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.
The proof lies outside us
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.
Why it is called His love
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.
What we were when He died
"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.
Higher than the highest human love
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.
The argument runs forward
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.
What it produces
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.
Summary
- 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.