“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:7-8
This is Holy Week in the life of the church. It is a time when we celebrate the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—the time when God demonstrated “His own love for us.” The word “demonstrates” that the apostle Paul uses here means “to stand with something by making it conspicuous and stand out as an example.” What is that something? It’s God’s love for us, my friends. When Christ died for us, it made God’s love conspicuous. It made His love for us stand out—and He did it, “while we were still sinners. You see, we were not good enough to become Christians when we became Christians—we never could have been. But Christ died for us anyway—to demonstrate how much God loves us. Now that’s unconditional love.
The Apostle Peter said this of our Lord’s death on the cross: “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit . . .” (1 Peter 3:18)
In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica he wrote: “He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10) and to the Corinthians he pointed out what our response should be for what Jesus did for us: “And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:15).
Are these encouraging words to you today? Christ demonstrated His love for us, by dying for us while we were sinners. He is the Righteous One who died for the unrighteous ones, so that we may live together with and for Him for all eternity, both in this life and the life to come. What good news from a good God!
Pastor Don
