The apostle Paul brings out the amazing love of God, by showing us how deep the Lord had to dive to reach us, and how high he is going to take us. If you lack assurance and a sense of security, read and meditate long and hard on Romans 5:6-11.
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Rejoicing In The God Of Amazing Love!
Romans 5:6-11
Romans 5:1-11 has to do with the triumphant rejoicing of the believer. In verse 2, Paul says that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Because we have been justified and are at peace with God, and stand in grace, we rejoice in our confident expectation of sharing in the glory of God for all eternity.
In verse 3, Paul tells us that this is not all. We also rejoice in tribulations. We don’t just rejoice in heaven as our destination, but in the hot dusty roads that lead to that destination. Why in the world would a believer rejoice in tribulations? Because those tribulations produce proven character that prove to him that his faith is real, and they refine and purify his life.
But in verse 11 Paul gives us the third and highest form of rejoicing in the Christian life. There Paul says, “And not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Paul doesn’t say “through whom we have received our justification, or our salvation.” Now, both of those things are true, but when Paul says we rejoice in God, he mentions that through Him we receive our reconciliation. Now, reconciliation is essentially different from salvation or justification. Salvation and justification provide benefits from God. In salvation we receive the great benefit of being rescued from wrath. In justification we receive the great benefit of being credited as righteous. But in reconciliation, we don’t receive God’s benefits – we receive God Himself! That’s the difference! The prize is not rescue from wrath or being pronounced righteous. The benefit is that we get God! We are reconciled to Him. This is the highest of all forms of rejoicing because we are not rejoicing in the Gifts, but the Giver. We rejoice not in what He does for us, but who He is.
But what specifically is it about God that we so cherish and find so satisfying? Our text tells us it is that we rejoice in The God Of Amazing Love! Charles Wesley wrote that great hymn, And Can It Be, and in the chorus we have the words, “Amazing love! How can it be? That Thou my God should die for me?!” Charles Wesley felt amazement when he pondered the love of God. I think perhaps we don’t feel that amazement when we consider the love of God, because we hear about God’s love so much from songs and preaching that it has lost something of its splendor. We need to go deeper to understand why God’s love is so amazing, and Paul helps us with that right here.
In Ephesians 3:18-19, Paul is praying for the Ephesians that they would be able to comprehend the what is the breadth, and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. Well, that is what Paul is teaching over here in Romans 5. Paul is teaching us about the depth of God’s love in Romans 5:6-8, and the height of God’s love in Romans 5:9-10, and then wraps it up with a glorious concluding statement in verse 11.
Now, notice please the central idea of this passage. Verse 6 begins with the word “for.” That tells us that he is explaining something he has just got done mentioning in verse 5. Well, what is it? Let’s read it, “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…” Now, that tells me that what follows in verses 6-11 is a further explanation and elaboration on the love of God Paul mentioned in verse 5.
But, before we go any further, please notice the emphasis on the death of Jesus Christ in this passage. It occurs 6 times in 6 verses!
5:6 “Christ died for the ungodly”
5:7 “For one will hardly die for a righteous man”
“perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die”
5:8 “Christ died for us”
5:9 “justified by His blood”
5:10 “reconciled to God through the death of His Son”
It is obvious to me that Paul is making a point. The greatest proof and evidence of God’s love is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. God does not demonstrate His love primarily by taking away your trials, and your sufferings, and by giving you whatever you want, and making all your dreams come true! No, He demonstrates His love by sending His holy, spotless Son to a cruel, shameful, agonizing cross, to bear your sin! We have to keep that in mind. Never say to yourself, “God must not love me. If he loved me, surely He would never allow all these terrible things to happen to me.” Instead, tell yourself, “Surely God loves me! He sent Jesus Christ to an accursed tree to bear the wrath of God that should have fallen on me. Surely He loves me!”
So, what we have in this paragraph is a description of the depth and height of the amazing love of God which causes the believer to rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. The depth of God’s love answers the question, “How low did God have to stoop in order to reach us?” The height of God’s love answers the question, “How high is God going to take us?”
Now, this morning let’s come at the passage this way. Let’s first look at the depth of God’s love, and then look at the height of God’s love.
1. The Depth of God’s Love
How far did God have to stoop in order to reach us? The best way to answer that question is to look at the character and condition of those He loved.
Helpless. Romans 5:6. The Greek word means “without strength.” Picture the guy who has is doing an Ironman Triathlon. He has swam 2.4 miles, and has biked 112 miles, and is now running a marathon of 26.2 miles. After hitting the 24 mile mark, he blacks out, and collapses on the race course out of sheer exhaustion, unable to take another step. He literally has no strength left. He is truly exhausted. There is nothing left. That was our condition. We were helpless. That word tells us of our inability. What were unable or helpless to do? We were helpless to obey Him. We were able to work out a righteousness He could accept. We were helpless to appease His wrath. We were helpless to atone for our sins. We were helpless to keep God’s Law. In short we were helpless to save ourselves. Our case was helpless from a human standpoint. The idea is not that we were weak, but still able to pull this thing off. Rather, we were without strength, and it was impossible for us to save ourselves. We were like a turtle flipped upside down on its back.
Folks, there was nothing we could do to save ourselves, or remedy our lost condition. Jesus said, “No man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (Jn. 6:44). The word “can” is a word denoting ability, not permission. Jesus is not saying that no man is permitted to come. He is saying that no man is able to come unless God draws him. The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:1 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. A dead man has no ability to do anything. That was our condition. Being spiritually dead, we had no ability to perform any spiritual acts, like faith, repentance, or obedience. God did not wait for us to start helping ourselves. He died for us when we were altogether helpless. You know that old saying, “God helps those who help themselves”? Well, that is absolutely not true, at least when it comes to our salvation. If it were true, no one would ever be saved. We are by nature unregenerate. We are unable to hear the voice of Christ, see the glory of Christ, or taste the sweetness of Christ.
Ungodly. Romans 5:6. What does it mean to be “ungodly”? Literally the word means to lack any reverence for God. As the Psalmist said, “there is no fear of God before their eyes.” God is not in all their thoughts. They live as a practical atheist, as though God did not exist. To be ungodly means to be unlike God. This word “ungodly” is even more uncomplimentary than the word “helpless.” To be ungodly is to be evil, not just without strength. In fact, in Romans 1:18 Paul tells us that the “wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” So, to be ungodly, is to be under divine wrath.
If God loved us because we loved Him, He would only love us as long as we love Him, and on that condition. In that case, our salvation would depend on the faithfulness of our treacherous hearts. But if we love God, because He first loved us, as the Scripture says, then our salvation depends not on our constancy, but on the faithfulness of God’s love.
Sinners. Romans 5:8. A sinner is one who misses the mark. The mark is Gods holiness. Thus, a sinner is one who lives in sin, or who practices sin. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:3, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
The descriptions of our condition and character that Paul uses just keep going from bad to worse. He begins with “helpless” and then moves on to “ungodly” and then to “sinners.” An ungodly person is a person who is unlike God, but a sinner is a person who is doing things that are opposed to God.
Enemies. Romans 5:10. Notice the phrase “while we were …” It occurs 3 times (5:6,8,10). Here is the climax. While we were enemies. This is the height of evil. It is even worse than being called a sinner. We were God’s enemies. We were hostile to Him, and He was opposed to us. If we were God’s enemies, it means we were at war with Him. In fact, Paul tells us in Romans 1:30 that lost people are haters of God. Of course, they would never admit this. They say they love God, and they do love a God of their own imagination. But if you declare to them exactly who God really is from the Scripture, they will turn in revulsion. They will say, “That’s not my God!” That’s right. He’s not your God, but He is the true and living God. Not only were you God’s enemy, but God was your enemy. Not only were you hostile to God, but He was antagonistic to you. His holiness required Him to have wrath against all that are unholy.
So, let’s sum up what we have learned. We were helpless, but God loves those that are unable to help themselves. We were ungodly, but God loves those that are contrary to His nature. We were sinners, but God loves those who are bent on evil. We were enemies, but God loves those who are hostile toward Him. My friend, the truth is not that you had a little strength, and you had a spark of godliness, and you only sinned a little, and you were not really His enemy. That is what the world would like to believe. But it is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible tells us very clearly, that God had to dive very deep to reach us. This shows the depth of God’s love.
But to really understand the amazing love of God, we also have to understand how unearthly and shocking his love is. It is totally different from any human love. That is what Paul is telling us in verse 7 and 8. It would be a very rare person who would die for another person, and then only a good or a righteous person. We might die for a child or a spouse, because they are the objects of our love. However, you won’t find a person who volunteers to die for someone who is actively trying to destroy him.
Notice how Paul begins verse 8, “But God.” Paul is showing the stark contrast between earthly love and divine love. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us.” His own love is altogether different from ours. How so? While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were opposed to Him, hating Him, hostile to Him, demeaning Him, ignoring Him, neglecting Him, Christ died for us!
We as humans love those things we find loveable. I love pizza, baseball, banjos, my wife, my son and my daughter-in law, and my grandchildren. Why? Because I find them precious to me. We love those things that bring us delight and pleasure. Well, was that the case with us and God? Some people believe so. This is how they reason. You can determine the value of something by how much someone is willing to pay to obtain it. Since God was willing to pay an infinite price to save us in Christ’s death, then we must have been of infinite worth. They use this argument to buttress their self-worth and self-esteem. However, there is another way you can look at it. If a criminal is so evil and his crimes so heinous that the judge sets his bail at 100 million dollars, if someone goes ahead and pays his bail we don’t look at that criminal as being worthy and valuable. We see the great price that was paid not as indicating how valuable the criminal was, but how evil he was. So it is with us. The infinite price that Christ paid to redeem us doesn’t tell us how valuable we were to God, but how evil we were.
In our unregenerate condition we were not loveable. We did not bring delight or pleasure to God. We provoked His displeasure and wrath. Yet, in spite of our character and condition, God acted in love to make us His own. That is why God’s love is Amazing! It is out of this world. It is totally other than what we have ever seen or experienced in people.
OK, having seen the depth of God’s love, let’s now look at the height of God’s love.
2. The Height of God’s Love
We have already seen how deep God had to dive to reach us, but how high will God’s love take us?
First, notice the tense of the verbs in verses 9 and 10. 5:9 “having been justified”; 5:10 “we were reconciled”; 5:11 “we have received the reconciliation.” What tense are all of these verbs in? The past tense. These all speak of past completed actions.
Now notice these verbs: 5:9 “we shall be saved from the wrath of God”; 5:10 “we shall be saved by His life.” What tense are those verbs in? The future tense. So, what is the relationship between these two sets of verbs. Paul is telling us that God’s love has already acted toward us in history. God has justified and reconciled us. Now, based on what God has already done, we are confident that He will do something else for us in the future. What is that? He will save us. You say, “But Brian, I thought God already saved me. Doesn’t it say in Ephesians 2:8, “for by grace you have been saved through faith”? Yes, of course. But you need to understand that salvation in the Bible has a past, present, and future aspect to it. We were saved when we were justified. We are being saved as God sanctifies us. We will be saved when God glorifies us. When Paul talks about being saved in the future, He is referring to our future and final glorification. He’s talking about the time when Christ returns, and gathers all the nations before Him and separates them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Christ will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. He will say to His sheep, “Come you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Then He will turn to the goats and say, “Depart from me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” When Christ separates you from the goats and receives you into His eternal kingdom, He will save you from wrath. Why? Because the goats will not be spared. They will face an eternity of the wrath of God.
Also, notice the mood of the verbs. Are these verbs active or passive? “Having been justified, were reconciled; received the reconciliation; shall be saved; shall be saved”. An active verb is one in which the subject of the sentence is doing the acting. A passive verb is one in which the the subject of the sentence is being acted upon. So, are these verbs active or passive? Every single one of those verbs is passive. Now, what significance does that have? Paul is being very careful in this section of Romans to be explicitly clear that our salvation was all of God. We did not justify ourselves, save ourselves, or reconcile ourselves. God did everything when it came to our justification, salvation, and reconciliation. It was 100% God, and 0% us. We didn’t partner up with God, each doing 50/50. How could we, if we were helpless, ungodly, sinners, and enemies? This again shows the amazing love of God. God wasn’t waiting until we made the first move toward Him, before He would come through and save us. God made the first move toward us when we were unable to make a move toward Him.
Finally, notice Paul’s argument. Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser. He is basically saying, “If God did the more difficult thing, much more can we count on Him to do the easier thing.” If Christ paid the ultimate price for us when we were ungodly, sinners, and enemies, don’t you know that of course He will do what is necessary to bring you into the final state of salvation? When Paul says “much more” he means “much more certainly”, not “much more abundantly”. Look at what condition we were in when Christ died for us: helpless, ungodly, sinners, enemies. It was then that God did the hardest thing – sent His only begotten Son to bear His holy wrath against sin. So, if God could do the hardest thing imaginable when we were unlovely and unloveable, rebellious, and hating Him, we can be absolutely sure that He will do the easy thing now that we love Him and are His beloved children! Since God has done so much, He can be trusted to put the finishing touches on His work. The past guarantees the future. The Puritan, John Trapp, put it this way, “It is a greater work of God to bring men to grace, than, being in the state of grace, to bring them to glory; because sin is far more distant from grace than grace is from glory.”
What does Paul mean by “shall be saved by His life”? Paul is contrasting the death of Christ with the resurrection life of Christ. He is saying that Christ reconciled us by His death. Therefore, we know that He will keep us saved and bring us to our eternal inheritance by His life. “His life” refers to His resurrection life at the right hand of God where Christ intercedes for us. Jesus’ intercession for us guarantees that God will bring us through any obstacle or difficulty to heaven. Remember Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17? It is an example of his high priestly prayers for us today. In that prayer, He repeatedly prayed that the Father would “keep” us.
Conclusion
So, what does all of this mean for us?
First, meditate on the truth of God’s amazing love towards you! I’m not talking about a mushy sentimental love of God. I’m not talking about a wishy-washy love of God. I’m not talking about a love of God exercised towards us because we were so darn loveable. I’m talking about this amazing love of God, the holy one exercised towards the undeserving at infinite cost! Think on this. Let it grip your soul!
Let the truth of God’s amazing love assure you of your eternal security! That is what Paul is seeking to do in this passage. That’s what the 2 “Much More” statements are about. This whole paragraph is an explanation of why our hope doesn’t disappoint. It is because God has exercised His amazing love toward us, and we are certain that this love will carry us through to the very end.
Let the truth of God’s amazing love cause you to greatly rejoice! That is what it means to exult. This God of covenant love has reconciled you to Himself. You get God! The greatest promise in all the Bible is, “I will be their God, and they shall be My people!” It doesn’t matter what you suffer in life. If God is your God, that is enough. He is for you and not against you. He will bring you safely home to spend eternity with Him. Rejoice! Rejoice!
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