Romans 5:6-11 ‘Christ In Our Place’

TEXT
Rom 5:6
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

• I love this phrase - ‘without strength’. We had nothing going for us. There’s no possible way we could help ourselves. The whole point of the first 3 chapters or so was to say that everyone sinned, and now he says that we had no strength. There’s no way to defeat it.
• But God loved us and therefore came and died for the ungodly. The ungodly! Those who hated Him and had rejected Him.

Rom 5:7
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

• I always think of movies and stories where there is an ultimate sacrifice of one person’s life for the rest of the characters in the story, or for one special character. And how terrific this sacrifice is! And yet, it is always, as far as I can remember, for a group of people that love and support the person who sacrifices themself. This makes sense to us. If you love a person and they love you back, then if needs be you may have to make the ultimate sacrifice. Not many people are willing to go through with this, which is why it is such a good story when it happens.

Rom 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• However, this story is not at all the story of God and man. For we were not supporters or lovers of God. In fact, though He loved us immensely, we turned away from Him, spat in His face and embraced things that He had made with the word of His mouth. Moreover, we rebelled against everything He stood for and against everything He had prepared naturally. We have seen this in previous chapters. In place of ‘sinners’ in this verse, I like to read ‘haters of God’, because that’s what sin is. And yet, the beauty of it all is that it was in this state, that Christ came and died a horrible death to save us. Surely we couldn’t turn that down…

Rom 5:9
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

• This always interests me – the distinction between justification and being ‘saved from wrath’. For indeed, they are distinct, though the come in the same package. For if we are justified, then it’s as if we have never sinned, and God could not justifiably pour out His wrath on us! Thus, through faith we are justified, and reconciled to God, and thus we also are saved.

Rom 5:10
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

• Again, the two parts of Jesus’ work are seen in tandem here – the death and resurrection. We are reconciled and justified by His death, and saved by His life. I heard a good analogy one time, which was to do with this type of thing, although slightly different. It went like – if you saw a beggar on the streets with dirty clothes and no food, you might take him in. You might be kind enough to take his clothes off him. But that would not be very nice on its own! You would then proceed to give him new, nice clothes. Clean clothes. And you would feed him and give him rest as well. The same as this, with Jesus’ death our sins and dirt are taken from us, but in His resurrection, we are given new clothes – cleanness and a new way of life.

Rom 5:11
And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

• And what should this lead to? Joy! We should be immensely joyful in the face of all of this. A Christian life without joy means there is something deeply wrong. In the previous section we saw that the Christian glories in tribulation, and now we see that Christians have joy constantly availing them because of the new life they have in Christ.

 

SUMMARY
Paul offers encouragement to believers in the face of God’s wonderful love for us – in that while we were still sinners, haters of God, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now His children who love Him, will He save us? Nothing is too hard or beyond God. And He is on our side more than ever. This leads him to conclude that we should be rejoicing!

 

WHAT DO I LEARN?
How easy it is to forget that God is near! How easy it is to forget that God is working for my good! How easy it is to mistrust His promises on the basis that I am no good! And yet, while I completely hated Him He came and died for me. Nothing can hold Him back now!