Let us pretend that we are diamond cutters, and we have before us the raw, uncut diamond of Romans 5:8. This is one of those verses which is so large and heavy to the average evangelical that most forget the value that it contains. There was a day when it excited their attention and wonder, but now they flock to those emerald and sapphire verses which speak about earthly blessings or the return of Christ. This stone is nothing but a brilliant, sparkling crystal. It draws it’s beauty into itself from the Persons of the Godhead. It doesn’t manufacture its own color or luster, but brings those things into itself from the Lord. And yet this verse speaks of something so wonderful that it begs to be displayed on black velvet. It needs to be worn around the neck of every gracious and beautiful Christian lady. Our task this morning is to chisel and cut-out some its better features. I’m sure we could dig up far more than 58, perhaps even 58 million. But we’ll save the bulk of that work for eternity, when we have a little more time.
When the diamond cutter does his work, he asks the stone a number of questions. So lets follow his example and ask some questions to reveal a few of the facets of the love of God.
But what about this other question – Why has God commended His love toward us? I have heard the testimonies of many Jews who lived through the Nazi death camps of World War II. A few of them talk about their faith in God and how it brought them through their trials. But the majority of them, despite their lineage and heritage, say that their faith was shattered. If there is a God, how could He approve and permit such atrocities? There must be no such thing as the love of God. Over and over again, we hear the same sort of thing – some even heard these words last week here in this auditorium. And certainly, the Jews in the days of Paul were repeating that same testimony. “We haven’t heard from the Lord since the days of Malachi – four centuries ago. If God loved us, then He wouldn’t permit these Roman soldiers to desecrate our city. Where is that love we used to read about and hear about?” At the beginning of the days of the New Testament the love of God had been long forgotten. People didn’t think of the God of the Old Testament as a God of love, and they still don’t. The Love of God is a New Testament theme they say. It is as foreign to the Old Testament as is the subject of “grace.” Exactly! Grace is something which fills both Testaments. And love is as clearly prominent in the first dispensation as it is in the second.
Why did God elect the people of Israel over all the nations of the earth? Because of love – out of His own heart – and nothing more. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 – “The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you.” “The Lord, thy God, turned curses into blessing because the Lord, thy God, loveth thee.” Jeremiah 31:3 – “I have loved thee (Israel) with an everlasting love.” In Hosea God, by way of illustration loved and married the whore and harlot – Israel. This love of God was not something simply spoken, but clearly proven by Jehovah over and over again. The fact that Israel suffered much in the Old Testament is due to the fact that she sinned much. And “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” The fact that Israel suffered much in the Old Testament is not due to any lack of love on the part of God.
But in the minds of the Jews, divine love was covered over by other things. For some, Jehovah was a God of wrath. It was all they ever saw – like Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth. Husband dead, sons dead, poverty – probable starvation. Where is this divine love that some people talk about? It is just amazing how quickly people forget God’s gracious blessings. There is as much love in the thunder storm as there is in the sunshine.
By the 1500th year after Moses, the people’s picture of the Lord was devoid of love. He was a God who they thought got angry if they cooked a hot meal on the Sabbath. He was a God who wanted them to serve egotistical spiritually-omnipotent priests. He was a God who had forgotten them and left them in hands of the bloody Romans. Oh, how they needed a new commendation of the love of the Lord.love and yet most are blinded to its meaning. I used to have a picture of a delegate to a meeting of the World Council of Churches, wearing a button with the letters: “BOIK.” The meaning is supposed to say, “Boy, am I confused.” That theologian was so confused that he didn’t even know how to spell “confused.” Our society today thinks that a great day on the stock exchange is proof of God’s love. We think that when our hundred-year-old grandfather survives his latest pneumonia that is an indication of divine love. The religious leaders of 21st century need a revelation of Lord God just as did the Jews of the first century. Thank God that a perfect revelation of that love has already been given.
Let’s take the verse as its face value: “God commendeth His love, but Christ died.” That is a very strange statement if someone isn’t acquainted with Biblical theology. It looks as though it ought to be “Christ commendeth his love toward us….” How is it possible that the death of a young Jew could prove God’s love? Did the death of Adam, Abraham, or Moses commend God’s love towards us? How about the martyrs’ deaths, or mother’s, or that of John F. Kennedy?
This verse is assuming something important; it assumes that we understand it. It assumes that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself – II Corinthians 5:18. The death of a martyr can’t prove the love of anyone but that of the martyr himself. The only way that the death of Christ could prove God’s love is through the unity of the God-head. It proved the love of God through the deity of Jesus Christ. How foolish and ignorant people are who say that the Bible doesn’t teach the deity of Christ. In truth, “In Christ dwelleth the fulness of the God-head bodily” – Colossians 2:9. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus Christ) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “God was manifest in the flesh” which we call Jesus of Nazareth – I Timothy 3:16. It is theological error to say that the Father died, when Christ died on the cross. But it true Biblical doctrine to say that God, the Son, died. This verse is more evidence that Jesus Christ is God.
“The cross is not the revelation of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ”? Jesus sacrifice on the cross is the revelation of the love of God. It actually was the sacrifice necessary to purchase our sin-dead souls. And yet the deity of Christ is not a point of theology in a lot of seminaries today. For most people, the atonement is not a theme to ponder and discuss when the TV out order. Nevertheless these stand at the core of our religion – they are essential.
God revealed his love with the most precious of all gifts – the sacrifice of Himself in the Person of His Son. And through that love and sacrifice sinners are delivered from the penalty for their sins. A new car won’t prove God’s love, nor will a diamond broach, nor a new house in the country. Being miraculously healed of brain cancer is not necessary a proof of God’s love. Saving the life of a child may be a curse more than a blessing. But the gift of eternal life at the expense of Jesus’ life is the quintessence of divine love.
Because diamonds are so valuable, they are often imitated. Crystal, leaded glass; paste; quartz, rhinestones, zircons, cubic zirconium. All of these are used to copy and to mimic the real thing, but they all can be quickly exposed. A trained eye easily knows the difference between the true and the false. Our Lord used this commendation to forever destroy the myths about His love.
For example, there is the myth that God doesn’t love at all. And there is the myth that this love was conveyed only to the rich, or to the religious, or to the Jew. After all, some segments of society are better off than the rest. There is a myth that love has closed the eyes of God to our sins and true spiritual needs. But “God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Christ died for His enemies. There is an old familiar story that during the Revolutionary War, Baptist pastor Peter Miller heard that his neighbor had been charged with treason. Miller knew that the charge was false, but his neighbor would likely die because the evidence was solid. So Pastor Miller walked 60 miles to plead before George Washington for that man’s life. Washington was not impressed until asked he asked the Christian how long they had been friends. “Friends? We’re not friends. The accused man hates me with all his heart.” The pardon was instantly granted, based on the preacher’s love for a professed enemy. Christ died making salvation from sin possible for those who then hated him.
No other commendation of love could have been any greater than this. It is equally hard to know what to give the man who has everything and to the one who has nothing. No better gift could the Lord have given to us than this, for we have nothing at all.
Righteous love can’t overlook our awful and despicable sinful condition. The Lord can’t carry you to glory with even one unforgiven sin as a stain on your soul. For this reason Jesus died; He died for sinful us. He died specifically to pay the ransom necessary for our souls.
We got a great gift in this sacrifice of the Son of God. It is more valuable than the gift of a transplanted heart from a dying stranger. Because even if we were given a dozen heart-transplants, physical death is inevitable. But the Son of God died that we might live eternally. He did not die to become a martyr, and He did not die to encourage us to repent and believe on Him. He didn’t die for those in Hell; He died to save His elect. It was the blood that Jesus shed at His death which cleanses away our spiritual filth. That blood is proof of God’s love. That blood is God’s love in action, redeeming the wicked and reconciling His enemies.
What kind of love is it? It is eternal love. See the word “commendeth?” The “eth” means that is ever-giving, ever-loving; it is eternal. And it reaches out in every direction – North, South, East, and West. It reaches toward Pharisees and publicans; to harlots and homosexuals; murders and Mohammedans. It pleads with every kind of people to repent of sin and bow before the Saviour. And it reaches into the future and eternity to come – the love of Christ cannot be weakened or broken.
“For when WE were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Notice the pronouns in the scriptures from verse 6 down to verse 11. Who are the “we”? They are Christians to whom Paul was writing. And who are the “you?” They are the same people. But those “we’s” and “us’s” are also those who have been born again today as well as yesterday. “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward US, in that, while WE were yet sinners, Christ died for US. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, WE shall be saved from wrath through him. For 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. And not only so, but WE also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom WE have now received the atonement.”
God has always loved those whom He has chosen to save. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” At the precise moment decreed by the Lord, the Son of God placed his death at the same spot as his love, and gave His life to redeem those whom He always loved. “God commendeth his love toward US, in that, while WE were yet sinners, Christ died for US.”
Won’t you acknowledge that love, by repenting of your sins? Won’t you accept the fact that Jesus Christ took your place under the wrath of God so that you might be delivered from your sins? Won’t you trust Him to save you? Ye must be born again, and this is the only way.