for we being still without strength, in [the] due time Christ has died for [the] ungodly.
Paul has been speaking of God's love in the hearts of believers. Now he points to proof outside the heart: a death at a fixed moment, for people who had nothing to offer.
Chapter 5 turns from love felt within to love displayed at the cross. One writer shows how the same death served different purposes earlier in the letter.
God makes His love good in our hearts. But we are not left to look inside our hearts to find that love expressed. Christ's death is the witness of God's righteousness in chapter 3, and of God's power in chapter 4. In chapter 5 it comes forward as the witness of God's love.
This matters when feelings run dry. The proof stands outside us, so a person who feels nothing still has solid ground.
A man may say in the face of all this, But suppose I do not feel it? Well, then, you are going back from faith, and looking to your feelings. How do I know that I have it? Am I perfect? No. The love is enjoyed within, but in His grace God has put the proof of it outside me. I know it, because I believe that Christ died for the ungodly. I am simply an ungodly one and have no strength at all, no feeling at all, and Christ died when I had no feeling at all.
The verse names our condition twice, and the two words do not say the same thing. Older translations, which these writers follow, render "weak" as "without strength."
We were completely helpless, unable to do anything for God. We were ungodly, unwilling to do anything for God. Then it was that love made the great sacrifice by dying for us.
Many read "ungodly" as a label for shocking behaviour. One writer gives the word its full sense.
People now apply the word to outward conduct, and so its real meaning has been lost. In the Scriptures it covers the state of the heart as well as actions. It means "godless" — to be without God, to feel and to act apart from God, without reference to Him or to His will.
People own up to one of these two words long before the other.
First, we were ungodly. That is the first thing we find out. But many know they are ungodly who have not yet found out that they are without strength… "I am determined to change my ways, or I will be lost. I will turn over a new leaf." The new leaf is turned, and all may go well for a time. But soon temptations come, and one resolution after another is broken. He thinks, "It is no use my trying to be a Christian. I have tried again and again, and the more I try to give up my sins, the more I seem to fail."
The verse says Christ died at the right time, which older translations call "in due time." One writer explains what made that moment the right one.
For four thousand years, from the time that Adam sinned, God was testing man. He was looking to see if any good could be found in the race of the first Adam. God weighed man in His balances and found him completely wanting. He tried him without law, and under law. Last of all, God presented His Son to the world, to see if they would receive Him. But no; they rejected Him!… It is important therefore to see that now God is not looking for improvement from man.
The people Christ died for had no strength and no godliness. So this love cannot be explained by anything in them.
Yes, it is no more wonderful than it is true: while we were still without strength, Christ died for ungodly persons. Such are fallen men. Jew or Gentile made no difference as to man's nature. The law gave no power; religious form is not godliness. And because man is what he became through sin, in due time Christ died for us, powerless and ungodly persons. This was beyond all creature love.
One writer compares this love with the way ours works.
God gave the greatest thing in heaven for the worst thing on earth: a sinner. I am a sinner, therefore Christ died for me… This is what makes God's love different from man's. A man must have some motive to act on, something to draw out his love. God's love, on the other hand, springs from Himself, for God could find no motive in us.
- Helpless — "Without strength" means unable to do anything for God. "Ungodly" means unwilling to. The verse names both the inability and the heart behind it.
- Godless — "Ungodly" is not a word for the worst of people. It means living without reference to God, which covers respectable lives too.
- Timed — The death came at the close of a long testing of man, not at its start. God is therefore no longer waiting for improvement from anyone.
- Uncaused — Nothing in us drew this love out. Our love needs a motive; God's love springs from Himself, and it reached powerless, godless people.
- Outside — The proof is not in your feelings but in a death already accomplished. That is why a person with no feeling at all can still rest on it.
For scarcely for [the] just [man] will one die, for perhaps for [the] good [man] some one might also dare to die;
Paul measures God's love against the best that human love can do. He names two kinds of men — the righteous and the good — and asks how far anyone would go to die for either.
Two words in the verse sound alike: righteous and good. One writer separates them by how each man treats other people:
"A righteous man" is one strictly accurate in his dealings with others — both paying and demanding all that justice requires. It is hardly thinkable that another man would consider dying for his sake. "A good man" is one not exacting, but generous toward others: for him "some might even dare to die." But who would die for an evil enemy? Or who would offer a son to die for his enemy?
Why will no one die for the righteous man? One writer looks at what righteousness stirs in the human heart:
This is not the way the creature — man — loves. "One will scarcely die for a righteous person." We respect and value righteousness. But it does not draw out love enough for anyone to die for a merely righteous person. It is not that man's heart cannot feel strong affection. "Perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die." None among the sons of Adam could surpass such love as this.
Paul tests love by dying, because nothing higher exists in human experience:
God has been pleased to let men test and prove His love. And the proof He gave is the one men count as most convincing. The fullest proof of love is to lay down your own life. No sacrifice can go beyond this. But Christ laid down His life, as He said, "I lay down My life for the sheep." Among men, though, we can hardly imagine such a sacrifice for anyone but a friend or a benefactor. "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."
Even then, Paul will not promise it. One writer points to men famous for their giving:
Take a Howard, a Peabody, or any philanthropist who spent his life helping others. For such a man, the apostle says, "perhaps ... one would dare even to die." He is not sure about it.
Both men work the same way: each gives love a reason to come to him. The next verse takes that reason away:
God's love differs from man's love in this: man must have something to draw out his love. As it is said, "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." God's love has no motive. There is nothing attractive in the one it rests on to call it out... God's love sees no good in us. The cross gave the brightest proof of God's love and of man's hatred.
Paul names two kinds of men and stops. His readers are neither:
A righteous man has some merit, and a good man more. It would be surprising, yet it might be possible, that someone would be willing to give his life for such a man. But who will die for a sinner? Who will die for a wretch who is neither righteous nor good? He has no merit at all. He has come short of God's glory and is only fit for His just judgment. Who will die for such a one as that? … CHRIST. He will; He has done it.
The verse also ranks two qualities. One writer says which of them the Spirit produces:
You will notice that righteousness is not called a fruit of the Spirit. You remember the Word says, "One will scarcely die for a righteous person." Yet "perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die." So it is goodness, not righteousness, that is a fruit of the Spirit. The Christian is, of course, to be righteous as well as good.
- Righteous. The man who pays what he owes and collects what he is owed. He earns respect, not devotion — and respect will not make anyone die for him.
- Good. The generous man, the benefactor. He can move a heart to the point of dying. That is the ceiling of human love; no one has ever gone past it.
- Perhaps. Even at that ceiling, Paul will only say maybe. The best human love is uncertain and always needs a reason outside itself.
- Sinners. Paul names two classes and neither is us. Christ died for the one nobody dies for.
- Goodness. Goodness is what draws hearts. So goodness — not bare correctness — is what the Spirit grows in a Christian.
but God commends *his* love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.
Paul has just said that the Holy Spirit pours God's love into believers' hearts, but here he points away from the heart to one event in history. The question this verse settles is not how much we feel God's love, but where anyone can go to be certain of it.
Feeling and evidence are not the same thing. One writer keeps the two apart. What we enjoy is one thing. What proves the fact is another.
Notice something more. We enjoy this love by the Holy Spirit living in us. But the knowledge and proof of it lie in a work done outside us, one we had no part in. It was done for us while we were evil and completely helpless. "For," the apostle continues, "when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Ungodly, and without strength — that was our state when the glorious work of God's love was accomplished for us.
The word "His" carries the weight of the sentence. Our love always answers to something; God's did not.
That is why it is called His love — because it is a love that belongs to God alone. With us, there must always be something in another person to draw out our love. There must be something to love. But God loved us when there was nothing in us to love, when our hearts were hostile toward Him and we were nothing but a mass of sin.
It also settles where to look for evidence:
When I come to the proof, I turn away from myself to God. This is the teaching of God's love, and it was all on God's side. The result is that I can count on what that love produces.
"Sinners" is one of four words used of us here. Each one removes a motive God might have had.
If God had found any sign of love in us toward Him, or any willingness to obey Him, His love would not have been perfect. He would have found a motive in us for His love. But what was our real state? We were ungodly, without strength, sinners, enemies. Our open hostility, seen in these four words, only gave His perfect love its deepest occasion to show itself.
The verse just before sets up a contrast. Human devotion has a ceiling, and the cross rises above it.
A righteous man has some merit, and a good man more. It would be surprising, but someone might still be willing to give his life for such a person. But who will die for a sinner? Who will die for someone who is neither righteous nor good, who has no merit at all, who has fallen short of God's glory and deserves nothing but His just judgment? Who will die for someone like that? … CHRIST. He will; He has done it.
Paul does not stop at admiring the love. He reasons from it, and the direction of the reasoning matters — from what God is, not from anything about us.
The reasoning is not at all from divine purposes about us or promises made to us, but from what God is; and He is love — love proved in Christ's dying for us, while we were yet sinners. "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." The conclusion is sound and certain.
This love turns the whole matter around.
It is no longer a question of our commending ourselves to God; but He commends His love toward us. Christ died for us while we were still sinners. And when we believe in Christ, the Holy Spirit given to us pours the love of God into our hearts. When the soul knows and enjoys this, it must have a practical effect. We love God, and we love one another.
- Source — God's love had no cause in us; He loved when there was nothing in us to love, so its source is what He is in Himself.
- Proof — the evidence is a finished work outside us, not a feeling inside us. The Spirit gives the enjoyment; the cross gives the certainty.
- Timing — He acted while we were still sinners, ungodly, without strength and enemies. That strips away every motive but His own.
- Measure — human love may rise to dying for a good man; only Christ died for those with no merit at all.
- Result — the reasoning starts from what God is, so it runs forward with confidence. We are justified now, saved from wrath, and made people who love God and one another.
Much rather therefore, having been now justified in [the power of] his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath.
Paul has just pointed to the cross as God's proof of love: Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Verse 9 draws the conclusion from that proof: if God acted for us at our worst, what can the future hold but safety?
The argument does not start with anything found in us. It starts with what God showed Himself to be at the cross, and then reasons forward.
The reasoning does not start from God's plans about us, or from promises made to us. It starts from what God is; and He is love — love proved when Christ died for us, while we were still sinners. "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." Nothing could be more sound or more conclusive!
Some treat justification and salvation as two separate things, so having one is no guarantee of the other. Faith reasons the other way:
The author of the "Remarks" says this passage makes it plain that salvation and justification are separate things. So, though we are justified, that does not make us sure of salvation — I suppose because of our own weakness and sinfulness and frailty. But faith sees God step in with His power, and leans on it. Faith knows it has been justified, and from that justification it concludes with certainty that it will be saved.
Scripture puts justification in more than one way. Each phrase answers a different question.
We may note, by the way, that Scripture speaks of justification in three ways, because man is unrighteous by nature. We are justified by His grace (Titus 3:7), if we speak of the source. We are justified by His blood (Rom. 5:9), if we look for the cause that obtained it in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are justified by faith, if we ask how the soul is personally brought into the blessing (Rom. 5:1).
Being justified is more than being let off. The verdict rests on what God sees in the blood of Christ, not on anything He sees in us.
The true believer has "now been justified by His blood." God clears him completely from every charge, and imputes righteousness to him — that is, He puts it to his account, though the believer has no righteousness of his own. It is a perfect justification, because of the perfect value God sees in the blood of Christ.
The verse does not describe a hope of one day being justified. It describes a state already entered, and one that cannot be undone.
Being justified by His blood is always the same and never changes. It is not that, once justified by His blood, we need justifying again. Once we are justified, it stands forever. His blood is always the same before God, since it has atoned for all our sins. So we are always justified by His blood. There is no change.
Wrath is God's judgment against sin. The letter announced it earlier, and it is still ahead in time.
That blood is what earns our justification before God. He needed nothing more to show Himself righteous in justifying ungodly people. So we shall be saved from wrath through Christ. God will pour out the wrath He has already revealed (Rom. 1:18) at the appointed time. But believers wait for God's Son to come from heaven, and He delivers them from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10).
Salvation in this verse reaches further than a cleared record:
It is clear that salvation here is not just that a person is cleansed from guilt. It is the real application of Christ's work in all its fullness — only we do not have it yet for our bodies… salvation means more than guilt removed through His blood. It means that we ourselves are kept, and brought through every difficulty, past, present, and future.
The two halves of the verse rest on the same Person in two conditions — dead for us, then alive for us.
In verse 9 the apostle has the ground of justification in mind; so he says, "justified by His blood." But if the death of Christ has provided a righteous basis for our justification, then He who died to provide it has risen from the dead… He is the living One, the source of life to us, the One by whom and in whom we live. He stands forever between us and wrath.
- Cause. Grace is the source, the blood is the price, faith is the way in — three angles on one act, not three routes.
- Now. The tense is settled, not pending; the blood keeps the same value before God, so the verdict never has to be renewed.
- Much more. If God acted for us while we were still sinners, our rescue is certain — faith reasons from justification to salvation; unbelief pulls them apart.
- Wrath. What we are saved from is real judgment still to come — and the blood that justified us is what carries us past it.
- Through Him. Safety is not a legal document but a living Person, who died to clear us and now lives between us and the wrath.
For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in [the power of] his life.
Paul says God reconciled us while we were still enemies — the worst thing that could be said about us. Two questions follow: what does reconciliation mean, and what is this saving by His life that is still ahead of us?
"Enemy" is the strongest word used for our old state. One writer refuses to let any reader assume it describes someone else.
Nothing can go beyond this. To be an enemy of God is the most shocking picture we can have of a sinner's state. Yet that is the real condition of any reader of these lines who is not converted. He is an enemy of God. He may be likeable, polite, attractive, refined, educated, moral and even religious on the outside. He may be a church member, take communion regularly, work for God, teach Sunday School, preach or serve as a minister — and all the while be an enemy of God.
But note which side the hostility was on. Paul says we were enemies — not God.
It is certainly a great mistake to think that God became our enemy when sin came in, and that the atoning death of the Son of God was meant to reconcile God to us. The following verses teach the exact opposite… His death does not reconcile God to us; it reconciles us to God.
The word pictures accounts settled and a broken relationship put right.
Reconciliation, in everyday language, means making everything straight. I believe it was first used in money-changing, for making a sum come out even, so that both sides are satisfied. From there it passed into the more common sense of making everything smooth between two sides that have fallen out… It brings back to unity, peace and fellowship what was divided and estranged… but the estrangement was on our side. God was not estranged from us. What was on His side was righteous judgment against sin in His creature, and that righteousness had to be met to bring the estranged creature back into relationship with God.
Justification and reconciliation go together, but they answer different problems.
Justification clears away our guilt. Reconciliation removes the hostility in our hearts and makes us so suited to God that He can look on us with divine delight. The death of Christ declares the righteousness of God that justifies us, and it also reveals the love of God that reconciles us… knowing the love of God takes away our hostility toward Him.
If God did the greater thing while we were hostile, the rest is certain now that we are His.
The work of Christ has done more than put away our sins: it has reconciled us to God. When the Spirit brings home to us the death of His Son for our sins, its persuasive power wins the heart to God. If He could reconcile us like that while we were enemies, how much more will He bring those reconciled ones through, despite every difficulty?… Paul has no thought of an unreconciled Christian, any more than of an unjustified one.
The verse sets His death against the life He now lives for us.
"If we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" — by what was, so to speak, His weakness — "much more shall we be saved by his life," the mighty energy in which He lives forever. So the love of God makes peace about what we were, gives us security about our future, and makes us happy in the present too.
That living Christ is at work for us right now, and He will not stop until the end:
The salvation we need and receive as believers rests on the death of Christ, but it reaches us through His work as priest for us, as He lives for us on high. We are being "saved by His life" (Rom. 5:10), and because He always lives we shall be saved to the uttermost. We shall be saved completely, right to the furthest point of time — to the moment when the last enemy is gone and we never need saving again.
Reconciliation is already settled. Salvation is still running to its end.
We shall never be more justified than we are today. We shall never be more reconciled than we are today, though one day we shall enjoy that finished reconciliation far more keenly. But we shall be more fully saved than we are today, when in the age to come we have glorified bodies like Christ.
- Enemies — the hostility was all on our side. Even a religious life leaves no one outside that word.
- Reconciled — making everything straight, bringing what was divided back into peace and fellowship.
- By His death — justification clears the guilt, reconciliation removes the hostility, and both flow from the same cross.
- Much more — if God acted for us as enemies, He will surely bring us through now that we are reconciled. There is no such thing as an unreconciled Christian.
- By His life — He who died for us now lives for us, carrying us through the road ahead until salvation is complete.