His Son Jesus? If not, talk to Him right now.