Romans 5:5-8 – God’s Love Revealed

When we fully understand these verses in Romans, and many of Paul’s other writings concerning tribulation, we come to realise that for a person to be able to not only have peace and hope in tribulations but to glory in them is probably the single most wonderful and amazing gift we have in Christ.

Imagine the heartbreak of losing a loved one, imagine the anxiety of a terminal illness diagnosis or the pain of broken body parts. Imagine being able to suffer in them while at the same time having a hope and a peace that surpasses understanding; and only Jesus Christ can bring that to a human spirit.

Worldly wealth and riches, fun and amusement or fame cannot produce that state. The world’s full of heartbroken, fearful and hurting people who have material wealth.

 

Romans 5 lists the blessings God gives the believer by grace once we’re justified by faith.

In Romans 5:5 where we finished last time we read,

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. 

 

This is the first time Paul mentions the love of God in Romans, and by the time we reach Romans 8 we’ll learn that nothing can separate us from that love.

Many Christians think certain things can cut them off from God’s love, but Paul says nothing can.

God’s love, according to Romans 5:5, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

 

One of those great blessings we receive when we’re justified is the Holy Ghost.

Romans 5:5 is also the first mention of the Holy Ghost in Romans. Ephesians 1:13 explains when we received Him,

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 

 

We heard the gospel, we believed, and then we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

He’s the “earnest” of our inheritance as 2 Corinthians 1:22 and Ephesians 1:14 says.

The earnest is a pledge or a guarantee that the entire inheritance will follow.

The Holy Spirit puts us into the body of Christ says 1 Corinthians 12:13. He makes us God’s temple says 1 Corinthians 3:16. All of this happened the moment we believed.

 

So how does the Holy Ghost shed abroad the love of God in our hearts? Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 2:10–13.

The Spirit reveals the things God has prepared for us. He knows the deep things of God. He teaches us “the things that are freely given to us of God” which are the very things Romans 5 is describing. The Spirit revealed these truths to Paul, Paul wrote them down, and now we learn them from that writing that we know as Scripture, which the Holy Ghost inspired.

 

The Holy Ghost does not teach us through mystical feelings or through traditions of man, or rituals. He teaches through the written Word that He gave. That’s how we know the love of God, the hope of glory, and the certainty of our salvation.

 

Romans 8:9 says if we’re saved, the Spirit of God dwells in us.

Romans 15:16 says the Holy Ghost is the one who sets us apart. That’s our sanctification, setting apart.

Christ died for our sins, and the Spirit applies that work on the cross to us. The Godhead, The Father, the Son, and the Spirit work together so we can stand in God’s love and know it’s sure.

 

Romans 15:16 says Paul was made a minister to the Gentiles so their offering “might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.” So who puts Gentiles in a position acceptable to God? The Holy Ghost and He is God.

 

Ephesians 2:18 says both Jew and Gentile now have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Christ died and made the atonement, but the Spirit applies it, putting us into the one body. This’s why the fuller knowledge of Christ dying for all is not applied to anyone until the Holy Ghost puts it on us and we receive the Him when we believe the gospel. That’s Ephesians 1:13.

People often think that the Spirit comes before belief, but Scripture says belief comes first, then the Spirit regenerates us and places us in Christ.

 

Ephesians 3:3–5 shows the mystery that was revealed to Paul was revealed by the Spirit. Jesus appeared to Paul, yes, but the revelation itself came by the Holy Ghost.

 

In Acts, the Spirit is the one moving everything—sending Paul, directing Peter, giving miracles, and shifting God’s work from Israel to the body of Christ. The early church doctrine didn’t come from men thinking hard; it came from the Holy Ghost revealing truth.

 

We often forget the Holy Spirit, but He’s not a force, He’s a person of the Godhead.

Jesus said the Spirit would speak of Him.

 

So, again Romans 5:5 says,

…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Paul’s been showing how a believer, walking by faith, can go from tribulation → patience → experience → hope. But this only happens if we understand what Christ has done for us.

If we don’t know the gospel truth, tribulation doesn’t produce patience—it produces frustration.

But when we walk by faith, tribulation works patience, patience works experience, and experience strengthens your hope. Why? Because it’s that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1) and that comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God (Romans 10:17). That’s why it’s impossible to please God without faith (Hebrews 11:15).

 

So how does the Holy Ghost “shed the love of God abroad in our hearts” and what does that actually mean?

Strongs concordance shows to shed abroad means to pour out or to gush out while Thayer’s adds “to bestow or distribute largely”.

So how this happens is by God, through the Holy Spirit, revealing to us the things God’s prepared for us. He knows the deep things of God, and He teaches us the things freely given to us which is exactly what Romans 5 is describes. When we see and understand the riches of God’s grace freely given to us, hope comes and that hope doesn’t disappoint and through all this, through all that we are now in Christ and at the very bottom of it all is that the whole picture displays God’s love to us.

If we were to hope for something but then later find that we were never going to get it, our hope would be put to shame or destroyed. But the hope of our salvation will never be put to shame.

How can we be so sure?

Because the love of God, His love, has been poured out in our hearts.

The Holy Spirit, which was given to us the moment we believed, as we’ve said, floods our hearts with these expressions of God’s eternal love that He clearly shows us in these verses we’re in now, and by these we’re assured that He will see us safely home to heaven and glory.

After we receive the Spirit and we begin to understand just what we have in Christ, we begin to see and know that God loves us and we begin to understand the magnitude of that love.

This isn’t a vague, mystical sort of emotional feeling like “Somebody up there” loves me. Feelings mean absolutely nothing.

Faith’s not built on feelings, culture, or personal opinions. It’s built on the unchanging, authoritative Word of God. When Scripture speaks, we don’t edit it, soften it, or explain it away, we believe it.

Only what God said has any meaning and when we believe His word and learn about these gifts we’ve been given we can’t help but get a deep conviction that the real and ever present God really loves me as an individual.

 

Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 2:10–13. The Spirit revealed these truths to Paul, Paul wrote them down, and now we learn them from Scripture, which of course, the Holy Ghost inspired. That’s how the Spirit teaches us today by the written Word that He gave and that we believe and accept by Faith, knowing what God said and trusting it. People don’t lack faith because they can’t understand, but because they won’t accept what God said.

 

So, the love of God, then, is something the Holy Ghost reveals through Scripture. Romans 5 says this love is the reason our hope quote “maketh not ashamed.” Our hope is sure because God’s love is sure.

We saw last episode that 2 Timothy 1:12 says,

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 

 

The love of God is His grace. His love shown in Christ dying for sinners. Romans 3 showed God’s love in Christ’s blood. Romans 4 showed it’s received by faith, not works. Romans 5 shows the riches that love gives us now. Romans 8 will show that nothing can separate us from it.

 

So when Romans 5:5 says the Holy Ghost sheds the love of God in our hearts, it means the Spirit teaches us, through Scripture, the truth of God’s love and the certainty of our hope through the riches freely given to us in Christ.

 

Romans 15:16 says it’s the Holy Ghost who sanctifies us or sets us apart for God’s purpose. Christ died for our sins, and the Holy Ghost applies that work to us. The Godhead is one, but the Spirit has a real job in our salvation. He makes us acceptable to God.

 

Ephesians 2:18 says,

For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 

 

The “we” here in the context is both saved Jew and Gentile who, are one new man, in one body, The Body of Christ, and now having access to the Father by one Spirit.

That access, according to Thayer’s concordance, means relationship with God whereby we’re acceptable to him and have assurance that He’s favourably disposed towards us.

Christ made the atonement, that was critical for this to happen, but the Spirit places us into that one body.

That’s why Christ’s death for all men is not applied to anyone until they believe the gospel. When we believe, then the Holy Ghost seals us, permanently, and regenerates us, and puts us into Christ.

Scripture clearly shows belief comes first, then the Spirit’s work.

 

Ephesians 3:3–6 says the mystery was revealed to Paul “by the Spirit.”

The Holy Ghost revealed the new dispensation, the body of Christ, and the gospel of grace.

We often forget the Holy Ghost or sort of push Him into the background, but He is God.

 

So, Romans 5:6 begins to explain the love of God. Verse 5 said the Holy Ghost sheds God’s love abroad in our hearts. Verses 6–8 define that love. Let’s read,

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 

 

That’s the love of God—the cross.

Paul reminds us who we were. Romans 3 showed we were sinners with no strength to save ourselves, with no righteousness, no ability, no strength to remove our own sins and  to fix ourselves.

But Christ died for us when we were ungodly, sinners.

That’s the love of God. Our hope of glory doesn’t depend on our strength. Our salvation doesn’t depend on how many good works we undertake or how many candles we light or the quantity or quality of the prayers we offer. God’s love was shown at the cross, not in anything our ability is capable of.

 

This is the beginning of Paul’s argument in Romans chapters 5–8, which, as we’ve said, are in the context of the entire book of Romans so far. That sort of argument within the argument, if you like, is  that nothing can separate us from the love of God, because it never depended on us in the first place. It depended on Christ’s finished work and the Holy Ghost applying it to us when we believed.

When we had nothing to offer, Christ died for us.

 

Paul says Christ died “in due time.”

That means He died at the exact time God appointed. God didn’t send Christ right after Adam fell because humanity needed to learn the knowledge of sin. God had to set up Israel, give the law, show righteousness, and prove that even with God’s help, man cannot make himself righteous. The Old Testament shows this over and over and Romans 3:10 reinforces it by saying, “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

This “in due time” phrase shows us the awesome and magnificent wisdom of God and his progressive revelation, the unfolding of His plan absolutely and perfectly executed to the minutest detail over thousands of years.

It was prophesied by the Holy Spirit, speaking through the prophets for centuries.

Christ’s birth, His life, His death were all written about down to the tiniest detail long before He came. No other life in history was foretold like that. His birth, death, burial and resurrection was not some random act. It was at the exact time God said it would be as Galatians 4:4 records,

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

 

This also very obviously means that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus had not died yet. We can’t read those books as if the cross had already happened.

There was no preaching of forgiveness through the cross yet, because the cross hadn’t happened.

Jesus preached the law to Israel which we can plainly see throughout the 4 Gospels.

When the rich young ruler asked about eternal life in Matthew 19:16-30, Jesus pointed him to the law, not the cross, because the gospel of grace was still hidden at this stage.

 

Titus 1:3 says God “manifested His word through preaching” in due times. 1 Timothy 2:5–6 says,

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. 

 

Christ died at the right time, and the revelation of what that death accomplished was also given at the right time.

Christ died before Paul ever received the revelation of the mystery. At Pentecost, the Holy Ghost revealed prophecy about Israel’s kingdom, not the meaning of the cross.

It was later, through Paul,  that the Holy Ghost first revealed what Christ accomplished by His death. That means there was a short period after the cross when even the apostles didn’t yet know the gospel of grace.

 

1 Corinthians 2:7–8 reads,

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 

Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 

 

Christ couldn’t reveal the mystery before the cross, or the cross wouldn’t have happened which would have been the greatest tragedy for mankind, automatically condemning every person who ever lived to eternal death with no hope of redemption.

Only after His death did the Holy Ghost reveal to Paul what God was doing in Christ.

 

This is the same truth Paul teaches in in the wonderful passage of 2 Corinthians 5:18–21.

Romans and Corinthians are not different messages—they preach the same gospel of Christ’s finished work.

 

So Romans 5:6 reminds us: Christ died for us when we had no strength, when we were yet sinners.

His death was planned, prophesied, and revealed in due time. And the love of God shown at the cross doesn’t depend on our strength, our works, or our performance. It depends entirely on Christ.

Paul’s explaining what was really happening at the cross. When people were nailing Jesus to that instrument of torture and when the disciples ran away confused, God was in Christ, not imputing the world’s sins to them. Nobody standing there at the time knew this.

Jesus didn’t preach it during His earthly ministry. John didn’t know it. Peter didn’t know it. Only after the resurrection did the Holy Ghost reveal it to Paul. That’s why Paul calls it the mystery.

 

So, because we now know what God did by the cross, we’re ambassadors for Christ. We preach reconciliation between man and God because we understand what happened there. And how do we know it? Someone taught us and we believed it. The Holy Ghost sealed us. And, as we’ve read, the love of God was shed abroad in our hearts by that same Holy Ghost. That’s how faith comes.

 

Without this knowledge, nobody could ever look at a cross, which was an instrument of death, and call it love. Without the revelation of what it achieved it represents shame, defeat, and failure.

It wasn’t even built for Jesus; it was Barabbas’ cross. Jesus hung there between criminals, naked and beaten. Nothing about that scene looks glorious. But once the Holy Ghost reveals the mystery, we see what God was doing all through it, reconciling the world to Himself.

 

This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21,

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

 

That happened at the cross. And this’s why Romans is such an important book. It explains the meaning of Christ’s death.

We say “Christ died for us” all the time, but that language comes from Paul’s epistles, not from Jesus’ earthly ministry.

 

Romans 5:6 says,

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

 

That word for there is everything.

He didn’t just die because Pilate allowed it or because Israel rejected Him. He died for us, on purpose and with intent, as a substitute.

This is the heart of Christianity. Many people who claim to be Christians reject this, but Scripture is clear: Christ died for sinners.

 

The phrase “died for” appears seven times in the New Testament—all in Paul’s writings. “Gave Himself” appears five times—all in Paul’s writings. Without Paul’s epistles, we just wouldn’t know that Christ died for anyone. We’d only know He died.

 

Why did He die? Not just as an example, not just as a victim, not just as a martyr. He died for the ungodly, for people who mocked Him, rejected Him, and had no strength to save themselves.

That’s the love of God.

And that’s why this dispensation is so strange to religion. Religion says man must work to please God. The gospel says God died for the ungodly, for sinners.

That’s grace. That’s the love of God. And that’s the message we now preach.

And who are the ungodly who Christ died for? All of us.

Romans has already proven that there’s none righteous. So the only people who can be saved are the ungodly, the sinners, the ones “without strength.” If someone says, “I’m not a holy person,” that means they qualify for salvation. Salvation is only for the ungodly, the unholy, the imperfect.

 

And if the church, the Body of Christ, is made up of saved people, then what do we expect to find in church? Sinners! Weak people. Ungodly people.

The world mocks this and says, “Religion is a crutch.” Well, yes—because without Christ we’d fall flat on our faces. The world boasts in its own strength, but the truth is they can’t save themselves from sin and judgement but they just don’t see it. We didn’t either until we heard the gospel, the good news about salvation and simply believed it.

Real wisdom is admitting our weakness and trusting God’s mercy.

That’s grace.

 

So Paul goes back to the gospel in Romans 5:6,

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

 

That is how we know the love of God makes our hope certain. If we had no strength to save ourself, why would we think we need strength to keep the hope of glory? Our hope rests on Christ, not us.

Then Paul compares man’s love with God’s love.

Romans 5:7 says,

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 

 

People call dying for someone “the ultimate sacrifice.” Jesus said in John 15:13,

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 

 

That’s the highest love man can show.

But even then, it’s rare.

People might say they’d die for a friend, but when the moment comes, the flesh says, “I want to live.”

Scarcely will someone die for an innocent man. Maybe—just maybe—someone would for a “good man,” someone worthy, someone noble, someone who’s done a heap of good.

People die in wars, for family, for country, for leaders they think are worthy. But even that’s rare.

 

And then comes the absolutely magnificent Romans 5:8,

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

 

God didn’t die for the best people or the most noble or for the innocent. He died for the ungodly, the ones who mocked Him, rejected Him, and betrayed Him.

That’s the love of God. That’s grace. That’s the cross. Realising that through learning about it sheds that love of God abroad in our hearts.

People ask, “How do I know God loves me when tragedies happen?” Romans 5:8 is the answer. This is the commendation, the showing of, the proving, the establishing, the exhibiting of God’s love.

This verse is more than likely the greatest verse in the Bible within the greatest chapter in the Bible, within the greatest book of the Bible.

It tells us why Christ died. It was for us.

 

Now we should notice something very important in Romans 5:8 that many people miss.

The verse is not saying “God loves us because we’re special.” The verses are not praising us. They’re praising God’s love, not the sinner. The only place we appear in Romans 5:8 is the word sinner.

Salvation’s not about praising the sinner. It is about praising the Savior.

 

Thinking “God died for me because I’m so valuable” is self-deception. If another person takes a bullet that was meant for me, I don’t say, “Give me the medal.” The medal goes to him!

When someone gives us a gift, we don’t say, “They gave me this because I’m amazing.” We say, “Thank you—what a generous thing you did.” The giver gets the praise, not the receiver.

Christ died for me, not because I’m so worthy, but because His love is worthy.

 

Romans 5:8 teaches that God’s love is immeasurably great and it’s commended or shown to us through the act of Him offering Himself to die for sinners who did not deserve it and who’s sin removed them permanently from Him. In fact we were God’s enemies as we’ll soon see in Romans 5:10.

The verse says God commended His love toward us. That “us” is not our personal individual self. It means all sinners, the whole condemned world. Us are all sinners. Christ made an atonement for everyone by His death on the cross. The point of the verse is not how wonderful you and I are, but how wonderful God’s love is. His death commends His love, not our value.

 

This shows a love far beyond frail human love. It’s a love that proves itself by a sacrifice so great as to be beyond our full understanding.

It wasn’t because we’re worthy, but because He’s gracious.

That’s the love of God. That’s the gospel. And the only right response is to praise God for His grace.

 

If we’re not in Christ, that love is not applied to us.

We must believe the gospel, the good news of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection as in 1 Corinthians 15:4, receiving the Holy Ghost when we do, before the benefits of the cross become ours.

God’s love was commended toward all, but only believers receive its blessings.

 

God’s love toward us is seen in the fact that Christ, Who was God, became a man. God Himself put on flesh so His love could reach sinners. The Father said of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son,” and that Son died for the world. God loves you for Christ’s sake as explained in Ephesians 4:32.

 

When God commended His love by Christ dying for sinners, it’s the greatest love ever shown. But notice: the verse does not say “God loves sinners.”

Here’s where deeply embedded church traditions and misread bible verses can get in the road of what God actually said.

The bible says He commended His love toward sinners. God’s trying to save sinners, not approve of them. To say “God loves the sinner” as if God’s pleased with sinners is to twist His righteousness.

Scripture is clear that God hates sin and hates sinners in their sin. Romans 1:18 says His wrath is revealed against all ungodliness.

Psalm 5:5 says God “hates all workers of iniquity.” Psalm 11:5 says He hates “the wicked and him that loves violence.” This is very clear. God’s holiness demands justice.

 

So how can God commend love toward sinners that He hates?

Because of the cross! Christ’s death allows God to offer grace instead of wrath. God wants to save sinners, not destroy them. But if they reject His provision, wrath remains. The wrath of God, His judgement against sin and sinners, is a terrible thing as the book of revelation shows us and He gives mankind every opportunity to avoid it by having the focus of that judgement, sin, fully paid for so that we are the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ Jesus.

 

Malachi 1:3 is a disturbing verse to many. It says,

And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 

 

God is love, but His love’s not sentimental like human love. It’s holy. His love is commended at the cross because He died for the ungodly, not the worthy. That’s why this love is greater than any human love. Men might, in very rare occurrences, die for a good man, but God died for sinners.

 

This doesn’t mean Christians should go out and hate sinners. God calls us to be ministers of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:18.

We love righteousness, so we hate what destroys that righteousness. But God’s not pouring out wrath now, today. He’s offering grace through Christ.

 

Only the ungodly can be saved.

Only sinners can receive grace. We accept words like “wretch,” “ungodly,” and “sinner”, but we struggle with the truth that, outside Christ, we were the objects of God’s hate.

Yet that’s exactly why the cross is the greatest display of love. God loved enough to save those who deserved His wrath.

That’s the love commended at Calvary.

I was a sinner, but not anymore. I’m saved by grace. I used to be the object of God’s hate, but now, because of Christ, I’m the receiver of His love and grace, and anyone, if fact everyone, can be, because God’s love was commended at the cross when Christ died for His enemies, for sinners.

 

The idea of “love the sinner, hate the sin” often ends up excusing the sinner without Christ.

God’s love is toward all, but only those who believe receive it. Those outside Christ are not sinners who God loves.

God doesn’t love sinners in their sin. When we believe the gospel, He makes us a saint, something we could never make ourself. A Saint means sanctified or set apart to God from the world, and describes the position of all who belong to Christ. He no longer imputes our trespasses. He reconciles us to Himself.

Paul himself is the pattern of this as 1 Timothy 1:16 shows.

God opposed him. He was a vicious persecutor of the early church yet God showed him grace.

Titus 3:3-4 says,

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. That was Paul too, persecuting believers. 

But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 

 

Jesus appeared to Paul. Paul could’ve rejected Him, but he believed, and God saved him. Paul became the pattern of how God gives grace to His enemies.

Jesus could’ve judged Paul on the spot. Instead He came to save.

Titus 3:5 says salvation is,

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 

 

That’s the love of God—His mercy poured out through Christ, not because we’re so great, but because He’s so great.

 

This truth should kill any pride in us.

We’re not saved because we’re special. We were the sinners God hated. We’re only saved because His love is so great.

So when we minister to others, we don’t act like we’re better. We say, “I was as bad if not much worse than you but I’m saved by grace through faith and you can be too.”

This also destroys the false teaching that we must “turn from our sins” before we can be saved.

Salvation is only by grace through faith, not by us trying to do the impossible and clean ourselves up. If we could remove our own sins Christ wouldn’t have needed to die. If we have to turn from our sins ourselves to either receive or keep salvation, sorry, but we’re all done for because it’s impossible.

And we always need to remember that salvation is the saving from God’s wrath which comes with His judgement. Only the full payment of the wages for sin, which is death, eternal death, can save us from us needing to receive those awful wages. Christ paid those wages for us and when we believe we have those wages accounted to us as paid in full!

 

So, Romans 5:8 says, “Christ died for us.” Only Christ could.

He was a man so He could die, but He was also God so His death had eternal power, power that could not hold him in death.

He’s the one Mediator between God and man.

The cross, that instrument of death, is the greatest picture of God’s love. If we only see it as a religious symbol, we totally miss the point. It was terrible, but now, through Romans and Paul, we know why Christ died. The message of the cross commends God’s love: He died for us while we were sinners.

So when we see the cross, we think of God’s love toward a world that rejects Him.

People ask, “Where is God’s love in tragedy?” The answer is the cross of Christ. How do I know God loves me? The cross of Christ. And outside that we were a sinner. So we trust what He did.