William Kelly · ROMANS 5.

"But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Ver. 8.) This is characteristically divine and sovereign. We were powerless, unjust, evil, nothing but sinners, on the one hand; and God, on the other, had no motive for His love other than itself. It is emphatically His own love. As another apostle puts it, God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Only God can love thus. Man, the saint even, must have a motive without; God has none. He, and He only, is love. The spring is within, and He needs no object without to call it forth. Those whom His grace makes objects of His love are wholly and absolutely unlovable as to themselves, yet He loves them spite of all they are. While they were yet sinners, Christ died for them — the fullest proof of their sin and of God's love. Nothing less could avail; nothing more blessed could be done even by Him; nothing different would suit Himself. Thus He commends His own love. What a resting-place for both heart and conscience! He forgets nothing, judges all, yet loves us with a love that is perfect and altogether peculiar.