Romans 5:6-116For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10For 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. 11And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. (Romans 5:6‑11)
In these few verses we have not only the great truth of the death of Christ, but also of the love of God for the sinner. The connection of verse 5 with verse 6 is evident. “For” indicates that we are the objects of God’s love, for Christ died for us. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Here, the reasoning of the apostle, the way he links these precious truths together, is beautiful and assuring. He proves that the Christian’s hope can never be disappointed, because the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given to him. The love of God, the work of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, give abundant assurance of the believer’s blessing, whatever may be the troubles of the way. The wheels of his soul have been set in motion by tribulation, patience, experience, and hope; but that which sustains the believer in the midst of the trials of this life can never fail. Disappointment would cover him with shame. But the love of God, as re-suiting in the cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, is the ground of his confidence, the full assurance of his hope. “And hope maketh not ashamed,” says the apostle, “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
“To God our weakness clings through tribulation sore,
And seeks the covert of His ways till all be o’er.
And when we’ve run the race, and fought the faithful fight,
We hope to see Him face to face with saints in light.”
Thus we have in verse 5 the love of God in us—His love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; and in verse 6 we have the love of God for us; for when destitute of all strength, “Christ died for us.” What a picture for faith to contemplate! What a treasure for the heart to cherish! What a stronghold in the day of trial! —the love of God as come into our hearts through the presence of the Holy Ghost there, and also publicly manifested in the gift, the work, the resurrection, and the glory of the Savior. And notice also that this is the first passage which speaks of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts, or of the Holy Spirit being given to us. But God’s due time was come for the full revelation of His love, both subjectively and objectively.
Although God knew from the beginning what man was, and what man would be, He allowed Him to be fairly tested under every possible circumstance in which he could be placed. In the patience of God he was under a state of probation for four thousand years. Surely this was trial enough! But what was the re-suit? That there was nothing good in man—that he was essentially ungodly—that he was unable to do anything towards his own deliverance from divine wrath, even with ordinances and ceremonies of divine appointment, as under the law—that he was like the man at the pool of Bethesda, who had no strength to take advantage of the troubling of the waters. But it may be interesting to trace for a moment the whole history of man, from the garden of Eden to the cross of Christ, where it ends, and which was God’s due time for the outflow of His love, and for the accomplishing of His purposes, especially as to the church.
In the garden man was innocent; he was made in the image of God, after His own likeness; surrounded with every favor and blessing, and enjoying the kindness of God, without knowing good or evil, righteousness or holiness. He had no conscience till after he sinned; before that he could not have understood what good and evil meant. Righteousness discriminates between right and wrong; holiness loves purity, and abhors evil; but Adam knew nothing of such distinctions, he was formed to understand and obey God. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” This was the command of God, and a test for Adam. He gave him but one command, and one of easy observance, and both Adam and Eve knew that the Lord who so loved them had a right to their obedience. Had he been told that it would be a moral evil to eat of the fruit of that tree, he might have said, What does that mean? But he knew that God had forbidden it, and that all depended on that command. We know what happened. Man listened to the tempter, believed his lie, forfeited the favor of God in eating the forbidden fruit, and in the presumptuous hope of being as gods, knowing good and evil. Thus man disobeyed, sinned, fell, and was driven from the garden of Eden, and the fair creation was laid under the withering curse of sin.
Man, alas! fallen and guilty, had now a conscience, but it was a bad one. He knew good and evil, but it was to be under the power of evil, and to know that he had lost the happiness which he once enjoyed with God and with all around him. His innocence was gone, and all the sweet enjoyments of that state gone—gone forever; though God, in mercy, had something infinitely sweeter and better in store for him, through the Second Man, the last Adam, head of God’s new creation, which can never be laid in ruins.
Thus we see that conscience was acquired by the fall. That which has been such an important element in the whole history of man, which has so affected his responsibility in all the relationships of this life, and in his responsibility to God, came in by sin. But in place of man being humbled thereby, we find the skeptic deifying himself because of his conscience; he professes to believe in no other law, to own no higher authority, to bow to no other tribunal, than conscience. Nevertheless, the place which conscience occupies in the ways of God in grace with the sinner is unspeakably important, and will be noticed by-and-by.
MAN AN OUTCAST.
Adam is now outside of Eden as lost and ruined, but not without hope. The Seed of the woman was announced as the bruiser of the serpent’s head, the destroyer of his power, and the deliverer of the fallen pair. We doubt not that, through grace, they laid hold on the blessed hope thus set before them by their merciful Creator. But though the subjects of God’s saving grace, the helpless objects of His compassion, they had now, in addition to body, soul, and spirit, what scripture calls “the flesh”—a perverse will—the carnal mind which is enmity against God, which is not subject to His law, neither indeed can be. This is the dreadful evil which was infused into man’s nature when he took of the forbidden fruit in obedience to Satan. It was then that the enemy dropped this deadly poison of unbelief into the heart of his victim, and which, in process of time, and with the increase of the human family, filled the whole earth with corruption and violence, and brought in the flood on the world of the ungodly.
This is the sin, the sin of universal man—the sin of Jew and Gentile, of believer and unbeliever—the root-sin of all others. And yet how little the most enlightened Christian may sometimes think of it. But what is it? It is the principle of distrust in God, and re-suits in every form of self-will; that I like my own way, and not God’s; that I am determined to have my own will, and my own way, whether God wills it or not. Whenever there is this strong desire to have what we wish, the voice of the tempter is listened to. He suggests many reasons to prove that this something which we so crave after is right in itself, and so blinds the mind as to God’s will on the subject. This is the very essence of sin, and the root of all other sins, because it proceeds from the unbelieving thought, that we can do better for ourselves than God is disposed to do for us, therefore we reckon not on Him, wait not for Him, but take things into our own hand, and pursue our own way. “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me” is the language of self-will—the worst sin of the prodigal son. His wish was to get away from his father’s house, his father’s will, his father’s ways, and revel in his own.
This is “the flesh,” that evil thing which Adam knew nothing of before the Fall, but the moment sin entered it displayed itself. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” Guilt on the conscience causes man to tremble at the sound of God’s voice. Self-convicted of departure from Him, they sought to veil their nakedness from their own eyes, and then to hide themselves from Him. This dread, this distrust, of God is the sad inheritance which the primeval pair have bequeathed to all their posterity, but from which, thank God, every believer is delivered through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Adam. There, on the cross, as a man and a sinner—a child of the first Adam—he comes to his end. He dies to sin in Christ’s death, and is raised to newness of life in His resurrection.
GOVERNMENT IN THE HAND OF MAN.
After the deluge, which closed the scene of man’s wickedness on the earth, and the first period of his history, the dispensational ways of God begin. The principle of government in the hand of man is now introduced. It does not appear that there was either law or government in the antediluvian world; man was left to himself, and this brought out his lawlessness. But God remembered mercy, and gave many testimonies to His grace in such individual cases as Abel, Enoch, and Noah, besides the wonderful type of deliverance through Christ in the ark which Noah was so long in preparing.
God now makes a covenant with the earth. When Noah went forth from the ark, he built an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings thereon. From this beautiful figure of the sacrifice of Christ, Jehovah smelled a sweet savor, and assures mankind that the earth would never again be visited with a universal deluge. “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease ... And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”
These principles, now established on sacrifice, will be infallibly maintained throughout the different ages, until Jesus, after having glorified God in government for thousand years, “shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father: when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power.” 1 Cor. 15:2424Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:24).
But, alas! scarcely had the sword of human government been entrusted to Noah, than it fell dishonored from his hand. His humiliating failure proved that he could not govern himself. This fresh trial of man only shows what is always true—that in all things man utterly fails, and comes short of the glory of God. The Noahic dispensation closes with a new form of evil—the worship of false gods; and the God of glory calls but one man into the place of separation, makes him the depository of promise, and the root of the olive-tree.