God's Proof of Love
We can experience God’s love through the Spirit individually, but we can also enjoy his love proven corporately through the cross.
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:6-8)
My favorite times in seminary have been when Danyel and I have been going through it together. I love to talk about theology, so when she asks for my help to answer a question, I jump at the chance. In her Systematic Theology 2 course, she had to address the idea of the atonement and whether it was unlimited (Jesus died for every single person to have the opportunity to be saved) or particular (Jesus died to secure salvation for those who would believe and trust in him). We both wrestled with getting to our answers. There are parts of both that we want to be true and love, and there are others that can sometimes be a harder pill to swallow. The key for us is to rely on the Scriptures rather than our personal preferences.
But there is one thing that we agree on that happened on the cross in the atonement that we love—God PROVED his love for us.
God's love can often be a subjective topic if one loosely speaks about God's love being poured out on us individually through the Holy Spirit. Too many people abuse the phrase "God is love" or "we should show the love of God" if we are talking about acceptance and confirmation of sin. Even though we have the same Spirit, we are different people with unique experiences. The Holy Spirit works with our spirit to testify to us constantly. My spirit is not your spirit, but the Holy Spirit is the same. So when we consider God's love, we can have different thoughts pertaining to our personal experience with it.
But on the cross, God shows his love for us plainly and profusely.
While we were morally weak, evil, detestable, unable to reconcile ourselves back to God, the Messiah died for the ungodly. We were the anti-Gods. The words weak and ungodly are parallels, meaning that we were doubly ungodly. Each of us should have been on both crosses on each side of Jesus. We deserved double condemnation.
Yet Jesus died for us in that state. Not in a place where we had an itemized list of good works. Not where he saw our example of being good Samaritans. Paul says that one of us, even though it is rare, may even die for a righteous person, but we would not die for someone in willful rebellion to every ounce of our being.
I would die for my wife and child. I would die to protect others. But the Lord knows that I would not die for all kinds of people.
But Jesus did.
This is how God shows or proves his love for us. The CSB says, "God proves his love for us in this way."
Think about that. God leaves no doubt about His love for us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus died for sinners, like me and you, so that we could come to Him and experience the love of God.
Anyone who doubts the love of God does not understand the gravity of what Jesus displayed on the cross.
God is love (1 John 4:8). But He shows His love through His actions, His goodness, His mercy, and His grace. He proves it through Christ's death.
This is a good reminder for us to know that not only can we believe in Jesus' death and resurrection, but we can remember that God proves His love for us in it. We can experience God’s love through the Spirit individually, but we can also enjoy his love proven corporately through the cross.