For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 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. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
My thoughts -
In Romans 4 Paul argues that Abraham was credited with righteousness before being circumcised. Abraham, as depicted in Genesis 15, believed God and it was credited as righteousness. There was nothing that Abraham did, then, that credited him with righteousness before believing. Everything else came after. Belief was first. That was righteousness. The rest were actions based on that righteousness.
Here Paul is bringing that argument forward to the Roman church, and ultimately to all Christians. When did Christ die for us? When did Christ reconcile us to God? It was while we were still sinners.
I love the language Paul uses here. We were helpless. We couldn't reconcile ourselves to God. We were powerless. But while that paints an almost pitiable image, and God had compassion on us pitiful sinners, that doesn't paint the full picture.
We were not just some pitiful, helpless, powerless, innocent creature. We were God's enemies. We were actively, in our sin, working against God.
So in this sinful, rebellious state we were God's enemies and were powerless to reconcile ourselves to God. We were anything but righteous. We did not deserve to be reconciled. And yet Christ came and Christ died for us to enable that reconciliation. It is not deserved. It is not earned. It is not based on anything that we could ever do. The reconciliation came through Christ's actions and not our own. Those actions came prior to our righteousness. Those actions were done on behalf of we who did not deserve them. God, through Christ, reached down and saved us helpless, rebellious, sinful enemies of God's.
Now, like Abraham before us, we believe. And that is credited to us as righteousness. And from there comes the acts of righteousness that follow. If we have been blessed with reconciliation to God through Christ's death how much more blessed can we be through a life of righteousness in Christ? We were God's enemies. We are enemies no longer. We have been reconciled to God through Christ and are now free to live righteous lives in Christ.
But all the blessings we receive from this reconciliation do not come because of this righteous living. Reconciliation comes first, through Christ alone. We didn't do it. We were helpless. We couldn't do it. We were powerless. It was an act of God.
So how do we respond to that? It's awfully hard to be arrogant about what we have in Christ when we know that it came not from what we could ever do, but only from God. It is awfully hard to be arrogant about our reconciliation when we know that Christ's work for us came while we were not only sinners but in that sin we were God's enemies.
Our response to this reconciliation should then be, rather than lord it over others and puff ourselves up as though we are somehow special because of it, to share this reconciliation with others freely. People don't need to be perfect to come to Jesus. Quite the opposite. They need Jesus in their imperfection the same as anyone else.
We can be cold, hard, harsh, and judgemental. We can demand that others live up to a standard under the law that we would, without Jesus, be condemned by. We couldn't do it. We needed Jesus. So does everyone else.
Jesus died for us at just the right time, while we were sinners. There are an awful lot of sinners that Jesus died for, too. There's a whole planet full of them. Jesus didn't come to condemn but to save. Jesus came to reconcile all to God. We need to make the reintroduction. And, we need to have an awful lot of humility about it. After all, we were God's enemies. We didn't change that. We couldn't. Only Jesus can.
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