God’s Love in Christ Assures Our Hope – Romans 5:5–11

PRAY & INTRO: How would your life be different if you didn’t know God loves you? [pause] How would you live differently if you weren’t sure that you are justified and reconciled to this God of love and destined for his salvation?

Our Bible passage for today, Romans 5:5-11, grounds our hope in God’s own love for us in Christ Jesus. The bottom line that I want you to understand and apply from these verses is this:

God’s perfect love, proven in Christ and present by the Spirit, assures those justified by faith that we are reconciled to God and will be saved.

God’s uniquely perfect love, displayed centrally in the Son’s incarnation and sacrificial death, and which believers experience by the Spirit’s presence in us, gives us a sure hope of salvation, knowing that by Christ’s death and resurrection we have been irreversibly reconciled to God.

Again, our text is Rom 5:5-11. Verse 5, which we included in our study last time, provides the context for what Paul says in verses 6-11, so we’ll include it here again.

Romans 5:5–11 ESV

⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Now although I will break this down into logical parts to discuss and apply, here’s what I would consider to be a summary of the flow of Paul’s teaching in verses 5b-11. 

The Spirit helps believers to know and experience God’s love, displayed most centrally at the cross of Christ for an undeserving people, assuring the justified (by faith) of our hope that we are reconciled to God and will be saved from his wrath. (verses 5b-11)

First, let’s briefly seek to define God’s love and understand it in the overarching context God’s word.

What is God’s love? God’s love is his relational self-giving disposition and activity, for the good of the other, even at great cost to himself.

-Think of God’s love with respect to himself, the Trinity (three persons, one being). God’s internal disposition and activity within the Godhead is often described by theologians as a reciprocity of this loving relationship.

And then with respect to his creation, we also see God’s relational self-giving for the good of his creatures, even at great cost to himself.

-God’s act of creating the world, and humanity in particular, demonstrates his love. - Did God have to create us? In an act of self-giving love, and for our good—that we should exist—God created… and creates people still. And God has made us relational beings with the capacity to respond to his love. But God also made us knowing of our sinful rebellion.

-God’s covenants with people demonstrate his love. - One clear example of God’s love seen in the OT is by God choosing persons and a people to whom he is loyal in covenant faithfulness (Hb - hesed). God’s love toward Israel was absolutely for their good and at great cost to himself bc of sin’s hold on their lives.

-Even so, God making promises and fulfilling them is an act of his love. - In relation to another emphasis Paul makes in this text in Rom 5, God’s love for Israel came freely from God and was not based on anything meritorious in the objects of his love. (Deuteronomy 7:7–8 “7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”)

-God’s plan and act of the Son condescending to become man and sacrificing his life on a cross is perhaps the central expression of God’s love (in relationship to humans). And of course it is the primary point of our present passage of study.

We could probably go on and on about how the acts of a holy God reveal his love, as they reveal all the perfection of his character—such as God regenerating individual sinners and reconciling them to himself demonstrates his love.

But Paul’s point here is that God’s perfect love is therefore a trustworthy foundation for salvation hope.

Now again what does Paul say in verse 5 that is then grounded in objective truth in verses 6-8 especially?

The Spirit’s presence causes us to experience (subjectively) the love that God has displayed (objectively) in Christ Jesus.

We know the Spirit of God is now present in and with God’s people because of the promise that Christ made to his disciples, which was fulfilled at Pentecost and has continued to be fulfilled in every true believer who is a member of Christ’s Church.

Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room discourse (on the same night of instituting the Lord’s table):

John 14:16–17 ESV

¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

In Acts chapter 2, in fulfillment of this promise, the Spirit came upon Christ’s people in power. Not only does Acts give evidence that such continued as new groups trusted in Jesus as Lord, but Paul teaches that this always continues to be the case, as he says to later believers in Corinth:

1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

Or in this very letter to the saints in Rome when Paul returns to the theme of the Spirit’s work in us:

Romans 8:9 ESV

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

Romans 8:14 ESV

¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

But here more specifically, in chapter 5, what we explained last week is that the Holy Spirit in us confirms our hope because we know (even in our present experience) that God loves us.  The way Paul continues after verse 5 shows that this subjective experience of God’s love is based on the objective and matchless expression of God’s love in the sacrifice of Jesus for undeserving sinners.

In fact, Paul really hammers home this angle of God loving the undeserving. I’ve worded what Paul says (in vv. 6-8) like this:

Because we are unable and undeserving, God’s abundant, matchless love is proven in the sacrificial death of the Son.

What words and pictures does Paul use in verses 6-8 (and one in v. 10) to show that we are unable and undeserving of God’s love, a category in which Paul is deliberately including himself?

• “For while we were still weak…” Weak is a Greek word that was often used to describe someone as sick, because the sick person has limited capacity, is unable, is powerless and helpless. While we were still powerless, helpless, unable… “at the right time Christ died.” Surely by this Paul means that this was God’s plan in his perfect timing, that in this time of history when Rome ruled over Jerusalem and most of the known world, that God the Son became man and lived a righteous life unlike rebellious and idolatrous Israel, and in his perfect righteousness he gave his life to pay the penalty for sin that each sinner deserves.
• Again, when we were powerless, helpless, and unable, at the right time… Christ died for who? “the ungodly” - This literally means he died for the very people who did not show him the reverence and worship that he deserves as God. - Paul has already shown that this category covers everyone: Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” And so also v. 21 says “they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” In God’s love, Christ died for us, who have profaned ourselves in the worship of idols by not giving God the glory he deserves.
• To illustrate this point of how God’s love is on display in Christ precisely because we are unrighteous and undeserving, Paul draws on the extremely uncommon heroism in human activity to highlight the contrast (this is in v. 7). Although among Jewish people such sacrifice for another “was not particularly praised,” (Craig Keener, IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament) the Greek culture and tradition would have at least considered it heroic to give up ones life for family or friends or for a good cause. But that was rare, to be sure. Paul emphasizes the rarity of the action and couples that with contrasting man’s character and activity with God’s character and activity. - If you look back at ch. 3, verses 10-12, you will note especially that among mankind no one is righteous, and no one does good. (The word for righteous is identical in these two places, and although the words for good are different, and one is a verb and the other a noun, the concepts are similar and certainly overlapping. No one does what is ‘benevolent and kind.’ Maybe one would dare to die for someone who has been ‘good and generous’ toward them.) - Again, Paul’s point seems to be at least this twofold aspect of the contrast: God’s loving sacrifice is unmatched by even the most uncommon of human heroism, and that we as humans are so undeserving of this unique love that reveals the One who is uniquely God.
• Then to drive home further that we are undeserving of God’s love, he says in verse 8, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Sinners are those who live in disobedience to God because we have rejected God’s glory and rebelled against God’s authority. Once again, Paul has established the universality of this condition among mankind: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Do we merit God’s self-giving at such great cost to himself? No, sinners deserve judgment… deserve wrath.
• And a final category Paul uses in verse 10 to demonstrate that we do not love God and do not deserve his love is in calling us his “enemies.” In our sinful godlessness we are in direct opposition to God, and yet that is precisely the condition in which Christ died for us, dramatically transforming us from enemies to justified and reconciled, and who will be saved from the wrath we deserve.

The abundance of God’s love would already be evident in the fact that God the Son condescended from glory to take on human flesh and to die sacrificially for a punishment that was not his own. But on top of this, Paul’s emphasis here is that God’s matchless love that he lavished on us is yet more pronounced because we are so undeserving, and we really lack the categories to grasp the depth of this love. And yet by the Spirit we pray in faith for God to help his people grasp the depth of this love, even as Paul tells the Ephesians that he prays for God’s beloved people:

Ephesians 3:14–19 ESV

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

We too should pray this prayer for ourselves and God’s people everywhere. And as you pray such a prayer for others, you yourself will be comforted in the security of God’s love.

Now, back in Romans 5:5-11, how does God’s love in Christ lead to the assurance of salvation that he describes in the latter verses (9-11)?

The reason we have assurance of justification before God and reconciliation to God, and of salvation from wrath, is precisely because it does not depend on us but on God’s love in Christ Jesus.

By virtue of God’s own love, we have now been justified by Christ’s blood, Paul says in v. 9. Paul references blood specifically so that we will envision the connection to OT Levitical forms and images now fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and as a reference to his lifeblood that is poured out in the physical life that Christ gave up in sacrifice for sin’s penalty.

But how is one justified by his blood, by his sacrificial death? By the response of faith (Rom 3:22)… faith in God’s promise and power to save in the person and work of Christ Jesus. We are declared righteous—cleansed of sin’s penalty and imputed with Christ’s righteousness—if and only if, we respond by putting all our faith, all our trust, only in God’s gracious promise and power to save us because Jesus is Lord and accomplished our justification, reconciliation, and salvation from God’s righteous wrath.

Before circling back to reconciliation (that we have peace with God, v. 1), Paul begins leaning into Christ’s work as also saving us from wrath, undoubtedly here insinuating that Christ rescues us from the wrath we deserve to receive eternally after the final judgment before God. But if we are viewed as righteous by God because of Christ’s righteousness, then God’s righteous wrath no longer rests on us and will not fall on us in the judgment.

Paul continues this reasoning to establish the logical connection that if we have already been reconciled because of Christ’s death, how much more shall we be saved by his resurrection life. Paul is not trying to separate Christ’s death and resurrection into parts, as if one part accomplishes this and this part accomplishes that. No, Christ’s death and resurrection form a single unit of complete accomplishment that is necessary for any of this to work. Instead, Paul draws attention to a facet of this gospel truth—the fact of Jesus’ resurrection—to emphasize that the Lord who died to reconcile us to God is living, which means he will complete our salvation.

The result of this understanding of God’s love, Paul concludes (in v. 11), is that in the present we boast (the word translated as rejoice is the word boast)… we boast in God through Jesus Christ, because we know for sure that we are reconciled to God.

So what I hope you walk away with from Paul’s presentation of God’s truth is that… 

God’s perfect love, proven in Christ and present by the Spirit, assures those justified by faith that we are reconciled to God and will be saved.

Leading us to confidently boast in God… that he is our God… that he has made us his own… because of his own love which he lavished on us in Christ Jesus, and which he continues revealing to us and in us by his Spirit.

Before we leave this text, let me offer two concluding points of application:

Gratefully dwell in the sure grip of God’s perfect love, and boast in God.

It is all too easy to live an ungrateful life. When tempted toward ungratefulness, review and reflect again on this passage from Romans 5, and pray the prayer from Ephesians 3:14ff.

When discouraged, dwell in the sure grip of God’s love for you in Christ Jesus. When feeling insecure and unsure, dwell in the sure grip of God’s love for you in Christ Jesus. When disheartened by your sin and the sin of others, confess and move forward in grace, knowing that you dwell in the sure grip of God’s perfect love.

If the life you now live you live by faith in the Son of God (Gal 2:20), then you can know for sure that you are in the sure grip of God’s love, and by that knowledge you can have assurance of salvation. (Is this a license to sin? No. We are instead persuaded to walk in the new spiritual life he has given us by his resurrection. Rom 6:1-4.)

So then…

Let God’s love in Christ motivate and empower you by the Spirit to love as God loves.

Knowing that you are secure in God’s love, do you love as Christ has loved you? Does the security of God’s love compel your love?

God’s love is a communicable attribute that can be learned and imitated by humanity. - We are taught by God’s love that love is to actively and sacrificially give of oneself for the good of another.

1 John 4:9–11 ESV

⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 3:16 ESV

¹⁶ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

¹ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. ² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

We are commanded to do it, but where does the power and persuasion to love as God loves come from? From God himself.

1 John 4:7 ESV

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Again, how will we love as God loves? By walking in the Spirit and not the flesh. Paul starts the list of the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22–23 with “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” What we cannot do without Christ we can now do because we are united with Christ and have the Holy Spirit in us.

May the Spirit empower us, and God’s love in Christ motivate us, to be sacrificially self-giving for the good of others to the glory of God.

PRAY