READ:
Romans 5:8
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
EXHORTATION:
Oh, how amazing is God’s love towards us sinners! His love towards us was manifested through the death of Christ “while we were yet sinners”. No merit of ours has moved Him to love us. He was not reciprocating our love for Him when He manifested His love through Christ’s death. All about us was displeasing to Him when He acted to express His love towards us through the death of Christ. He loved us of His own accord. Never was there such an expression of love as the love of God towards us in Christ Jesus. His love is both unprecedented and unparalleled.
Everything we did warranted His wrath and complete exclusion of us from receiving any expression of His goodness. We were undeserving of His love. We were unworthy, wretched sinners who were guilty of provoking Him through our defiant actions, when He manifested His love towards us.
The greatest evidence of His love for us is that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. God “spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). As Christ Himself said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” To express God’s wondrous love, Christ died for us. When we consider the manner in which He died, we are dumbfounded by the greatness of His love towards us. To die for us, He stripped Himself of the glories of heaven and became a man. To be a perfect sacrifice for us, He lived a holy life. He then endured a most agonising death. It was no common death! He not only suffered the violence of man’s hatred, but also bore the curse of God that was against the sinners for whom He died. Such was His love for us that He died bearing our sin and guilt, and God’s wrath that was against us.
As the apostle John said, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Again John said, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Furthermore, Paul in Ephesians 5:2 said, “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” Oh, how He loves us! Christ’s death on the cross is the perfect evidence of God’s wondrous love towards us. May we love Him too, because He first loved us.