A Sermon by John Macdonald
Romans 5:8. God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
As the love of God is the source of human salvation, so is the manifestation of that love the spring of Christian hope. Such is the doctrine of the passage surrounding our text. Paul has by clear argument established the doctrine of justification by grace, through faith, without works of law; and he has cleared it of all objections and defended it against the cavils of prejudice. Then, at the start of this chapter he enumerates the privileges which belong to a justified state. Amongst these he twice mentions hope, in the most prominent manner (vv 2,4). And truly hope is worthy of a high place in such a list of privileges, whether we view it in connection with its animating object, or its gladdening exercise.
What is it in its object? It is the “hope of the glory of God” – that is, of eternally enjoying God in the highest manifestation of His heavenly glory, and also of being ourselves transformed into the likeness of that glory, so that we shall be perfectly capable of enjoying it when our short and toilsome pilgrimage of faith in this world shall have come to an end.
And what is this hope in its exercise? “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God”; that is, we exult in the prospect of such glory, as that in which the heart may revel and expand itself to the very uttermost, because of its gracious, rich, exquisite and boundless character. Such a hope changes the whole man, and gives a joyfulness of character towards God.
But what is the spring of such a hope as this? May it be the mere result of imagination, like that of the world? Or may it be the sustained effort of a studied profession of religion, like that of formalists and hypocrites? No, we can give a better account of our hope than they: it will never “make us ashamed”, never leave us to miserable disappointment and everlasting contempt, as that other hope will do, for this is its spring: “The love of God . . . shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost”. There is here apparently an allusion to the procession of natural light from the sun which, entering by the opened eye, enables the whole man to perceive and rejoice in that glory of the firmament. The gospel is the light which flows from God and reveals Him in His love – it is the very light of love. When the blind eyes of the soul are opened by the work of the Holy Spirit, then the external light of love flows
1Taken, with editing, from A Pastor’s Memorial. Macdonald (1807-47) ministered in London and in Calcutta and was a son of the better-known John Macdonald, Ferintosh, the “Apostle of the North”. The other part of this sermon will appear next month, DV.
into the eyes of the soul by faith of the gospel, and the love of God is then shed abroad in the heart.
Jehovah is then seen in all the glory of His love and compassion to sinners, even as the earthly sun is seen in its own rays. Under the power of this manifestation of God’s love, hope springs up and, as the inward perception increases, so does hope strengthen until it is matured. Note that it is not the consciousness of perceiving the love of God that is the spring of our hope, but it is the very love itself, which we perceive in God, as revealed in the gospel, that causes hope; just as it is not the consciousness of perceiving the sun that gladdens us daily, but rather it is seeing the sun itself that animates us for our work. Thus we are led to an important conclusion: the hope of the believer will ever be in proportion to his perception of the love of God to sinners in Christ Jesus; the strength of the one will vary as the fulness of the other is increased or diminished.
Now, seeing that this is the spring of Christian blessedness, it is certainly of the utmost importance that we contemplate the love of God in its highest degree and in its brightest display; that we receive it in its chief glory, to be shed abroad in our hearts, for then shall we be most joyful in our hope. But where shall we so find it? Even in this fact, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us“. This is the highest manifestation of the love of God; for herein “God commendeth His love to us”. When our hope springs from this supreme commendation shed abroad in our hearts, we shall never be ashamed or disappointed; for if the love of God was so great that He gave His Son to die for us as sinners, His enemies, can we ever despair of His love to us as believers, His friends? No, it cannot be. Therefore we shall ever rejoice in our hope.
We have to consider (1) an important fact, that Christ died for His people as sinners; and (2) that a certain result follows from this fact: in it God commends His love to us.
1. The grand fact of the Christian faith, that Christ died for sinners. May the Lord the Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Christ, be with us to enlighten us in the fulness and simplicity of this truth! This fact is the most extraordinary in the history of the world, and it is full of meaning. Let us view it in its simplicity, which is its strength.
(1.) The person spoken of is a being of supreme glory – Christ. And none is higher or better than He. He is the second among the Divine Three – the Son of God, one with the Father and the Spirit: “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; for by Him were all things created . . . all things were created by Him and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist”. The Word was “in the beginning”; He was
with God, and was God. He was the “fellow” of Jehovah; He was “in the form of God, [and] thought it not robbery to be equal with God”. He it was who “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”.
Great indeed is this mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh! There is no other such being in the universe, nor can there be another Immanuel, “God with us”. He was, and is, very God. He became, and He still is, very man; “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. Such is He who died for sinners.
(2.) The act which Christ performed was of the most intense and extreme kind. “He died.” Beyond this He could not go. Death is the penalty of sin and the utmost token of divine anger – when viewed in its full character, as the painful dissolution of the body and the fiery punishment of the soul. Now Christ endured all this, even the fulness of death as the curse of sin. He suffered all the agony connected with the painful and shameful death of a public execution on the cross. He took upon Him the fiery pangs of hell without going into it, for He gave Himself up to be forsaken of God until He cried out, under the inconceivable agony of that unseen dying: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
He endured the utmost that divine justice could require, through eternity, from those who die the second and eternal death. Here was the greatest act which one being can perform for another, whether in suffering or degradation. This act the Son of God performed for sinners. True, it was in His humanity that He died; but when He offered Himself up, it was by His divinity. Yet the act was that of the one God-man, Christ Jesus the Lord.
(3.) The character of those for whom Christ died was of the most unworthy kind. “He died for us.” But who are “we”? Men justified and sanctified, friends and disciples? Yes – now, if true Christians, we are so. But was it for us, as such, that He died? No, the Apostle disclaims the supposition: “Whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. When we speak of Christ having laid down His life for His people, we are too apt to think of only their present condition as saints, and not of their former and original state as sinners; and to suppose that the new character which His death has procured for them was that character in them to which the Lord had respect when He redeemed them.
We forget that the present holiness of saints was the very purchase of His death. He died for us when we were yet “without strength” – dead in sin and unable to think one righteous thought, or perform one spiritual action. “He
died for us”, when we were yet ungodly – that is, impious, without the love or fear of God, living as if there was no God in the world, and regarding ourselves as our own gods. He died for us when we were yet “sinners”, when He foresaw us actually rejecting His authority, violating His law, and habitually doing what is abominable to His infinite purity – when we were labouring under that awful sentence of death which declared us to be accursed of God, the outcasts of the universe, ready for destruction in the bottomless pit, and awaiting the Judge’s command to lead us forth to the eternal damnation of hell.
He died for us, to crown all, as enemies – enemies in the very constitution of our fallen minds, and in the everyday practice of our sinful lives, hating the character and the law of God, the true God. We were, at heart, in league with Satan, His arch-enemy – as instruments, slaves, subjects, partners in his deadly enmity against the Lord and His Anointed. Yes, when we were seen to be such enemies, for those very enemies Jesus Christ died! These are the circumstances of Christ’s death, which we ought never to forget: they are the very facts of the case, on which its merits depend. He who knows not that Christ died for sinners, as sinners, knows not at all the love of the Son of God.
(4.) Once more, mark the closeness of relation to sinners in which He died “for” them; that is, in their stead. No relation can be closer than that of a substitute or surety; he makes himself to be as we are; it is the nearest approach to His becoming our very selves that can be made. Christ died instead of sinners; not merely for their benefit, as a witness, martyr or example.
He who was God, became man. He who was God of omnipotence became the babe of weakness and the man of poverty. He who was the God of holiness put Himself in the place of the ungodly and made Himself answerable for their crime. He who was God of righteousness and Lawgiver of the universe came without sin and, “in the likeness of sinful flesh”, offered Himself as a sacrifice instead of the guilty, enduring their very punishment. He who was Lord of lords and King of kings became as one of His enemies, endured His own wrath due to them, drank the very cup which His own hand had filled for them as rebels, and died their very death by hanging on “the accursed tree”. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.”
May we not now say, “How amazing, how glorious a fact is this!” “Christ died for us when we were yet sinners!” How worthy is such a fact of being the very foundation of that scheme which is designed to bring infinite glory to God! To the worldly mind it seems of little moment, never to be thought
upon. But, to the believer it is one of unceasing wonder, of increasing astonishment. He can never master it; yet he can never be done with it. He feels the necessity that exists for an eternity, and for perfection, to enable him to approach its invisible summit or sound its unknown depths.