You who are in Christ should be utterly consumed with the hope of future glorification. Therefore my aim is to increase your thirst for the day of it’s coming, and, above that, to make you confident that, in the end, your thirst will be abundantly quenched. The love of God, demonstrated in Jesus Christ and poured within our hearts is the basis of this hope.
5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Romans 5:5-10
The Glory of God
In understanding this passage, the surrounding context is extremely important. For the first 11 verses in Romans 5, Paul shows what the death of Christ purchases for believers through justification. Peace with God, an introduction into the realm of grace, and—more than those—exultation in God himself are all presented. Verses 1-2, however, hold the key that will unlock verses 5-10. “Therefore, having been justified [here is what results] . . . we exult in the hope of the glory of God.” In this text, Paul shows that the hope of glory of God is bought by the cross.
What is the “glory of God” that Paul refers to here? This phrase often brings confusion because we generally understand the glory of God to be an inherent attribute of God; God is glorious. But Paul, I am convinced, is here referring to that which believers will receive when the day of Lord comes and all things in heaven and earth are summed up in Christ—glorification. We are called to “gain the glory of Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:14). This hope in the glory of God that we exult in is the hope that those whom God justifies, He will, one day, glorify. And this is the hope that Paul, at the beginning of the above text (v. 5) declares will not disappoint.
A foreigner who is given a thousand dollars will not be much affected until he is made to understand what a thousand dollars can buy. And so I feel it necessary to reveal more fully what the glory of God entails so that, when I show you that your hope in it will not disappoint, your delight in that fact will be overflowing.
Our anticipated, perfect righteousness is the greatest element of the glory of God. (Again, remember I am not speaking of God’s attribute; I am speaking of what the redeemed will partake of in the future.) To be glorified in that day will be, not only to have the alien righteousness of Christ, but (because of this alien righteousness of Christ) to be given actual and complete righteousness. And out of this righteous, like a river flowing from a spring, will come the highest thing for which we are redeemed—pure, uninhibited, unrestrainable worship. Because we are perfectly righteous we will perfectly worship.
The first part of Romans is designed to reveal the sinfulness of mankind and to expose the nature of unrighteousness. Unrighteousness is, we find, failure to conform to God’s nature and character. The largest part of that nonconformity is the failure to worship God as God worships Himself. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven because “even though they knew God they did honor Him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.” If the largest part of unrighteousness is failure to worship God, what is the largest part of righteousness? It must be the desire and ability to worship God. This is what believers on earth most long for and cannot fully attain. We strive with all our power to see and honor God as He demands and deserves, but we are weighted down by the shackles of our cold, prideful hearts and encumbered by our sinfulness. Yet when He is revealed in the glory of His power to give us the glory of God, He will be marveled at—eternally, and purely marveled at—by all who have believed (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10).
The Love of God
Our hope in this glory rests upon the foundation of the love of God. Verse 6 begins Paul’s argument. Notice that verse begins with “for.”
5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Paul is here arguing for the love of God as it is shown in Christ’s death. He does so, as will see, to prove to us that our hope will not disappoint. Jesus’ death displays the love of God in three ways.
1. The love of God is demonstrated in that Christ died for us. It is one thing for a human being to die, it is another and far greater thing for God to die. For men, death and suffering is certain. To be killed is simply to die earlier rather than later. But God, except for Christ death on the cross, has, for eternity past never suffered, and will, for eternity future, never suffer; He is forever infinitely satisfied in Himself. But on the cross, He demonstrated His love in suffering the weight of the sins of all His people once for all.
2. The love of God is demonstrated in that Christ died our death. Jesus death was far more than physical. I hear people at times wonder what is so amazing about Jesus Christ dying on a cross. One woman said that her brother had suffered as much with cancer. These people completely miss the point. The power of the cross is not that Christ wore a crown of thorns or had nails driven into His hands. The power of cross is that He received the infinite distress and agony of punishment in our stead. It is like a dam behind which the infinite wrath for every sin that every one of the elect had ever committed or ever would commit was stored. On the cross that dam broke and that wrath was poured out in a flood upon Christ.
3. The love of God is demonstrated in that Christ died while we were yet sinners. This is what Paul means when says “at the right time,” and this is his main point. Look at the multiplicity of terms: you were ungodly (v. 6), a sinner (v. 7), and an enemy (v. 10) and still He died for you. This is the object of verses 6-8. God’s love is supremely manifested in suffering your agony while you yet hated Him. “For one would hardly die for a righteous man,” Paul argues, “though perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.” Even death for righteous men and friends happens rarely. “But God [here is the point] demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Despite the fact that you were God-hating, and rebellious, and did everything in your power to raise yourself and spit on Him, Christ died for you.
The Love of God makes the Glory of God Certain
In verses 9-10 we reach pinnacle of the text and culmination of the argument.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through death of His Son, much more having been reconciled we shall be saved by His life.
While you were ungodly, a sinner, and an enemy, God loved you enough to justify you by the blood of His Son. Will He not now love you enough—as justified, a partaker of the life of Christ, and no longer an enemy but a friend—to save you from wrath and give you his eternal kingdom and glory? Paul shouts in answer, “much more!”
But it goes further than that. For what purpose have you been justified? The biblical answer is, in large part, so that you will receive the glory of God. “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach . . . (Colossians 1:21-22)” God has accomplished your redemption for the specific purpose of presenting holy and blameless before Him to the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 4-5). So here is the argument: if God, out of infinite love and mercy, redeemed you by the blood His Son so that you would be glorified, will He not, out of that same love and mercy, accomplish the thing for which He redeemed you—your glorification? Imagine that you are the president of a university and have decided to pay a year’s tuition at your school for a prospective student with whom you are very close. You work hard and save enough and, before the payment deadline, you present him the money. Now here is the question: after giving him a year’s tuition for that college, will you go to your office and decline his application to come to the school? Decidedly not! The very purpose for which you earned that money was to bring him to that college, you would not now refuse him entrance. On a much higher level this is our position with God. He has earned our glory with His blood, He would not now refuse us entrance into that glory. Out of love He died our death to give us life, and out of love he will give us life.
The Deepest Root of Confidence
I purposefully left the end of verse 5 until now because in it we see the true derivation of our certainty. Only because the Holy Spirit has shed the love of God abroad in our hearts do we have assurance that the love of God will not fail. “And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Paul begins with this because, without this, all that comes after in verses 6-10 is utterly devoid of worth. Our certainty is indeed based on the love of God demonstrated in Christ’s death, but that love is not ours and does give hope unless it is applied by the Holy Spirit. Why do we have confidence in the glory of God? Because the confidence-producing love of God has been poured out within our hearts.
This is a supernatural work. Our knowledge of God’s love is neither a feeling without truth nor truth without feeling. It is feeling derived from truth. It is the Holy Spirit taking the love of God, factual and historically manifested in Christ, and supernaturally drenching our hearts with it. We see the death of Christ, and by the Spirit we see the love of God in the death of Christ.
So here is the ground of our hope: the love of God, manifested in the death of Jesus Christ and shed abroad our hearts Holy Spirit.
Bryan Elliff © 2007
