Romans 5.8-God the Father Proves His Love For Us By the Fact that Christ Died For Us While We Were His Enemies
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday April 3, 2008
Romans: Romans 5:8-God the Father Proves His Love For Us By the Fact that Christ Died For Us While We Were His Enemies
Lesson # 150
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 5:1.
This evening we will study Romans 5:8 in which Paul teaches that God the Father proved His own love for us by the fact that while we were His enemies, He sent His Son to the Cross to die a spiritual death as our substitute.
Romans 5:1-8, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“But” is the “adversative” use of the conjunction de (deV) (deh), which introduces a statement that presents a contrast with the statement that appears in Romans 5:7.
In Romans 5:7, Paul is presenting two types of human beings that one fellow human being would be willing to die for as a substitute.
The first is a righteous person meaning one who is a law abiding citizen, who does what he is obligated to do and gives every one his due and implies an innocent man who commands the respect of his fellow man.
In this instance, Paul says that it is unlikely anyone would die as a substitute for the benefit of this type of person.
The second is a good person meaning a person who is generous, helpful, considerate and sympathetic towards his fellow human being.
This type of person causes those who have benefited from his gracious actions to have personal love and affection for him.
In this case, Paul says that it is possible that someone might have the sufficient courage to voluntarily die as a substitute for this person.
To die for either type of person would be the highest and noblest expression of human love and devotion.
However, no one would die for one’s enemies, which is exactly what Christ did on the Cross.
Therefore, in Romans 5:6-8, Paul is saying that God’s love as manifested in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross is totally unprecedented and unparalleled in human history.
There was nothing attractive about sinful humanity in the eyes of a holy God since no member of the human race merited being loved by God whose standards are perfect.
In Romans 5:8, the apostle Paul teaches that God the Father demonstrated His own unique love in that He sent His beloved Son Jesus Christ to die spiritually as a substitute for sinners who were antagonistic and obnoxious to Him.
Therefore, the conjunction de introduces a statement that presents the contrast between human love and God’s love illustrating that the former is inferior to the latter.
Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“God” is the noun theos (qeov$), which refers to the first member of the Trinity, God the Father since in context, Romans 5:1-2 and 9-11 teach that the Lord Jesus Christ is the member of the Trinity who is the mediator between sinful man and a holy God since He reconciled sinful man to a holy God by means of His spiritual death on the Cross.
So in Romans 5:8, “God” is the noun theos (qeov$), which refers to God the Father since He and not the Holy Spirit sent the Son into the world to become a human being in order to die a spiritual death as the propitiation for the sins of the entire world.
“Demonstrates” is the verb sunistemi (sunivsthmi) (soon-is-tay-mee), which means, “to prove, to prove by presenting evidence,” thus the English verb that accurately reflects the meaning of the verb sunistemi would be “prove.”
To “prove” means, “to establish the truth or genuineness of, as by evidence or argument, to give demonstration of by action.”
Therefore, if we paraphrase, this definition, we would say that the self-sacrificial, substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross “proved” God’s love for the Christian in that the Father sent His Son to die on the Cross while the Christian was still an enemy of God due to sin.
Our Lord’s spiritual death proved God’s love for sinful mankind “established the truth of” God’s love in that it provided “evidence” that God does in fact love sinners.
His death “demonstrated” that God loves sinners.
Therefore, we can see that God loves from His own nature as evidenced by the fact that sinful mankind did not merit His love since they were by nature and practice sinners and under His righteous indignation.
Also, God’s love acts and is not simply an abstract concept.
God’s love acts on behalf of His enemies and not simply on behalf of those who are pleasing to Him.
Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“His own” is the reflexive personal pronoun heautou (e(autou) (heh-ow-too), which emphasizes God the Father acting upon Himself in that He proves the unique character and incomparable of His love by sending His Son to die on the Cross for sinners.
“Love” is the noun agape (a)gavph), which refers to God’s attribute of love.
1 John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
The greatest demonstration of God’s love was at the Cross when He sacrificed His Son for the sake of sinful mankind.
John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
1 John 4:9-10, “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
All of sinful humanity are the objects of God’s “impersonal” love and all believers are the objects of His “personal” love.
“Impersonal” means that God’s love does not need an attractive object.
God’s love is able to love the obnoxious and those who are His enemies even to the point of self-sacrifice.
“Personal” love means that believers are attractive to God since they have His holiness, the new Christ nature indwelling them.
All church age believers are the objects of God’s love and the beneficiaries of this love.
We are objects of God’s eternal love, which He manifested to us when He sent His Son into the world to die for ours sins so that we might live with Him for eternity.
The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is the object of the immutable eternal unconditional self-sacrificial love of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
The Greek adjective agapetos (a)gaphtov$), “beloved” expresses this fact.
Before salvation, the believer was the object of God’s “impersonal” love meaning that he was obnoxious and unattractive to God since he was enslaved to the cosmic system of Satan and his old Adamic sin nature and under real spiritual death.
At salvation, the believer became the object of God’s “personal” love meaning that the believer is attractive to God since God imputed His righteousness to the believer at the moment he exercised faith alone in Christ alone and is now a child of God and a partaker of the divine nature.
1 John 3:1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.”
The fact that we are beneficiaries of God’s divine-love before salvation and objects of His personal love after salvation will serve to encourage us when we go through adversity in life and also serves to challenge us to advance to maturity and execute the plan of God (See Romans 5:1-5).
Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“Towards us” refers to the fact that Paul and his fellow Christians and all Christians were “benefited” by the demonstration of God’s love through the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross since it is the basis for their justification.
“In that” is the conjunction hoti (o^ti) (hot-ee), which is employed with the indicative mood of the verb apothnesko.
The word introduces an epexegetical clause that “explains how” God the Father proved His own divine-love for the benefit of all of us, namely, “by the fact that” while we were still sinners, Christ died as a substitute for the benefit of all of us.
“While we were yet sinners” means that “at the same time” Paul and his fellow Christians were still in the state of being enslaved to the sin nature and under real spiritual death, Christ died for them as a substitute.
“Sinners” is the adjective hamartolos (a(martwlov$) (ham-ar-tol-os), which is used to describe Paul and his fellow Christians prior to being justified by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as missing the mark of the absolute perfection of God’s character, which is His holiness.
Since the unregenerate person does not measure up to the perfect standards of a holy God, he is an enemy of God.
Therefore, Paul is saying with this adjective that while Paul and his fellow Christian readers were still enemies of God, Christ died for them as a substitute.
Hamartolos describes the unregenerate person as being enslaved and thus totally and completely governed by the old Adamic sin nature, which results in real spiritual death.
This means that they have no capacity whatsoever to have a relationship and fellowship with a holy God.
Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
“Christ” is the proper name Christos (xristov$), which is a technical word designating the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the promised Savior for all mankind who is unique as the incarnate Son of God and totally and completely guided and empowered by the Spirit as the Servant of the Father.
“Died” is the verb apothnesko (a)poqnhv|skw) (ap-oth-nace-ko), which is used of the unique voluntary substitutionary spiritual death of the impeccable humanity of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union.
“For us” is composed of the preposition huper (u(peVr) (hoop-er), “for” and the first person plural form of the personal pronoun hemeis (h(mei$) (hay-mice), “us.”
The personal pronoun hemeis refers to Paul and his fellow Christians.
The preposition huper is used with the genitive form of the adjective hemeis, “us” and functions not only as a marker of participants who are benefited by an event but also as a marker of substitution.
Therefore, huper with the genitive form of hemeis not only marks unregenerate, sinful humanity as “benefited” by the spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the Cross but also it denotes Jesus Christ died as their “substitute” as well.
Thus, huper with the genitive form of hemeis denotes that Jesus Christ’s spiritual death on the Cross was not only “for” us but also He died “in our place.”
He was separated from His Father during the last three hours of darkness on the Cross so that we might never be separated from God for all of eternity.
John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for (huper) the sheep.”
2 Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf (huper), so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”