It may have been noticed that, though the apostle had carefully proved the ruin of man and the righteousness of God in which the believer has part, it is not so with His love. Of this he first speaks here as a thing not demonstrated but known and enjoyed. He assumes it from the common consciousness of Christians. It is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us.
Next we have God's love not thus subjectively viewed, but its display pointed out and grounded on the great objective fact of the death of Christ for us and outside us. “For while we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for [the] ungodly.” (Ver. 6.) How admirable the wisdom of God, and how wholesome! For even the believer convinced of his ungodliness is slow to appreciate his powerlessness. It was good to know that as man all was lost, and he had to do either with God's wrath in unbelief, or with His righteousness by faith. There is then the love of God in us, yea, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; but the foundation of it is in Christ's death, when we had as little strength as we were far from godliness. This was just the opportunity for grace; and for such Christ died.
It is not after this sort that the creature—that man—loves. “For scarcely for a just [man] will one die.” Righteousness, as such, one esteems and values; but it does not draw out love so that one would die for a merely righteous person. Not that man's heart is not capable of strong affections; “for one might for the good [man] even dare to die.” (Ver. 7.) None among the sons of Adam could surpass such love as this.
“But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Ver. 8.) This is characteristically divine and sovereign. We were powerless, unjust, evil, nothing but sinners, on the one hand; and God, on the other, had no motive for His love other than itself. It is emphatically His own love. As another apostle puts it, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Only God can love thus. Man, the saint even, must have a motive without; God has none. He, and He only, is love. The spring is within, and He needs no object without to call it forth. Those whom His grace makes objects of His love are wholly and absolutely unlovable as to themselves, yet He loves them spite of all they are. While they were yet sinners, Christ died for them—the fullest proof of their sin and of God's love. Nothing less could avail; nothing more blessed could be done even by Him; and nothing less would suit Himself. Thus He commends His own love. What a resting place for both heart and conscience! He forgets nothing, judges all, yet loves us with a love that is perfect and altogether peculiar.
How admirable are the ways of God in Christianity! There is nothing which opens so vast a field for activity, either in love or in mind; for the truth revealed is the revelation in Christ of Him who is infinite. Yet withal is it the most simple adaptation to the wants of every heart awakened to its real state in relation to God and indeed also to man. Thus the display of His love in the death of Christ comes down to the child, while it wholly transcends the highest soarings of poor but proud philosophy. There is the most profound truth, but it is embodied in facts which speak to every heart and conscience when the will has been dealt with by the Holy Spirit. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us; and in this God commends His own love toward us.