The Love of God - Romans 5:6-8

Introduction

When I have the privilege of leading couples through premarital counseling, I almost always lead out with one question that I ask with the hope of helping a couple to think biblically about what marriage is: what is love? Our culture has cheapened, softened and distorted the word love to the point that it is nearly unrecognizable.

The real challenge here comes in when we take this distorted view of love and bring it into our understanding of the Bible. We read John say “God is love” and we take the world’s definition of love and try to apply that to God. What we get is a wishy-washy, undependable and precocious image of God that doesn’t fit the God of the Bible. I mean think about it this way: I have seen, and I bet you have, a number of people in this world who on one day would say “I love you” and then on the next day they want to kill each other! Is this truly love?

When the Bible talks about love, and especially the love of God, however, it does so in a different way. This passage is one of the best known and most loved passages about the love of God, and for good reason! But in order to really understand what Paul is saying here, we need to establish this out the box: if we really understand this passage, it is going to transform the way we understand what love even is. Because the love of God is so much greater, deeper, and wider than any love we have experienced in this world otherwise, there is really nothing to compare it to!

But sometimes, we actually ask “does God really love me?” Have you ever thought this? There are times in our lives when it is hard for us to see the love of God in our lives, aren’t there? That question, does God love me, seems to be a fitting question for us to address, especially right after Paul finishes this last passage. After talking about how we can rejoice even in suffering, and how hope is the ultimate fruit of suffering, Paul tells us that we can have hope because the love of God has been poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit. But, what does this mean, exactly? How is it that the love of God is poured into our hearts?

This is what Paul wants us to really examine here today. In difficult times, our tendency is not to say “man, God really loves me; look how hard my life is!” or “Wow, I feel so depressed and alone; God’s love is truly poured into my heart!” And we generally want to throw things at people who say things like this to us. Instead, we ask “does God really love me?” It can sound different ways:

Is God punishing me?

Why won’t God give me what I’m praying for? I’m asking for good things!

If God loves me, why are these hard things happening?

Why don’t I feel like He loves me?

This isn’t fair!

Am I truly saved?

One way or the other, each of these ways we ask this question is a variation on the one question that we seek to answer today: does God truly love His children?

When we ask questions like this, we must run back to the very basics of the Gospel, which is why we love this passage so much: it gives us the basic, objective facts of the Gospel as an answer to an emotional, subjective question!

Paul answers this question with a nuclear bomb of truth: look at the cross! We will seek to truly examine God’s love for His people by meditating on the one great theme of Romans: the Gospel of God! In these three verses we will see that the dilemma of humanity necessitated the death of God’s Son, which was the demonstration of God’s love.

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1. The Dilemma of Humanity

in this passage, and throughout the book of Romans so far, we have seen the great dilemma of humanity. Paul uses three words to describe that dilemma. Each word is placed in the text in ascending order, from least significant to most significant.

Weak: sick, incapable and without strength. In Ephesians: “and you were dead in trespasses and sins.” The sin that entangles us poisons us, our relationships, our lives, affects everything, and we feel its effects terribly. We can try to numb it, but it comes back. We can try to ignore it, but it becomes like leaven, and ruins the whole lump.

it also means that we couldn’t do anything that was pleasing to God. No matter how hard we tried to do good, even our best deeds were as filthy rags before the Lord. Poison and death flowed through our veins as we continued to rebel against God, even in our rule following, and so heaped condemnation on our heads. Paul sees this in Philippians 3 as he describes his own life and pedigree:

Philippians 3:5–6 ESV

circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

and this poison renders us totally inable to do any good to change our own spiritual condition. We are like Lazarus - dead in a tomb of our own stinking sins, and unable to do anything but rot until Jesus speaks life into us, and we come out of the tomb rubbing our sleepy eyes and seeing the light of His grace for the first time!

ungodly: impious, irreverent. To be ungodly is, by definition, to be unlike God. If God is love, we who were ungodly were self-love. If God is mercy, we who were ungodly were merciless. If God is just, we were unjust. We who were created to worship God have instead traded and exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and so worshipped the creature rather than the Creator.

We were created to delight in God, and in God’s Word and God’s law! But instead, we hate Him, His Word, and His statutes. Sin had blinded and deceived us, so that we called good evil, and evil good. We have a worship problem, that exceeds even the problem of our sin poisoning our lives. We were totally ungodly!

Even those who would say that they “believed in God” are still ungodly. Just because someone says they believe in God, that does not make that person a converted believer! I mean, think about it this way - James says that simply saying you believe in God puts you in the company of who? The Devil! And last I checked, Satan was not a Christian.

When someone here, in this place, where everybody fancies themselves a Christian, tells us that they are a Christian, it is a helpful test to tell them what the God of the Bible has actually said about Himself. Talk to them about a God who is wrathful, or a God who places expectations on their life, and see how they respond! Talk to them about a God who doesn’t accept people just as they are, but rather who says “be holy, for I am holy.” Talk to them about a God who is not impressed with their earthly citizenship, or their pedigree, or their name on a church membership roll, and you will quickly see that a good many of those people who think they are saved because they “believe in God,” really believe in a God of their own imaginations. Rather than being godly, they are quite ungodly.

This is part of the great challenge of evangelism in the rural south: very often, we have to help people get lost before we can see them become saved! They need to see their own ungodliness before they will submit to Christ!

sinners: rebels to the will of God. Enemies of God. This is the great problem of humanity: we are in rebellion against God! When we talk to others about the good news of the Gospel, it often revolves around Jesus as the solution to your worldly problems. The Gospel is even more than that: it is the means by which your greatest problem, your rebellion against God is ended! Your biggest need: peace with God!

not only are we not keeping the law, we have broken it! James tells us that if we break one part of the law, we are guilty of breaking it all!

The problem: you have earned the death that were headed for. Ro. 6:23 - the wages of sin is death! This is what we have earned. What we deserve. We have earned the sentence of death at the hands of a just God.

But God loves His children. And God is also merciful. In order for any of us to be spared, there has to be a way in which God isn’t merciful at the expense of His justice, or just at the expense of His mercy. All of the attributes of God must be present in equal measure! How could this be? What could be at the intersection of God’s law and God’s justice?

2. The Death of God’s Son

while we were still weak - we couldn’t do anything about our estate. Our life was headed in a terrible direction (even if we had a pretty good life). We had no hope of reconciling our own selves to God, and not only that, we had no desire to do so! We lived under the wrath of God, and were walking in death, dead in sins, and simply waiting to die and experience even more, and even more serious death.

While we were still ungodly - we were rebels to His will, without hope and without God in this world. Even the best of us, before conversion, lived putrid, repugnant, filthy lives. Even if we were born natural rule followers, we were rebels to the will of God, following rules to achieve outcomes we thought we could get on our own!

While we were still sinners - we earned wrath and the penalty of death, and God’s wrath burned hot against us. We needed rescue. We needed change. We earned death. But even our own death would not satisfy the wrath of God. This is why hell - because sin is so serious, and the penalty so heavy, that one simple action of our own could not fully pay the penalty we deserved.

Can you imagine this? Paul gives us some perspective on this concept. Look at it this way, he says: how often would someone be willing to die for a righteous person? I mean, maybe sometimes, right? The one who keeps the law of God, who does the right things all the time - surely somewhere, someone might possibly be willing to die for that person.

Or the good person - the one who doesn’t just do the right things and follow the right rules, but is also governed and motivated by love. Surely once in a while someone might die for that person right? And we are left to think “well sure, I mean they would have a chance right?”

And now, Paul just crushes that. He essentially says “but we have already established way back in Romans 3 that there are none who are righteous, no not one, right? No one who does good, no one who seeks for God? Right, so even though someone might be willing to die for a good or righteous person, You are not those people! You’re not even close! We weren’t righteous or good; we were ungodly sinners!

When we look at it from God’s perspective, there wasn’t a thing about us that was lovable. Now, you may be saying “Scott, slow down; I’m not feeling any better about myself here!” I am incapable of scratching the surface of how depraved we all were. John Owen once commented that if we were to actually conceive of how wicked we were, we would at once go mad. Well, then we may be headed towards being able to recieve some good news. And here it is:

You are exactly the kind of person Christ died for. You either absolutely were, or absolutely are, these things - a weak, ungodly sinner, opposed to God and without hope in this world. But it was at precisely at that moment that Christ died!

So, Christ died. The list of sins we committed was placed above His head (look at Stott) This death was the ultimate -

3. The Demonstration of God’s Love

Whose love are we talking about here? The love of God! It is God’s love (the Father’s love) poured into our hearts by the Spirit. It is God’s love (the Father’s love) demonstrated by the work of the cross! The work was done by the Son, but the Son was sent by the Father! It is His divine initiative as Father that makes our salvation possible! It is His divine love for His children that makes our salvation a reality!

And so, Paul has made the distinction for us between the love of God and the love of humans. Human, love, at its best, will motivate someone to die for a good person, or a family member. But God’s love motivated Christ to die for enemies. God gains nothing from our salvation, but we gain everything. That is the love of God!

The love of God compelled Christ to die for wicked people. Jesus did not die for people in whom he detected that there would eventually be repentance. Repentance is given by God! He didn’t look forward in history and choose the people who would choose Him. He is the great, divine intiator of salvation! He died for His enemies. He died for the weak, ungodly sinners like you and me.

This is the beauty of the teaching of the book of Romans! God is both just and justifier! God’s wrath is revealed against unrighteousness, and His love is poured into the hearts of His children. There is in God both a hatred of sin and a deep and abounding eternal love for us!

When did Christ die? At the right time! Right when we had proven that humanity was totally unable to save itself. Right when the children of Israel had been in ownership of the law for 1400 years, and had perfected it to the point of putting another hedge around it! Right when they were so good at tithing mint dill and cumin that lawkeeping had become a science!

But this “at the right time” doesn’t just refer to when Christ came and died. It is also a reference for us about how, and when, He came into our lives as well!

check this out:

Christ didn’t die for the capable; He died for you, the weak. And right when you had finally gotten to the end of your own weakness, He showed you His strength, and opened your eyes and your heart to His salvation!

Christ didn’t die for the godly; He died for you, the ungodly. And right when you finally realized that all that your life revolved around was poisonous and worthy of condemnation, He spoke the truth of His grace into your hearts! Right when your idolatry was at its worst, and your heart was given over to its lusts, He came and changed everything!

Christ didn’t die for the righteous; He died for you, the sinner! And just as you were thinking that your ability to check boxes and follow rules would get you into the kingdom of heaven, only to discover that by the works of the law no man will be declared righteous, He fulfilled the law and its demands, and bore the penalty of sin that you had earned!

This is the good news of the Gospel: you aren’t nearly as bad as you think you are; you are so much worse! Paul wants us to see there was nothing in us that deserved to be rescued; all we deserved was to wallow in our weakness, our ungodliness, and our sin, only to die and face an eternity in judgment. That’s what we earned! But because of God’s love, we get life! And we have seen this, because God had demonstrated His love. And how? The Gospel!

So back to that question - “does God love me?” Even when I can’t feel His love? Even when I don’t feel lovable? Even when I feel like I’m drowning? Even when I feel like I fall short? Look to the cross and see! It isn’t until we really look to the cross and see our own sin and God’s love that we ever move towards having any assurance of our faith.

Martin Lloyd-Jones - “it is because we do not know and realize that love (of God) as we should that we are what we are. The greatest characteristic of the greatest saints in all ages has always been their realization of God’s love to them.”

“See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down

Did ere such love and sorrow meet?”

Don’t look to circumstances, look at the cross.

Don’t look at feelings, look at the cross

Don’t look at others, look at the cross

Don’t look at the world, look at the cross.

Don’t look at the gifts, look at the cross.

Look at the cross, and see God’s great love for you, His child.

What is Romans 5:6-8 telling me to do?

Remember Christ - His body broken, His blood shed

through His death, we have peace

Through His death, we have access

Through His death, we have hope

Through His death, we have joy

Through His death, we have a family and a household, and we belong as adopted sons.

Run to Christ - if you do not know Him, today submit to Him.

Benediction: Titus 3:3-7

Titus 3:3–7 ESV

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.