Blessings of Justification: Romans 5:6-11 Introduction We are in a transitional chapter in Romans. o After explaining the inner workings of justification And establishing the biblical proof for it o Paul is now ready to move to sanctification Or the results of justification. o However, first, he takes the time to examine some of the blessings of justification. The first blessing that we looked at last week was peace. o We have peace with God. Real genuine peace. Peace that carries us through trials and tribulations. Peace in the midst of chaos and trouble. Peace that is founded on the great love of God o that is shed abroad in our hearts o by the Holy Ghost. Now we focus on the great love of God. o The next six verses are built around a single powerful point: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He did that because he loved us. o The main point here is that the great love of God is the foundation of all of the blessings in our lives. We will never deserve his blessings But we are blessed because he loves us! o Should we ever wonder how much he loves us, Should we ever question the blessings of his love we need only to remember o that while we were yet sinners, o he loved us enough to die for us! That s the main message of this passage. Text 6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Exposition 6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. What kind of love does God have for us? o He has the kind of love that motivated him to die on our behalf while we were weak and unable to help ourselves. This verse describes the miserable condition o that we were in when God loved us. He saved us while we were yet without strength. The word means powerless, weak, helpless, without strength. o We were helpless. o We were hopelessly stuck in a miry clay. There was no hope for us. Sin had so incapacitated us o that we were absolutely incapable of doing anything to save ourselves. He saved us while we were the ungodly. This means that we were in a state o of opposition to God and his law. We were against him, o we were on the wrong side, we were, essentially, the enemies of God. As such we did not deserve his loving forgiveness. o But that didn t stop him! o Last week we said that, as the redeemed, we stand in the grace of God. But before he saved us, before he redeemed us, o we were standing in the wrath of God. We had nothing to look forward to except a certain fearful anticipation o of the judgments of God. But, thank God, mercy triumphed over judgment! When he should have allowed us o to reap the results of our sins.
When he would have been perfectly justified o to reject us completely. God loved us enough o to reach down to us o and lift us out of the miry clay! In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. o Calvary came at God s appointed time. In due season, when the fullness of god s time was come, he delivered us from our sins. o It was an event that was prophesied from the very beginning. But, even though a lot of years passed in the interim, God never wavered. o His plan never faltered and, at the precise moment that he had already predetermined, Christ died for the ungodly! o He was right on time. There are two key points that need to be made here. o First, all of God s promises are fulfilled in God s timetable. His word never returns to him void. When he promised it, he knew precisely when o he would bring it to pass. And he will show up, right on time. His promise will never be early o and it will never be late. Sometimes that will try our patience. Sometimes that will cause us to question God. But faith holds fast to the promise of God, remembering that in the fullness of his time, o He will do exactly what he said that he would do. o Secondly, God s grace reaches all of us at precisely the right time, according to God s plan for our lives. God planned the atonement at just the right time in history. o It wasn t by chance that Christ came when he did. o It wasn t by chance that he died when he died. Everything happened according to God s timetable.
God planned your redemption for exactly the right moment in your life. o He arranged the very instant where you sat under the sound of anointed preaching and conviction first gripped your heart. o It wasn t an accident that you walked into the house of God on that fateful day. o God s love reached you at precisely the right time. Perhaps if it had come earlier you would have been shielded from o some trying times in your life. Perhaps if it had happened sooner, you wouldn t have endured o some of the hardships o that sin put you through. Maybe if he had come to you a week later, you would have been found dead in a gutter somewhere. Maybe if the grace of God hadn t gotten ahold of you when it did, you would have walked down a road o that you could never return from. I don t know. But I do know this. In the fullness of God s time, his grace has reached you! In the fullness of God s purpose, mercy has come into your life. God has a plan for your life! He had a plan for you while you were still a sinner. Perhaps your testimony wouldn t be as powerful as it is now. If God had come to you a moment earlier or a day later. Perhaps God s purpose for your life is served by your testimony of what he has saved you from. o I don t know. o But I do know that, in the fullness of his time Mercy triumphed over judgment! 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
There are two phrases here that say the same thing in different ways. o One might try to draw a distinction between the righteous man in the first phrase and the good man in the second phrase but that probably amounts to over interpretation of the passage. o In effect the same statement is expressed in the negative, then restated in the positive, with the same conclusion. The first phrase stated the negative: o Very rarely, in human experience, will someone die for a righteous man. The second phrase states the positive: o If, perhaps, someone does die for a good man, it is a very daring act, it stretches the limits of human nature. Both statements lead to the same conclusion: o If it is such a rarity for someone to die for a decent, good, righteous man, then it must be unthinkable o for someone to die deliberately o on behalf of an evil man. That is the point that Paul strives to make! Jesus Christ died for the weak and the wicked. o The real contrast is not between the righteous man and the good man in this verse. o The real contrast is between the decent human being found in both of these phrases and the ungodly, wicked, man found in the previous verse. o If it is so difficult to find someone who is willing to die for a good man, then how much more amazing is it o that Jesus Christ died for weak and ungodly sinners! 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The word translated as commendeth has as its meaning o to show, prove, establish, or exhibit. It has the connotation of proof. o God proved his love towards us at the cross. Calvary is the proof of God s great love! While we were still sinners, o Christ died on our behalf. This establishes the reality of God s love for us. The Greek word order places emphasis on the possessive pronoun, his. o This is important because to the original readers this means that through the death of Jesus Christ, God demonstrates His own love, toward us. o David Bernard says: This only makes sense if we understand the oneness of the Godhead. How does Christ s death show God s love, o emphatically God s own love, if Christ and God are two separate persons? Did God love the world so much o that He sent someone else to suffer for the world? No. God loved the world so much that He manifested Himself in flesh o as the Son of God o and sacrificed that human life for us. God loved us so much that He gave of Himself. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). o Our Father and Creator became our Savior and Redeemer. o That is the wonder of the incarnation. God became a man, and he showed us his love by shedding his own blood for us. o God has shown us how much he loves us. To borrow from last weeks language: He has poured out his love upon our hearts. o Without reservation. Calvary is the love of God poured out! o The cross shows us how much God loves us! When suffering and tribulation comes upon us
As it always will in this life o The cross reminds us of God s great love for us. When circumstances tempt us to doubt God s love for us. The cross stands as a timeless testimony o of how much he really does love us. When you question God s love, You need only to take another look at the cross. o You need only to hear the voice of heaven o Expressed in a broken bloody body Hear God saying: I did all of this for you This is how much I love you! 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. If Christ died for us while we were hopelessly ungodly sinners, o If he bled and died for us when we were lost and undone, how much more will He do for us now? Now that we are living for him? o Think about it for a minute! If he counted us righteous while we were still unrighteous, o How much more will he save us now that we are his? The assurance of our future tense salvation o comes from the reality of what has already occurred in the past. o God, who went so far to save us, will not easily abandon us. Make no mistake, you can walk away from the grace of God. o If you so choose, you can count the blood of Jesus an unholy thing And you can tread it under foot as you abandon the cross. o But, listen to this preacher, God isn t going to give up on you easily. God doesn t easily abandon that which is so precious to him. You might escape the church house. You might hide yourself from the preacher. o But you will find that the sure mercies of god will pursue you through this life. He doesn t give up easy. o Paul s point is two fold:
First, if God paid such an incredible price to save you Then he s not going to let you go without a fight. His love and his mercy will pursue you. Secondly, if God paid such a great price to redeem you from your former life, o then you can rest assured that he is well able to deliver you from this present life. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Verse 10 is a summary of everything that we have read so far this morning. o While we were God s enemies God reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son. To be reconciled means restored to favor, o restored to a relationship. Christ s death reunites us with God. It puts us at peace with him. The transition from being God s enemy o to being in a state of reconciliation with him is as radical of a transition as can be imagined. The worst possible situation a person can be in o is to be an enemy of God. To be the enemy of God implies both that the sinner is hostile towards God o and that God is hostile towards the sinner. o It is a fearful thing to think of God as being hostile towards you. But that is exactly what the scripture says. The wrath of God is kindled towards the ungodly. There is no middle ground here. Passages in both testaments say that o The face of the Lord is against those who do evil (Ps 34:16; 1 Pet 3:12). o Psalms 5:5 says that God hatest all workers of iniquity. That is a fearful place to be! Paul s point is that, o even while we were in this state of mutual hostility, God took the first step to bring about reconciliation. His great love overwhelmed his great wrath.
Mercy triumphed over judgment. o God made a way where there was no way! This way of course was through the death of his Son. Here is the wonder of the cross. o God made himself a body, flesh and blood. o His only begotten son. o He inhabited that body. o God became a man. At the cross, God made a way that he could pour out his wrath o upon that body instead of upon us. God satisfied his own wrath. He appeased his own sense of justice. When two parties are at odds, when they are enemies, o The hardest step to take towards reconciliation Is the first step. Someone has to humble themselves Swallow their pride Ignore their own sense that they have been wronged o And take that first step towards reconciliation. Once that is done, the hardest part of reconciliation is done. Listen, God took the first and biggest step of reconciliation. o He made a way where there was no way. He left his throne in glory Made himself a little lower than the angels o And suffered death for every man! o The second step is up to the sinner. God has made a way that you can stop being his enemy. God has made a way of reconciliation. God has made a way for you to make peace with him. The key point is this: o God has already done the hard part! Humanly speaking, the hard part was the death of the man Christ Jesus, o especially when that death was for people who did not deserve it or even appreciate it. Theologically, the hard part
was counting the unrighteous as righteous o and restoring enemies to fellowship. o The easy part is keeping us in fellowship now that we are His friends. o The easy part is giving us power to stay saved now that we are, and want to remain, righteous. What a powerful thought! o God loves you so much that he made a way for you He did the hard part. He started the process of reconciliation It only remains for you to accept what he has done. o Not only that, but God, who saved you, is able to keep you. He can bring you through this life. The same power that was displayed at the cross. Is working with you and for you To deliver you from this present world! Again, we see the oneness of God in Christ. o How could God reconcile us by the death of Christ if God and Christ be separate persons? o Since God (the sum total of the Deity) was incarnate in Christ, God was indeed reconciling us to Himself when the man Christ died. The verse says that we are saved by His life. o The literal translation would be in His life. What keeps and preserves us in our relationship with God is the life of Christ in us, o the power of His resurrection life in us. The Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us and imparts to us o the power that we need to live for God. This is an important point o because salvation is not just a one-time past-tense experience. It is also present and future tense experience. The believer is saved by present and future participation in Christ s life. o If the believer cuts himself off from Christ s life, he loses his present salvation and his hope of future salvation. o If he remains in Christ s life,
he has assurance of future salvation. This is important because we are reconciled by Christ s death, but we are saved by His life. o Christ in us is the hope of glory! It is not enough just to look back at Christ s death for us. We must also have His resurrection life in us. 11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Not only do we have confidence in our salvation, o rejoicing in the hope of future glory and in the midst of present tribulations, we can also rejoice in God Himself. How do we rejoice in God? o We rejoice in God through Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is our only access to God. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. o No man cometh to the father, but by me. o God s grace, the demonstration of His great love for us, and the wonderful justification that we have received o can only come to us o through God s manifestation in the flesh as Jesus Christ. To put it in a nutshell: o We rejoice in God through Christ because from God through Christ we receive the reconciliation. The KJV says we receive the atonement, which is the only time it uses that word in the New Testament. The Greek word indicates reconciliation or restoration to favor, which was the original connotation of the English word atonement. Close While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. o There is a key element to that phrase that is very important. There is a contrast between what I was before he saved me and what I am now.
While I was a sinner, Christ died for me. But, thank God, his love and mercy o didn t leave me that way. I once was lost in sin. I once was the enemy of God. o But I have been reconciled with him. I have been saved. o There is something different about my life now! o I am not what I used to be! For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Verse 10 introduced a very important concept. o I want to touch on it one more time in closing. I am reconciled to God by his death but I am saved by his life. o The Holy Ghost is the spirit of God that comes to live within us when we repent of our sins and are baptized in his name, as the scripture says. o That spirit is the quickening spirit of life that was in Christ Jesus. Today, on the basis of the cross, you can be forgiven of all of your sins o and you can be reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. o And you can be saved and remain saved by the power of his life! It begins with repentance and it culminates with the outpouring of the spirit of God. o The great love of God was proven at Calvary and it is shed abroad in our hearts o by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. STAND o This morning you can see the great love of God on display at Calvary and you can experience it for yourself o through the infilling of the Holy Ghost. That is how he pours out his love upon our hearts!
It is shed abroad by the Holy Ghost.