We know, from the previous verse, that God reveals His love to us by pouring the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Now, in the next few verses, Paul explains this love of God even more. I think it will make more sense if we look at this verse out of order, and then put it back together at the end.
Christ died
As Christians, it's common knowledge that Christ died for our sins. While it may by impossible for us to truly grasp the immense love that was shown, or what was truly accomplished when Christ gave His life, I would like to look at some scripture that may build in us a deeper appreciation for God and His act of selfless love.
Jesus Christ willingly suffered the brutal beatings, torture, crucifixion:
- Knowing what was ahead, Jesus prayed to the Father - "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." Luke 22:42
Jesus Christ, completely sinless, felt the full impact of God's just wrath on our behalf by taking the punishment we deserved:
- we deserve this: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:18
- Jesus did this: He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:2
- propitiation: is the act of appeasing, atonement, satisfied the debt by paying it in full!
Jesus Christ felt unparalleled agony and anguish on the cross, according to the will and perfect plan of the Father:
- Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10
This link is to a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on the death of Christ on the cross. It sheds a lot more light on what took place, and really reveals how terrible it was in light of who Jesus is.
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0173.htm
After reading these few Scripture references (there are so many more), we can see that this death that Christ suffered was horrible, brutal, and undeserved. He took the full penalty of our sin in a small amount of time - yet the torture and death was so severe that it satisfied the the condemnation that we would have suffered for eternity.
Below is John Piper's response to a question on the suffering of Christ:
If our sins are punished by eternal separation from God, why did Jesus only have to suffer momentary separation?
That's a good question, and I think there's a pretty clear answer.
Another question would be, How can one man suffer when millions should've suffered? Same kind of issue. How does one suffering become the suffering of millions? The math doesn't work! How does suffering for 3 hours on a cross correspond to delivering people from eternity in hell? All those kinds of questions apply here.
The answer is that the degree of suffering, indignity, reproach, degradation, and fall that Jesus endured is not simply determined temporally. And it's not simply determined by the exquisiteness of the pain of a nail cutting through a nerve in your wrist.
It's determined by the difference between the glory that he had with the Father in heaven and the ignominy that he suffered, naked and hanging like a piece of meat as the Son of God on the cross. It's that distance that is the magnitude that provides the scope needed in his suffering to cover an eternity in hell and to cover the sins of millions of people.
The way to think about it is that we commit a greater indignity against God, not just in accord with how many sins we commit or how bad they are, but in accord with how great he is. Therefore our sins are infinitely great because they're against an infinite person and deserve an infinite punishment.
Christ, being an infinite person, became so low that that drop in suffering, that drop in indignity was such a huge drop—it was an infinite drop—that it suffices to cover the sins of millions and to cover the entire length of eternity that we deserve to be in hell.
He is a great Savior.
So, if Christ willingly suffered to the degree discussed above, who did He do it for?
while we were still weak
Christ died for the ungodly
Jesus died for us while we were weak and ungodly!
When someone needs an organ transplant, there are several things that come into play. The health of the patient plays a major role in where they may land on the transplant list. How old is the patient, does the patient smoke, does the patient have a history of substance abuse, what is the mental status of the patient? All of these questions, and many more, determine if the patient is suitable for a transplant - and for good reason; donated organs are not be taken lightly. Part of handling them responsibly is ensuring that the one receiving the organ has a high potential of making the most of the donated organ.
When we are lost sinners, we are in desperate need of a heart "transplant":
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Eze 36:26
Like the organ donor recipients at the hospital, are there certain requirements we must meet that determine how qualified we are to receive this new heart? God's Word says NO!
Christ died for us, paid the debt in full for us, while we were weak (Greek - without strength), we could not even reach out to Him if we wanted to.
Christ died for us, paid the debt in full for us, while we were ungodly (Greek - wicked, showing no respect for God), when we wanted nothing to do with God - He took care of our debt.
There is nothing we can do or anything we can stop doing that will make us more qualified to know a restored relationship with God through Christ, because of the ultimate sacrifice He made on our behalf. No amount of self sacrifice, cleaning ourselves up, or trying to change who we are or what we do has any bearing on whether or not we can enter into a restored relationship with God.
God performs the miracle of conversion in weak, spiritually dead, ungodly, wicked people - not because of anything we do, but in spite of all that we do!
This conversion is a result of grace, which by definition cannot be a result of works or effort, or it would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6).
Clinging to Romans 5:6, we can know that Christ's sacrifice and atonement for sins can apply to us when we are at our worst - and transform us into a new creation, with a new heart that desires to glorify God completely!
These Casting Crown lyrics from the song "Who Am I" seem to sum it up pretty well:
Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
What an amazing God we serve, so full of love that He would make salvation available to us at our worst moment, when we are too weak to do anything good, when we don't even want anything to do with Him. WOW!
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