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.