Romans 5:6-8
In these verses the apostle Paul is setting forth the uniqueness of the love of God in Christ to us. Paul contrasts the love of God with the love of man for another man. God’s love for his own is completely different from any manifestation of love among mere men.
“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die.” It is possible, and at times even happens, that a man will die for another man who is accounted righteous. By “righteous” is meant free from guilt before the state or civil government. Under consideration is not the subject of being righteous before God. A man is not worthy of death being without guilt for he kept the law of the land. Now, Paul says, only very rarely will one with great difficulty be willing to die for this man who is just. Paul certainly accurately depicts our experience. Not many would be willing to die for a man who happens to be merely free of guilt yet is condemned.
“Yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” Paul takes up a second comparison to the love of God. What is meant by a “good man?” This man is not merely innocent of any wrong doing but he is a loving, kind, and honorable man. This is the man we admire and like very much. With respect to this good man some people would without hesitation be willing to die for him. There have been men who with courage died for another who in their estimation was a good man. This act of “love” is commendable and honorable. Men stand in stunned admiration before such a spectacle.
By these two examples Paul has set forth the “kind of love” to be found among men. He does not applaud nor condemn. He just states the facts. When men die for others, they do so because they find some worthiness in the person for whom they died. He is either just or good.
In verse eight Paul turns to the second element of this comparison….”But God”. In contrast to the actions of all men of all ages there is the one historical act of God. God has revealed His love. A unique kind of love is God’s.
What has God in love done? The Son of God in our flesh died for the ungodly. God loved those who hated him. God in love sent the Christ, his only begotten Son in our flesh, to atone for our sin and guilt. This love comes to concrete, visible expression. Christ died for sinners. Paul is teaching here by implication of course the eternal divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; for only if Jesus be God eternally can God’s love be commended to us by Jesus’ death.
Christ died for the ungodly. For when we were without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Of such a kind is the love of God in Christ. God’s love finds no corresponding love in the actions of mere men. A man will die for a good man; but no one loves his enemies and will die for them. This alone is the activity of God. God in Christ loved the ungodly, his enemies, and died for them.
We should note here that Paul uses several terms to describe the spiritual ethical condition and activity of those for whom Christ died. Paul is not discussing at this point whether Christ died for all or only some, the elect. In these verses Paul is simply stating the uniqueness of the love of God. Four different terms are used to express the spiritual character and activity of those for whom Christ died. First, they are those who were “without strength.” (verse 6) That is without any power or ability to do or even to will the good or be well pleasing unto God. The Heidelberg Catechism takes this up with the confession that the fallen sinner is wholly incapable of any good and inclined toward all evil. Secondly, Paul describes them as ungodly. The term “ungodly” emphasizes the rebellious and haughty activity of the depraved sinner as is plain from Jude 14-16: Enoch prophesied against the ungodly of his day saying, “Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” Thirdly, Paul says that they for whom Christ died were “sinners” This is probably the most common term in the new testament to describe from an ethical viewpoint the being and activity of man. He is a sinner. That is he deliberately refuses to live to God’s glory even though he knows it to be his calling. But refusing to serve God the sinner seeks self ultimately. Man sees himself as the worthy object of all praise and his own well-being as the highest good. He is a sinner. In verse ten Paul writes that those for whom Christ died were God’s “enemies.” Hatred toward God filled our breasts. All four of these terms view the fallen sinner from different perspectives. But the emphasis undoubtedly is placed upon the willful rebelliousness and animosity of the sinner fallen in Adam. Spiritually fallen mankind bears the image of the Devil. The sinner is God’s adversary. Such we were.
God commandeth His love to us! He makes us to know the character and depth of his love towards us through the historical, visible event of the suffering and death of Christ Jesus. In love Christ took all our sin and guilt upon himself, he stood in our stead, and emptied the cup of God’s wrath against all our sin. Christ died for the ungodly. In the midst of our hatred, our rebellion, our depravity…God revealed his love for us in Christ Jesus. This historical event, the death of the Son of God, is centrally the manifestation of the love of God. All other manifestations of God’s love have their legal ground and center in the cross.
The ungodly who by God’s grace according to his purpose of election believe in Christ crucified have the assurance that they are justified. Before the Judge of heaven and earth they stand…possessing all peace in His presence. They have been justified through faith in Christ Jesus, who died for the ungodly. All who are justified in Christ’s blood learn to confess “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.’’
I would like to point out that only the Reformed faith truly honors the uniqueness of the love of God. Pelagianism and Arminianism or so called free-willism, principally deny the uniqueness of the love of God. Free-willism’s sinner, historically, is basically good and not totally depraved. Arminianism’s sinner is one who wills the good but only does the evil.
We know that when the Arminian speaks of the free will of the fallen sinner he is addressing the question of the possibility of the natural man to believe and accept the salvation God allegedly offers him in the preaching of the gospel. The Arminian claims that only by maintaining that man by nature has a free will unto the good is it possible to maintain the truth of human responsibility.
There are good answers to all these arguments of the Arminians but that is not our point now. We only want to point out that by denying total depravity of the fallen sinners one alters the spiritual ethical character of the ones for whom Christ died and thereby alters the uniqueness of God’s love. Serious business. By this heresy of free-willism all Pelagians of any and all stripes minimize if not deny the uniqueness of the love of God. This touches upon the very heart of the gospel… the love of God. Oh, the Arminian can prattle on and on about God’s love but, when their theology is analyzed, the kind of people that Christ died to save are people who by nature will the good, who will not to do the evil, who do much good, who are only spiritually sick and are not dead in sins and trespasses. Plainly, Arminianism’s sinner does not hate God with the whole of his being nor are they consciously and deliberately His enemies, for Arminianism depicts the fallen man as one who is groping in darkness to find God. The pagan basically wanted to serve the true God but because of the darkness of sin he cannot find The Light.
All this stands condemned by Paul when he declares that Christ died for the ungodly…for God’s enemies.
Once again, only the Reformed faith faithfully maintains the true character of the love of God. We were his enemies. We hated the Holy and Just One; but He loved all the elect in Christ, who of God was sent to die for God’s enemies in order that the infinite depths of God’s love may be revealed.
This unique love of God the Holy Spirit hath “shed abroad in our hearts.” (verse 5) Hence, we know and believe that God is love. We know and believe that, because our God loved us unto death even when we were his enemies, our hope of glory shall never prove unfounded. ‘‘Hope maketh not ashamed.” “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”