Romans 5:5-8 LOVE Demonstrated Container of His Love v. 5 . because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Gk ekcheo to pour out or distribute largely- an abundant expansion of God’s love in our hearts-like an overflowing stream in a thirst land (Vaughn) It is in the perfect tense which means it a complete state Acts 10:45 The reason or proof that hope can never disappoint or put to shame is founded in our experience of the unfailing love of God that has been poured out or lavished upon our heart by the Holy Spirit. It is through the indwelling Holy Spirit that God’s love for us has been brought home to our hearts and realized in us. (Vaughn) God loved us so much that he sent his Holy Spirit to live within us. And he loved us when we were enemies. And he loved us when we were ungodly and he loved us so much that he didn't just barely let us into the kingdom, he didn't just say well you can come in but you're going to have to stay in your place. He didn't keep us at arm's length. He loved us so much he literally took residence in our lives. We are the object of God's love by the virtue of the fact that he set his Holy Spirit to live within us. (MacArthur) 1 John 3:16a. It speaks of God's love not our love for God but God's love for us. It speaks of a personal, intimate love, which God bestows on us. More than just bestowing it as if it were some de facto statement by God, it says in verse 5 that he pours it out within our hearts. He literally fills us with this love. It is this love of God that anchors us to him forever. It is this undying love, this unchanging love. (MacArthur) . . . the Holy Spirit is compared to a gushing, rushing, flooding river. God's love is not sort of rained on us one drop at a time, it is not rationed out to us. It gushes. It is poured out lavishly, copiously, and generously. God pours out his love in our hearts, and God demonstrates his love by directing our minds to consider the death of his Son. (Piper)
Condition that compels love
Depraved Condition 6 For while we were still weak . . . the ungodly, 8 while we were still sinners. . . . he died for the ungodly, not the godly. In these 5 verses, Paul tells us that man's condition can be summed up by four descriptive terms: Without strength, v. 6, ungodly, v. 6, sinner, v. 8, enemies, v. 10. These four terms describe the condition of all men who are lost in sin. This is God's portrait of humanity apart from Him (Carr) Christ did not shed his blood for us as saints, but as sinners. (Spurgeon)
Weakness of Man v. 6 "still weak –without strength" - "powerless". People who are utterly helpless with no means of escape." the lost sinner stands before God with absolutely no ability to change what he is. We are powerless to escape sin, to escape death, to resist the devil, to please God in any way. The whole essence of this statement is that man is unable to change his sinful nature by his own effort. He is totally without strength and weakened by his sins. (Carr)
Wickedness of Man v. 6 "ungodly" - those "without reverence for or fear of God." It literally means to "live your life as if God did not exist." Because we are helpless to change our sinful nature, we live our lives as we please without regard for God, or for His Law and will. (Carr)
Waywardness of Man. v. 8 "still sinners" – Gk devoted to sin -from the word hamartano -"to miss the mark." It carries the idea of an archer aiming at a bulls eye to the best of his ability, shooting his arrow and then missing the whole target.
It pictures man as he tries and fails his way through life. No matter how good man tries to be, he can never be good enough. Though he may aim high, and set high standards, still he always falls short of God's standard. Man always misses the mark. (Carr )
Warring of Man v. 10 - "Enemies" – Gk echthros literally to hate- hostile, hating, and opposing another used of men as at enmity with God by their sin They are opposed to God and enemies of God. “It was the love of God for sinners, for enemies, for the ungodly . . . Christ died for the ungodly while we were still helpless, while we had no strength, while were impotent, while were powerless, while we were totally unable to free ourselves from sin from its power, from its presence, from its wages, while we were under the control of Satan, while we were headed for hell, while we had no power over death, while we were paralyzed by the fall, paralyzed by the affects of Adam sin, we had no moral ability to do what pleased God, while we were the enemies of God himself, hostile to God. While we were still without strength, impotent, powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (Mac Arthur) . . . if God loved the pure, if God loved the good, if God loved the godly. He'd be fairly lonely because it would just be him if God could be lonely . . . But the mystery of divine love and the mystery of the gospel and the mystery of justification is that God loves the ungodly. God loves those who are opposite everything about him. (Mac Arthur). Charles Hodge said "If he loved us because we loved him, he would love us only as long as we loved him and on that condition. And then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts. But as God loved us as sinners, as Christ died for us as ungodly, our salvation depends not on our loveliness but on the constancy of the love of God." Rom 8:7- While we were hostile toward his character, hostile toward his law, hostile toward his plans, hostile toward his will, while we were children of wrath, while we did the bidding of Satan and the flesh, while we honestly could only bring God disgust and anger and wrath, while we were the ungodly, Christ died for us. . . . the mystery of divine love is that He loved the folks that were opposite of all of that. God doesn't love you because you're so lovely. God didn't look down on us and say - Oh, they're irresistible. There was nothing in us to attract Him to love us in the first place, what could there be in us to make Him stop loving is in the second place? Couldn't be anything. You see the point he's making? I mean, if Christ died for us when we were ungodly, impotent, ugly sinners and God could love us then, is it going to be any problem for Him to love us now? (Hodge)
Chronology that brought love 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly -Christ came at exactly the right time. He died at exactly the right moment to provide himself as the Passover lamb. God put the plan in motion. Christ was crucified by the Romans who executed him, the Jews screamed for his blood, but he was really crucified by the determinant council and foreknowledge of God, He planned it all. He planned it all. Acts 2:23, 3:18, 4:27-28 Gal 4:4 the perfect time? 1) Spiritual Apathy 2) Roman Occupation, 3) Jewish Dispersion, 4) Greek Language
Character of His Love
Differentiating -7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- If you ever question whether God loves, you shouldn't question it after understanding this. He loved us when we were helpless, ungodly enemies. How great was his love? The vast magnanimous reality of this is really overwhelming. What condescending love! What pardoning grace! What astonishing truth! I mean people won't even die for good people, let alone giving up their life for wicked ones. Who would do that?. But . . Here is the incredible magnitude of God’s love for us in the death of Christ. Someone might die for a good person or a good friend, but who would die for or in behalf of their enemy? Yet Christ did just that, He died for those who were opposed and contrary to him.
Demonstrated Love 8 God shows his love for us Gk sunistao to show, prove, establish, exhibit to put together, unite parts into one whole, He proved the nature of His love, the level of His love, the zenith of His love because while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. When we were undesirable and worthless and helpless and impotent and enemies and hostile and haters of God and haters of Christ and rejecters of truth and proud and self-willed and the best that could be said about us is our righteousness is filthy rags and our heart is desperately wicked full of deceit, now listen to this. If God loves us enough to save us when we are ungodly, wicked sinners, will he not love us enough to bring us to glory now that we are his sons? That's Paul's point here (MacArthur) God's commendation of himself and of his love is not in words, but in deeds. When the Almighty God would commend his love to poor man, it is not written, "God showed his love towards us in an eloquent oration"; it is not written that he showed his love by winning professions; but he showed his love toward us by an act, by a deed; a surprising deed, the unutterable grace of which eternity itself shall scarce discover. He "showed his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Spurgeon) "Christ died for us." That's past. That's history. That is fixed, objective, unchanging. How natural it would have been, then, for Paul to write: In this historical act, God "demonstrated his own love toward us." But that is not what he wrote. He wrote, "God demonstrates his own love toward us." Present tense. Ongoing action. God demonstrates his love today. He commends his love today through the past, historical, objective fact of the death of his Son for us. Now tie that in with the outpouring of God's love through the Spirit in verse 5. Do you see the connection? This is why the experience of God's love has factual, objective content. It is communicated, through objective truth about the death of Christ. You don't get the experience by emptying your head. You get it in seeing the demonstration - by seeing the glory of the love of God in the real historical work of Christ. (Piper)
Declared Christ died for us- Literally it says He died in behalf of the ungodly, or instead of the ungodly, or for the sake of the ungodly, however you want to translate Gk huper, So, He died instead of the ungodly, in behalf of... Reflect again, When we were sinners, we were sinners against the very person who died for us. "Tis strange, 'tis passing strange, 'tis wonderful," that the very Christ against whom we have sinned died for us. He had been injured, yet he suffers for the very injury that others did to him. He dies for his enemies—dies for the men that hate and scorn him It was much love when Christ became man for us, when he stripped himself of the glories of his Godhead for a while, to become an infant . . . It was no little condescension when he divested himself of all his glories, hung his mantle on the sky, gave up his diadem and the pleasures of his throne, and stooped to become flesh. It was moreover, no small love when he lived a holy and a suffering life for us; it was love amazing, when God with feet of flesh did tread the earth, and teach his own creatures how to live, all the while bearing their scoffs and jests with cool endurance. It was no little favor of him that he should condescend to give us a perfect example by his spotless life; but the commendation of love lived here—not that Christ lived for us, but that Christ died for us. . . . Consider the circumstances which attended his death. It was no common death he died; it was a death of ignominy, for he was put to death by a legal slaughter; it was a death of unutterable pain, for he was crucified; and what more painful fate than to die nailed to a cross? It was a long protracted death, for he hung for hours, with only his hands and his feet pierced—parts which are far away from the seat of life, but in which are situated the most tender nerves, full of sensibility. He suffered a death which for its circumstances still remains unparalleled. It was no speedy blow which crushed the life out of the body, and ended it; but it was a lingering, long, and doleful death, attended with no comforts and no sympathy, but surrounded with scorn and contempt. Picture him! They have hurled him on his back; they have driven nails through his hands and his feet; they have lifted him up. See! They have dashed the cross into its place. It is fixed. And now behold him! Mark his eyes, all full of tears; behold his head, hanging on his breast. Ah! mark him, he seems all silently to say, "I am poured out like water; . . . I am brought into the dust of death." Hear him, when he groans, "I thirst." Above all, listen to him, whilst he cries, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God My God why have you forsaken me? (Spurgeon)
Bethink you, that if you are saved, it is something to you, for the blood which trickles from his hands, distils for you. That frame which writhes in torture writhes for you; those knees, so weak with pain, are weak for you; those eyes, dripping with showers of tears, do drop for you. Ah! think of him, then, ye who have faith in him; look to him, . . . that ye may now behold him as the expiation of your guilt; as the key which opens heaven to all believers. (Spurgeon)
If God gave the greatest gift His love could give which is His Son to save us, and then gave the greatest gift He could give, His Spirit to fill our hearts with love, will He not do less to keep us? His love hasn't changed. He loved us when we were wretched. He still does.
When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died My Richest gain
I count but loss And pour contempt on all my pride See from His head His hands His
feet Sorrow and love flow mingled down Did e'er such love and sorrow meet Or thorns
compose so rich a crown Oh the wonderful cross Bids me come and die and find That
I may truly live Oh the wonderful cross All who gather here by grace Draw near and
bless your name Were the whole realm of nature mine That were an off'ring far too
small Love so amazing so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all And the beauty and
the shame In the glory of His name Oh the wonderful cross
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