Trinity Baptist Church

Romans 5:5-11

 

We live in a day of unfaithfulness. If we've learned anything about men (and women too), it is that you can't trust them. They don't keep their promises. They don't keep their word. Whether you're talking about individuals or nations, it's the same thing. People can't be trusted. They are not worth what they say they are in terms of their integrity.

 

Husbands are unfaithful to their wives. Wives are unfaithful to their husbands. Children are very often unfaithful to live the principles their parents have taught them and parents are very often unfaithful to give to their children that which they should. People are unfaithful to promises they make to employers and people with whom they work. Employers are often unfaithful to fulfill their obligations and responsibilities to those in their employ.

 

And I suppose we would have to acknowledge that Christians are frequently unfaithful to God, though God is never unfaithful to them.

 

The only one in all the universe who is always faithful and always keeps every promise in full is God. Now that is a very important truth because it is upon the faithfulness of God that everything we believe in stands. God must be able to be trusted. Our eternal destiny is at stake.

 

It is His nature to be true to His word and so He will be. So whether you realize it or not, you're stuck with that concept. Our God is a faithful God. 

 

Now while that is true in a general way, it is also true in the specific of preserving His people unto glory. He is faithful to secure and maintain our salvation. 

 

Now let’s get that thought in our mind, the whole idea of the security of the believer is built on the faithfulness of God, and with that in mind, let’s return to the first eleven verses of Romans 5.

 

TEXT

 

As I’ve pointed out to you over the last couple of weeks, there are six links in an unbreakable chain that unite us to the Savior. We’ve looked at three so far:

 

The first link that ties us eternally with the Savior is peace with God, verse 1 "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

In other words, from now on God is on our side. We made our peace. And it isn't so much that we were hostile against God as it was that God was hostile against us. Remember? God was angry about our sin. But his wrath is satisfied in the death of Jesus Christ and we are secure because we are at peace with God.

 

Secondly, we are secure because we stand in grace, verse 2: "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand."

 

Now grace operates where there is sin. If you don't have any sin then you don't need any grace. 

 

Now if we stand in grace, then when we sin, what happens? Grace operates. And what does grace do? It forgives our sin because of Christ. And so we are secure then, not only because we've made peace with God and His wrath has been satisfied through Christ, but also because we stand in grace. And grace is God's undeserved favor to sinners.

 

Thirdly, we are linked eternally to the Lord through the hope of glory, the end of verse 2: "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

 

Last time we saw that we are secure because God saved us to bring us to glory. There are three tenses to salvation: past, present, future. We have been saved. We are being saved. We shall be yet saved. We may wait for the full salvation, the redemption of our bodies, the full and ultimate glorification, but it is just as good as done. And so the hope of glory links us to Christ.

 

And then we noticed verse 3, not only that but we also rejoice in our tribulations because it produces endurance and endurance produces proven character and proven character has a greater hope.

 

And that's why verse 5 says: "Hope does not disappoint us. It is not something we are ashamed of because we know God will bring to pass what He has promised.

 

So, the security of our salvation is then based on peace with God, standing in grace and hope of glory.

 

Now, let's go to the fourth link

 

verse 5

Here we find the fourth link, and we'll call it

 

The Possession of Love.

 

God has begun a love relationship that stretches through all eternity. We have become the possessors of love.

 

When you become a Christian, God deposits in you the Holy Spirit.  Paul calls Him in Ephesians, the earnest. It means engagement ring. or down payment, or guarantee. In other words, when you become a Christian you're given a guarantee. A guarantee of what? Ultimate glory; salvation, the guarantee of heaven, the guarantee of your perseverance, your security.

 

That guarantee is none other than the indwelling Holy Spirit given to every Christian. And the Holy Spirit then produces in us an awareness of the love of God.

 

The most overwhelming concept in all of Christianity is that God love us. That concept defies the words to describe it. 

 

It is a personal, internal, intimate ministry of God through the Holy Spirit which takes security out of the mind and places it into the heart. It is not intellectual. It is emotional. God is assuring our hearts that we belong to Him by pouring out love.

 

Over in the eighth chapter of Romans, verse 14 says: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God."

 

Ask yourself a question - Have you ever been led by the Spirit of God? If you've ever been led to do anything for the glory of God it was the Spirit of God leading you. If you've ever been led to a righteous behavior, if you've ever been led to study of the Word of God, if you've ever been led into prayer, if you've ever been led to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've ever been led to any of these things it's been the Holy Spirit leading. 

 

Now here’s my point: if we have sensed the Holy Spirit's leading then we know we are the sons of God. And if we've ever felt in our hearts what verse 15 of Romans 8 says, to cry "Abba Father," if we've ever felt like saying to God - Daddy - in other words, if we have sensed intimacy with God, if you’ve ever just realized and let it get all over you that God loves you, and you’ve just basked in that, then you have experienced the internal subjective assurance of salvation.

 

Listen, an unbeliever doesn’t experience that. A lost person senses no intimacy with God, senses no real communion with God.

 

But for those who know Jesus Christ, God has put His Spirit in us and His Spirit in us draws us into an intimate love relationship with the living God Himself.

 

Now think about that: that means our security in salvation comes not only from outside revelation but from inside revelation...not only from the mind, but from the heart.

 

Notice what is said her in verse 5. It says: "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts."

Now grab hold of what this verse is teaching: that is not talking about our love for God. That is talking about God's love for us. How do you know that?

 

Read the rest of the passage: 

 

Verse 8: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." It's talking about God's love for us. The truth of the verse is that God's love for us has been deposited in our hearts by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

 

So what does that mean? On the practical side, the Holy Spirit lets the believer know that God loves Him. That's a subjective thing.

 

But it is more than that. We are emotional beings, we are beings who feel and respond to the moving of the Spirit of God. And the truth that gives solidity to all the rest of the things we know in our minds is that we experience, we “feel” the love of God. 

 

For example, I can read here in verse 1 that we have peace with God. I can understand the fact that because there was a divine transaction on the cross in which God's wrath was poured out, He can now make peace with sinners.

 

We can know in our minds that we stand in grace and we can have a sense of that standing. We can say - That's logical, that's reasonable. And we can know in our minds that we've been redeemed for future glory. 

 

 

 

But God goes beyond that and says - Not only do I want you to know that factually and by revelation, I want you to feel that in your heart. And so He pours His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

 

Now let me insert something here that is extremely important to understanding this truth:

 

You will forfeit the sense of assurance that comes by the Spirit ministering to you that God loves you if you live in disobedience.

 

You say - How do you know that?

 

Listen carefully to Galatians 5:22. "But the fruit of the Spirit is...what?...love." I'll say it again. "The fruit of the Spirit is love."

 

If you quench the Spirit in your life, if in your life by unrighteousness, by unconfessed sin, by disobedience you grieve the Spirit, you will cause the Spirit to bear no fruit. You will hinder that operation.

 

And what you will lose is the sense of love.

Now, I realize that the fruit of the Spirit has to do with love and the other fruits being passed on to someone else. But I'm also convinced that it has to do with the sense of God loving you. 

 

How? What is the second fruit? Peace. And Joy. Those are very private, personal realities. So, there's a sense in which we have to recognize that though God has shed abroad His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit' if we're not walking in the Spirit we're not going to experience that assurance.

 

And until you know that you know that you know that God loves you and is pouring that ove in you and through you by the Holy Spirit, you will have nothing to pour into someone else’s life. 

 

Christians who walk in disobedience, Christians who walk in sinful patterns, Christians who are unrighteous do not have the sense of being secure in their salvation, and they have no resources to provide to anyone else. 

 

All they've got to lean on is the head knowledge. 

 

They can say - Oh yes, the Bible teaches we have peace with God. We stand in grace. We have hope of glory. But they do not know that internal subjective ministry of God's Spirit affirming to their soul at its deepest point that they belong to God and are loved by God.

 

And until there is an obedience to walk in the Spirit, you will never experience that love for yourself. 

 

So, when you ask me if I know I'm saved and I know I'm secure, I'm going to tell you I'm secure because of the transaction that made peace and grace and hope a reality. But I'm also going to tell you that I know that I belong to Jesus Christ because the Holy Spirit witnesses with my spirit that I am a child of God.

 

It is the  Holy Spirit that causes me, in the depths of my heart, to cry out to God -Abba Father, Daddy, and have a sense in my heart that I have every right to say that to Him because He loves me.

 

Look at verse 5 again. 

For the love of God is “poured out”. Let me tell you what that phrase means. The phrase carries the idea of profusely pouring out, of lavishly pouring out. It's not that God's up there with an eye-dropper, saying - I don't want to overdo it, so here's a little drop of love. God is not like us. We “eye-dropper” ours out. He doesn't. He lavishly profusely, abundantly pours it out.

 

Now here in verse 5 it says it's coming to us by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us. The Holy Spirit is the agent by which God works in the life of the believer. He is the gift of God's love.

 

And by the way, the very fact that the Holy Spirit lives in a believer is in itself a massive testimony to the love of God. Would God give you His Spirit if He didn't love you?

 

Would God plant His Spirit, the third member of the trinity, within the life of a believer if He didn't love that believer? The very fact that the Spirit of God is there in residence in your heart is the great testimony of the love of God.

 

Look at verse 6, and Paul wants to talk a little more about this love and he wants to define the nature of it. Now don't lose your train of thought here.

 

What kind of love is it that is poured out? What kind of love is the love of God?

 

Verses 6-8

 

That's the definition. That's the kind of love.

 

Now, let's look at verse 6. "For when we were still without strength," means we were powerless. Without strength to do what?

 

Without strength to do anything that pleased God. Without strength to overcome sin...without strength to overcome Satan...without strength to overcome the world...without strength to overcome death...without strength to overcome hell...without strength ...to live a righteous life, without strength to save ourselves, when we were paralyzed by our sin, and unable to do anything about it.

 

And when God looked at us, all He saw was something to make Him be full of wrath and anger. Why? What's the word at the end of verse 6? We were ungodly. We were the very opposite of God. We were ungodly. So, here we are, these ungodly, powerless people

 

And on the other hand, here is God who is absolutely pure, absolutely holy, and He looked at people who were repulsive to His holy nature, who were the very opposite of everything He is and He loved them.

 

And how much did He love them?

 

Verse 6 says so much so that at the right time, He died for the ungodly. 

 

I suppose we could understand it if God were to love the good and God were to love the godly and God were to love the pure, but the mystery of divine love is that He loved the folks that were opposite of all of that.

 

One commentator named Hodge said it like this: "If God loved us because we loved Him, He would love us only so long as we loved Him and on that condition, and then our salvation would depend on the constancy of our treacherous hearts, but as God loved us as sinners, as Christ died for us as ungodly, our salvation depends, not on our loveliness, but on the constancy of God's love."

 

Listen: God doesn't love us because we're so lovely. God didn't look down on us and say - Oh, they're irresistible.

 

We are different from God in that we love based upon the object that attracts us. But God's love is built into His nature so that if you happen to exist, you get loved. And even though there was nothing in us to attract Him, He chose to love us.

 

Now listen carefully, and remember, we are talking about eternal security: if there was nothing in us to attract Him to love us in the first place, what could there be in us to make Him stop loving is in the second place? Nothing!! You see the point he's making? If Christ died for us when we were ungodly, powerless, ugly sinners and God could love us then, is it going to be any problem for Him to love us now?

 

Christ died, the end of verse 6, underline it, Christ died for the ungodly. Literally it says He died in behalf of the ungodly, or instead of the ungodly, or for the sake of the ungodly, however you want to translate it. It can be translated all those ways. How about this?  He died instead of the ungodly. 

 

And that is significant because it is so different from the way humans love. 

verse 7

 

Sometimes in human society, somebody might die for a good person, but the point of verse 7 is nobody' and I mean nobody, is going to die for a bad person...nobody but God.

 

And that's verse 8.

 

That is the surpassing nature of divine love. God demonstrated the nature of His love in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

 

Now, that is the security of our salvation. I'm going to sum this up, listen carefully. If God can love us when we are ungodly, wicked, powerless sinners, if He can love us enough to have His Son die for us to save us when we are godless, will He not love us enough to keep us after we have become His children?

 

You see the point? You say--Oh, but if you sin, you're out. Listen, when we got in we were wretched sinners. We'll never be that bad again. And if He was willing to love us into redemption when we were wretched sinners, will He not keep us redeemed when we're less wretched by His grace? That's Paul's argument.

 

If God gave the greatest gift His love could give which is His Son to save us, and then gave the greatest gift He could give, His Spirit to fill our hearts with love, will He do less to keep us? His love hasn't changed. He loved us when we were wretched. He still does, and He always will.

 

That is our security.