God's Love

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In Rom. 5, after the first few verses, we have two points most blessedly brought out; the first is the nature of the love of God, and the second the sort of deliverance it works out for its objects. The former we have in verses 6-8, pursued in verses 9-11 to its happy result in our joying in God; the latter in the remaining part of the chapter. It is on the former that I would now dwell for a little.
" The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Well, but what love? A love to good people, to those who love Him? O no, not that by any means. Not that it fails of this result, as we have already seen, for " we joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." But before ever we joyed in God, or had one pulse of affection beating in our hearts towards Him, He loved us. When our hearts were cold as the nether millstone, His heart yearned with love over us. " When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." This was the fruit of God's love. He loved ungodly persons, who had no power to be anything else; and loved them so much as to give His "own Son, out of His bosom, of His own free accord, to stand in their stead, and to suffer their deserts, that righteousness might have its way on Him the Holy One in their stead, and that love might have its way on them and towards them in bringing them back through this wondrous reconciliation into its own everlasting embrace.
This precious truth is presented to us in these verses by way of contrast with 44 the manner of man." Man needs something in the object to move him to love; he would scarcely die for a miser, let him be ever so just-there would be no motive; but for a benevolent man some would even dare to die. But who would die for his enemy? But that is precisely what Jesus did for us. It is when we were enemies that the Son of God died for us. Nay, more, it is by this wondrous fact that God is commending His love to us. " God commendeth HIS love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, (and sin is the expression of enmity-see Col. 1) Christ died for us." Christ died for us before ever we were reconciled; for it is by His death that we are reconciled. He died for us when we were nothing but ungodly ones, sinners, and enemies. That is indeed love. No motive in the sinner-it found all its motives in itself. This is the love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. It begins in God. It is the activity of God on the behalf of those who are active only in evil, and who say in their hearts, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. But it will not depart, for it must make these very enemies know its wondrous ways. Love does for them what love sees they need, and all of its own accord; yea more, love does for them what only love could imagine: it sacrifices itself that it may save them, and have them with it to enjoy it forever. But first of all, it gives them a place in its heart. This God does, for He is love; and this He does for sinners. This is the first grand thing: before any work is done in them, before any work is done for them even, God LOVES them. The gift of Jesus for them whilst they are yet sinners is the demonstration of this love. Righteousness demanded their death, love provides a ransom. Righteousness could not receive them in their sins; love dies to put them away. And after love has accomplished its work on their behalf, it comes to tell of it and to win their hearts by this revelation of itself. And this it does; for when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. He path reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.
Having established this point, the Apostle goes on to expatiate on the confidence we may have in such love as to all the rest. Everything that love can do for its friends we may now reckon on from what it has already done for its enemies. Every further manifestation of love lies imbedded in this first One, and if we have rightly estimated it we can count on all the rest. " He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up freely to the death for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things." " If we have been reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." "And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." He is our strength and song, for He has become our salvation. The Lord direct our hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ.