WWUTT 1227 While We Were Stil Sinners Christ Died for Us? (Romans 5:8-9)

The Love of God Revealed at the Cross

Romans 5 .8 says God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You wanna know the love of God? Look at the cross when we understand the text.

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Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

Romans 5:6-11 and the Timing of Christ's Death

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Romans 5. I'm gonna begin reading in verse six and read through to verse 11 as we start off. The apostle Paul wrote to the church that was in Rome. 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. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

So as I mentioned to you yesterday, the parts that we're seeing here in this first half of Romans 5 is that through Christ we have received justification. That was back in verse one. Through Christ, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

More than this, but we even rejoice in our sufferings. We even have hope poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. All of this given to us by God. And then we get to another part here in verse six, while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Now I talked about this yesterday as being kind of in the fullness of time. God brought to fruition what he had intended ever since he said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 .15, or rather correction to that, ever since God said to the serpent in the curse that was put upon the serpent, and this is Genesis 3 .15.

He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and the woman's offspring. He will bruise your head, you will strike his heel. And that was in reference to Christ. It's what we refer to as the Proto-Evangelion because it is the first gospel, which is what that word means.

It is the first mention of the gospel where God promises that one would come to deliver from the curse. And so Jesus being the fulfillment of that, we have in verse six, while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

So I had mentioned that yesterday in terms of God fulfilling what it was that he had promised. But there's another way that we could understand this as well. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly could also be understood in this sense.

At the right time, you came to a knowledge of your sin and need for a savior and the gospel was given for you. And in that moment, when you heard that gospel, you realized that Christ had died for your sins.

And by faith in Jesus, you are forgiven. All of these wonderful blessings of God's grace have been poured out upon you by faith. And in that moment, when you heard the gospel and you believed it, it's as if in that moment, Christ died for you.

Yes, he died on a cross 2000 years ago, but it was in the moment that you heard the gospel that you are looking at Christ on a cross for your sins. And it is there at the foot of the cross, like pilgrim in pilgrim's progress.

Your bag came off, rolled down the hill into the tomb and was gone. And Christ is not on that cross. He has risen from the dead. And so you likewise risen with Christ, you are risen again to new life.

And you demonstrated this in baptism. When you were baptized, you showed that you are buried with Christ in your sins and you have been risen again to new life. So in that moment, at the right time, Christ died for you.

You came to a knowledge and an understanding of your sin, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. And there is a time in which God has appointed for those who are his elect to come to a knowledge of this, of the gospel of Christ.

And it's at the right time. There was something that God put you through. There was someone that God put in your life to preach the gospel to you. And then you realized your sin, your rebellion against God and need for a savior.

And Christ is that savior who was preached to you at the right time, Christ saved you. Now for all of us, that time is gonna be different. The day that you became a Christian is different than your brother or sister became a Christian.

Your flesh and blood brother or sister, if you have other siblings that are Christians, when they became a Christian was different than when you became a Christian. The friends that you have in church, they all have different testimonies, right?

The preachers that you enjoy listening to online, maybe you've heard them share a testimony and they all have different stories about how they were walking in sin. The word of God convicted their hearts, the gospel of Christ transformed them.

They've all got different stories about that, but it's always God's perfect timing where he brings a sinner to salvation. And what I pray as a parent is that that would happen for my children sooner rather than later.

I would pray that the right time for them is gonna be early. It's not gonna be late, that they're not gonna have to go through some really, really hard life and stupid life decisions where they're having to suffer the consequences of these sinful choices that they have made before finally the light comes on and they understand all the things that mom and dad taught me when I was growing up.

Now I see the truth. Now I see my sin. Now I see my need for a savior. But I hope that the reality of that comes earlier, that God would be gracious to them and would not have to put them through some really, really difficult, hard life decisions that they might have to suffer the consequences of for a long time.

Becky and I both have things in our past that we wish we didn't have to carry with us. Now we know God's grace, where sin increase, grace increase all the more. So we know God's grace upon us. The ridiculous decisions that we made just shows to us all the more how gracious God is.

But there's still regret that we even made those choices. We wish we hadn't. We wish we would not have to suffer the consequences for those wrong decisions. Now God has redeemed those decisions and he's brought great things out of the sinful choices that we made.

So, you know, Joseph saying to his brothers in Genesis 50 verse 20, you intended it for evil, but God meant it for good. So we've done some awful things that have actually turned out to be some wonderful, great rewards.

The ends don't justify the means, but it's still, you know, to our praise, to God's praise for us to praise God. That's probably the better way to word it. For us to praise God to see how he had taken our sinful decisions and had used them for his glory, for our joy and for his glory indeed.

But our request would still be for our children that they would come to a knowledge of sin and righteousness, of law and gospel, of rebellion and worship. We hope that they would come to a knowledge of these things earlier in life.

So they don't have to go through the hard life choices before they finally come to understand the truth that God in his grace would make the right time for our children early. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

At the right time, they're going to come to a saving knowledge of God as it is in his will to bring them to that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It's going to be perfect no matter what. It will be in God's perfect timing that he brings all of these things together by the counsel of his will to the praise of his glorious grace.

But I'm just saying that as a father, I would love to see that for my children earlier rather than later. So there's another way that we may understand that statement there, that at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

And then we have verse eight, which I mentioned this yesterday. We come back again to it today. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now, the apostle Paul was alive at the time that Jesus was crucified.

He wasn't there and saw Christ crucified, but he was alive at that time. And so when Paul says this, God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Well, that would make sense in Paul's day because he was sinning at the time Christ was crucified.

So while he was a sinner, Christ died for him. That makes sense for Paul, but this still applies to us now. And you know that. You've probably quoted this verse before to yourself or you've mentioned it to a friend, Romans 5, 8.

It's a very common, popular verse. You probably memorize it very young if you've been in church for most of your life. God shows his love for us, even us today, even 2 ,000 years later, he shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Well, yeah, I mean, we were sinners, but Christ died 2 ,000 years ago. So it's not while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Well, the we, the collective we there is talking about mankind. It's talking about from man, those whom God would redeem, his elect, those who would be the remnant that he would call out from the world to himself.

We were all still sinners. All of his elect were in sin at the time that Christ died. So even then, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And yet even now, we were in sin. We were gonna be born into sin, into the sin of Adam.

That was still gonna happen, even though Christ had already died. Jesus died 2 ,000 years ago. If you're a follower of Jesus, you're elect. And yet you were gonna be born into sin and walk in sin before you heard the gospel and repented of your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ.

And so it still could be said of you that God has shown his love for you, that while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. Even before you were born, in which you were gonna be in sin when you were born, Christ died for you.

God showed his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Going back to Romans 3, beginning in verse 23, there is no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The moment that you came to faith in Christ, it was at the present time that God demonstrated his righteousness to you. You didn't know God's righteousness before you came to faith, but once you had faith, then you were able to see and understand the difference between your sin and the righteousness of God, that you are unholy, that you are worthy of death and judgment, but it is by faith in Christ that you see the righteousness of God and in light of his righteousness and holiness, you see that you're not righteous, you are not holy and you need a savior and by faith in Jesus, the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to you so that the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

So that was verses 21 and 22. This was to show God's righteousness at the present time and the verse right before that, in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. In God's grace toward you, he looked past the fact that you were gonna be born in sin and he looked to the day that he was gonna redeem you and make you his child by faith in Jesus Christ and this is what Paul means when he says later on in Romans 8, that God foreknew us.

It's in Romans 8, 28, where we read that oh so famous verse. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose and then verse 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of the son.

So God knew you before you were born and when we read about God knowing us, there's an intimacy that's being communicated there. He knew about us, he knew us. He had placed his affections on us before we were born so that we would come to faith and salvation in Jesus Christ all of this having been foreordained by the love that God had placed upon us before we knew him, he knew us.

So in his divine forbearance, he passes over former sins. There is of course some Passover language going on there, Exodus language, like the Passover or the angel of death passing over the doors with the blood on the doorposts over the door and on the sides of the door.

The angel of death passed over and the firstborn in that household was not touched. So we have that kind of language here too, God in his divine forbearance passed over former sins but you also consider this in the sense that he's looking past those sins.

To the redeemed person that we are going to be by faith in Christ and even more than that, God sees the glorified person that we are going to be when we join him forever in glory. In 1 Corinthians 13, it says, now we see as though through a glass darkly but soon we shall see face to face and then we will know just as we are fully known.

God fully knows us. Here in this moment who we are but even who we are going to be when we reach our glorified state in heaven forever with him. And God has placed his affections on us to bring this about.

It's in his love that he's brought us to justification, that he's growing us currently in sanctification and it's in love that he will ultimately bring us to glorification. When we are glorified with the son joining God forever in his heavenly kingdom.

So God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, he did not pour out his wrath upon us. He did not just kick us into judgment though that is certainly what we deserved and he would have been completely justified in doing so but in his love for us, we had sinned against him, we had rebelled against God, what we deserved was eternal judgment and yet Christ died for us, he gave his son for us.

Jesus having to die in our place, taking our sins upon himself, atoning for us as a propitiation so that all who believe in him will not perish but we have the righteousness of Christ. Since therefore Paul goes on to say in verse nine, since we have now been justified by his blood by the giving of his life, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Now there's, Paul is mentioning our present state and the assurance that we have of our future. So since therefore now in faith, having believed in Christ, once again, Romans 5 .1, we have been justified by faith and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So in faith, we're currently justified by his blood, by the giving of Christ's life, much more shall we be saved by him. We shall be saved by Jesus from the wrath of God, much more on the day of judgment when God's wrath is poured out on the ungodly, we will be saved.

So Paul is giving a word of assurance here. You're justified in this moment. The good news of this is even greater than the fact that you are saved now. It even means that on the day of judgment, you are gonna be standing with God.

You will not be standing against God. You will not be under the wrath of God. You are in his love. So much more than even this moment in that you are justified on that day, you will be glorified. So that's the word that Paul is sharing there in that sense.

We've been saved by his blood, much more, we will be saved by the wrath of God. Like furthermore, it's kind of like saying that. Remember that the first time the wrath of God was mentioned was back in Romans 1 .18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

And then you get to Romans 5 .9, since therefore we have been justified by his blood, much more, we shall be saved by him from the wrath of God. That wrath that is gonna be poured out on all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, we have a borrowed righteousness that has redeemed us and justified us in the presence of God.

And then this divine forbearance, when he passes over former sins, that wrath is not coming down on us. Our sins have been atoned for in Christ. So we're getting passed over, as far as the judgment of God is concerned, the judgment will be poured out upon wicked and sinful men, but we have the righteousness of Christ.

So we have that wonderful assurance that on the day of judgment, not only have we received justification in the present, but we have glorification guaranteed for our future. Now we have a few more verses to finish up here in this section of Romans 5.

We'll be looking at verses 10 and 11 tomorrow. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Prayer for Salvation and Gospel Boldness

Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that at the right time, Christ died for us. At the right time, you brought us to salvation and a knowledge of Jesus. And by faith in that gospel, we have been saved.

As Paul had said back at the beginning in Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. And you have shown your love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

And the message of that good news has come to us through the gospel that we may be saved. These are difficult and perilous times. And even in these days, may we share that gospel with others so that by the power of that gospel, they come to faith and are saved.

Let us not be ashamed of it, but continue to preach it constantly. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.