This chapter contains some of the most comprehensive statements in the Bible relative to the love of God.
1. Paul says that it is God’s love that guarantees our eternal security.
2. It is God’s love that planned our redemption in the far reaches of eternity.
3. It is God’s love that yielded up Christ to the death of the Cross.
4. It is God’s love that opens wide the gates of heaven to welcome sinners home.
In the verses we have read we see three stages of out sinnerhood. Each of these stages is connected to the love of God in a unique way. See Vs. 6, 8, 10.
Verse 6
This verse tells us that sinners cannot obtain a right relationship with God because they are without strength—totally impotent and are so deprived of strength that they are incapable of saving themselves.
Paul elaborates on this tragic condition in Ephesians 2. He describes sinners as “Far away from God” without Christ. “Without God.” “Without Hope.” Totally derelict, God in His love responded to the tragic condition.
“At the appointed time Christ died for the ungodly.” Vs. 6
Christ’s love is an unrestricted and total love, eclipsing the finest expressions of human love. Those iron nails that pierced His hands could have become the thunder blots of wrath. He could have hurled anathemas across a guilty world. He could have summoned twelve legions of shining angels, each armed with a flaming sword.
He could have made Calvary a premature Armageddon. Instead, yon lovely man cried, “Father forgive them,” etc.
Then Christ died for the ungodly. All of this illustrates the unconditional love of Christ. Verse 7.
Human love is conditional—“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die.” Interpreted this means that for a honest but stern man, no one would die. On the other hand, someone might be found to die for a good or a generous-hearted man. But human love at its finest does not compare with God’s love. “God commends His love towards us, in that, while were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
God’s love in Christ is not only unconditional, it is incomparable.
Matt 9:13 “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
1 Timothy 1:15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
This is what sets Divine love apart:
As sinners were do not deserve God’s love, nor the salvation it provides.
As sinners we deserve His unmitigated and undiluted wrath.
Consider what sin and sinners have done to our beautiful planet.
1. Sinners have insulted God and defiled the heavens and the earth. Mass murder via abortion has taken the lives of millions.
Sexual perversion is openly flaunted by homosexuals.
A murder is committed every 24 minutes. A forcible rape every seven minutes—a robbery every 60 seconds—an aggravated assault every 51 seconds.
There is a violent crime committed every 27 seconds—a property crime every 3 seconds.
2. Sin has introduced rebellion and ruin into the scene where once there was harmony, and God reigned supreme.
3. Sin has filled the world with demons, disease, violence and death; and has dotted the world with prisons—mental institutions—and graveyards.
(1) 1282 illegitimate children are born every day in America.
(2) 68,493 teenagers contract venereal disease.
(3) People drink 90 million cans of beer a day.
(4) They smoke 1.6 billions cigarettes a day.
(5) Sin has ruined the world by vileness, squalor, misery, hatred, war, famine, pestilence, decay, and death.
Mankind is the perpetrator of all this wickedness. Mankind is hand in glove with sin. See Romans 1 and Romans 3. Quote.
When we consider all these things, we ask, “How can God love such sinful people?” He loved them because He loved them. Quote John 3:16. From the very beginning of time he sent His servants to tell the world of His love for them.
In return, they beat some—stoned and killed others. He sent more important and powerful servants to try and win them but they treated them in the same way.
Last of all He sent His only Son to plead with men to repent and return to God. They spat on His face,
They lacerated His back with a leaded Roman scourge. They nailed Him naked and thorn-crowned to a Cross.
They mocked and jeered at Him in His anguish. They murdered Him in the most cruel and demeaning way possible.
At His crucifixion all nature revolted and demonstrated its disapproval. The sun withheld its light—the earth convulsed—the rocks split asunder and rebellion against God and His anointed.
Despite this open show of hostility He made peace through the blood of the Cross. This is one of the most astounding and incomprehensible statements in the Word of God.
We could have understood it if we had read that God made war with man over that precious, outpoured blood, and the heinousness of the accursed Cross. But instead, we read that He made peace with believing mankind through the blood of the Cross.
“God commends His love towards us, in that while we were rebellious sinners Christ died for us.” Verse 8.
“God’s love is INCOMPARABLE.”
V. 9-10 Quote.
Through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus the sinner is both justified and reconciled to God.
“He was delivered for our transgressions, and raised for our justification.” Romans 3
The saved sinner is justified, i.e. His sins are gone, eradicated; never to be remembered against him again.
“In the depth of the sea” –They were last, etc. They are remaining—As far as the east is removed from the west, etc.
There is absolutely no trace of our sin, no criminal record.
When God looks at is, He looks at us through Christ, and we are as He is, perfect.
Not only has He justified us, but He has also reconciled us to Himself. “Peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Finally through the sacrifice of Christ, we are delivered, saved from wrath. V.9
“Flee from the wrath to come.”
“Because there is wrath, beware,” etc.
We see the wrath of God against sin at the Cross. The consuming wrath of God against sin was unleashed upon the Lord during the hours of darkness of the Cross.
The sufferings inflicted by men, used by Satan as instruments of torture, was not the wrath of God, they were the wrath of Satan and men.
These were not the sufferings of the atonement.
It was in the three hours of darkness that God laid on Jesus a violent and painful manner the punishment for our sins.
The unrelenting, merciless, white hot fury of God’s unabating wrath fell upon that broken and crushed body.
There was no respite, no reprieve. No favor was shown by God. The full price must be paid. God’s holiness and righteousness must be undictated and for the price fully paid. His inflexible holiness against sin must be satisfied.
Consequently, all the waves and billows of God’s wrath fell on Him. Jesus, as the Lamb of God, must pay the full price.
No eye had ever penetrated the dense darkness of the abyss, No mind has ever analyzed the anguish and torment He endured as He was bruised for our iniquities.
In those lonely hours, forsaken by God, he endured your hell and mine.
Those who do not believe that Jesus died for their sin and refuse Him as Savior, and die in unbelief will experience God’s wrath in a Christless hell, where they will be tormented day and night for ever and for ever. Those who believe that Jesus is their substitute and receive Him as their Savior, will be reconciled to God and saved from the wrath of God.