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 the manifestation of that love is the spring of Christian hope. Such is the doctrine of the passage surrounding our text. The Apostle has, by a clear argument, established the doctrine of justification by grace, through faith, without works of law; he has cleared it of all objections and defended it against the petty arguments of prejudice. He now mentions, at the beginning of this chapter, the privileges which belong to a justified state; among these he twice mentions hope, in the most prominent manner (vv 2,4).
Truly hope is worthy of a high place in such a list of privileges, whether we view it in connection with its object or its exercise. What is it in its object? It is the “hope of the glory of God” – the hope 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” (as the word originally means) in the prospect of such glory, as of that in which the heart may revel and expand itself to the very uttermost, because of its gracious, rich, exquisite and boundless character. Such hope changes the whole man, and gives to the subject of it a joyful determination of character towards God.
But what is the source of such hope as this? Is it the mere result of imagination or enthusiasm, like that of the world? Or is it 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: 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 source: “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; when it enters in by the open eye, it is shed abroad in the whole person and enables him to perceive and rejoice in the glory of the sky.
1The first part of a sermon taken with editing from a small volume of sermons by Macdonald (1807-47), A Pastor’s Memorial. A son of his namesake, the “Apostle of the North”, he was a Church of Scotland minister in London before he left to minister in Calcutta. It should be noted that, when using the words of the text, the preacher is speaking particularly to believers.
The gospel is the light which reveals God in His love – it is the very light of love. By the operation of the Holy Spirit, the blind eyes of the soul are opened, the external light of love flows into the eyes of the soul through believing the gospel, and the love of God is then “shed abroad in the heart”. Then Jehovah is 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.
It is not the consciousness of perceiving the sun that gladdens us, but rather it is the sun itself, seen by us, that enlivens us for our work. Just so it is not the consciousness of perceiving the love of God that is the source of our hope, but it is the very love itself that causes hope – when we perceive it in God, as revealed in the gospel. 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; and the strength of the one will vary as the fullness of the other is increased or decreased.
Now seeing this is the spring of Christian blessedness, it is certainly very important for us to contemplate the love of God in its highest degree, and in its brightest display; to receive it in its chief glory, and to have it shed abroad in our hearts, for then we shall be most joyful in our hope. But where shall we so find it? Even in this fact, “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. This is the highest manifestation of the love of God to us; for in this “God commendeth His love toward 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,” shall we – 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 here then to consider (1) an important fact, that Christ died for His people as sinners; and (2) there is before us a certain result from this fact, that in this God commends His love to us.
1. The grand fact of 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 fullness and simplicity of this truth! This fact is the most extraordinary in the history of the world, and it is the fullest 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. There is no one higher or better than He. He is the second in name 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 . . . and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist”. He is
the Word who was in the beginning, who was with God and who was God. He who was the “fellow” of Jehovah; He “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God”. He “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 was 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 still is, very man; the “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 most intense. 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 all this Christ endured; even the fullness 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 utmost act which one being can perform for another, whether in suffering or degradation; and this act the Son of God performed for us. True, it was in His humanity that He died; but, by His divinity He rendered Himself up. The act was that of the one God-man, Christ Jesus the Lord.
(3.) Those for whom Christ died were most unworthy. “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 denies the suggestion: “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. When we speak of Christ having laid down His life for His people, we are only too apt to think only of 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 the character 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, 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 indulging in what is abominable to His infinite purity. It was 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; when we were awaiting the Judge’s mandate to lead us forth to the eternal damnation of hell.
To crown all, He died for us 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, and leagued in heart with Satan His arch enemy, as instruments, slaves, subjects, partners of 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 does not know that Christ died for sinners, as sinners, does not at all know the love of the Son of God.
(4.) Mark the closeness of His relation to sinners in which He died. He died “for” them; that is, in their place. No relation can be closer than that of a substitute or surety; He makes Himself to be as we are; it is the nearest possible approach to His becoming our very selves. 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 crimes.
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 punishment. He who was Lord of lords and King of kings became as one of His own 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 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 believers not now say, How amazing, how glorious a fact this is: Christ died for us when we were yet sinners! How worthy is such a fact to be 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 for an eternity to enable him to approach its invisible summit, or sound its unknown depths.