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 the good man someone would dare even to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet 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.
V. 6 - “For while we were still helpless” - What a good description of our spiritual condition - we are helpless. Building your eternal life on anything that is not God - Greek or Roman mythological gods, the pagan gods of the Philistines and others, your personal efforts, the Mosaic Law, secular philosophies and religions, etc., - is ineffectual. No matter what you do, you are lost.
Work harder! Useless.
Believe stronger! Hopeless.
There is no way to be right with God based on what you do. Jesus was very specific: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’” (John 14:6) He is the only way to be righteous before God. Man is not righteous, is not pure before the Lord. (See: Job 15:14)
It is not by working to achieve it, but receiving a new life from Him. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' “ (John 3:6-7)
The apostles echoed this plan for salvation: "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12 )
“at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” - Only God knows why the advent of Jesus Christ during the Roman Empire was the ‘right time’. There are many guesses, which include Pax Romana, and the ‘universality’ of Greek culture in the Roman Empire. It did not come to Asian nations, nor African nations, nor the barbarians of Europe, or the Indians of the Americas. It came through the Israelites, as a fulfillment of the promise to Adam, Abraham, and David. Why then? I don’t know. God does, and that is all that matters. “... So that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:15-18)
***V. 7 - “For one will hardly die for a righteous man” - I do not think this implies that righteous or good people do not need salvation. Paul just said “Christ died for the ungodly” (v. 6).Of course He died for the lost. It is obvious that the sinners need it. From the human point of view, there may be people who don’t need the saving grace of Jesus. That is not the view from God’s throne.
This verse seems to be a sarcastic aside, sort of a parenthetical comment. (I visualize an actor on stage turning to the audience and giving them information that no one else on stage is supposed to hear.) I think this sarcastically implies that since a righteous man already has a relationship with God there is no need to die in his place in order to bring him to God. However, the Biblical view is the person who is right with God is 'righteous' - it is God's judgement that counts, not our opinion of our righteousness. Jesus warns us that it is possible (maybe even likely) we believe we are more righteous than we actually are. (See: Matt. 5:20; 6:1; 23:28, 29; Luk. 18:9) However, there is no person who is ‘so right’ with God by dint of personal effort who meets God’s standard of absolute perfection and holiness - that is, other than Jesus Christ our Lord.
“perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die” - This seems to assume that a “good” man is less righteous than the righteous man (again, I think Paul is being sarcastic). Jesus came to save sinners, not the righteous (although scripture also points out there are no good or righteous people). See: Psa. 14:3; Matt. 5:6; 9:13. Remember, the first four-and-one-half chapters in this letter demonstrates that we are all lost without God’s grace.
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V. 8 - “Christ died for us” - This is the heart of this verse, perhaps the heart of this letter. See: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18) We were lost, with no hope for having a relationship with God. He saved us from that. (Luk. 19:10) Also, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3)
“while we were yet sinners” - We were (or should that be ‘are’) ungodly, therefore were sinners. We were lost to God, and need salvation. Christ came so that we, who do not deserve this, might be declared righteous. He was the perfect sacrifice.
Note that this act of redemption was done before we were declared righteous. It seems intuitively obvious, but the point is important. If you could be acceptable to God by your efforts, then Jesus’ death would simply be icing on the cake - you would have achieved the goal already. Since righteousness comes to us after Christ’s death and resurrection, then we were sinners and ungodly before He paid the price. Now for all those of us who have lived after 33 AD, the “before” and “after” have this meaning: before we believe and accept Christ as Savior we are lost sinners, after that point we are saved and are children of God.
“God demonstrates His own love toward us” - The reason, or driving force, for saving us - God’s love. See: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:7-9)
***V. 9 - “Much more then” - There is more to this than it might first seem. Yes, we are sinners, maybe even depraved. Yes, we are helpless in the face of God’s glory and perfection. And yes, God knowing we are without hope provided the remedy in Jesus Christ. He has redeemed us and pronounced us justified. We are “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). But wait! There’s more!
“we shall be saved from the wrath of God” - The glorious truth of Jesus Christ as Savior is that we do not suffer the sentence of death we deserve. This thought is the central message of this sentence. (See also: John 3:36) There is an interesting thought in Jer. 7:19, in which God points out that people who reject Him are being spiteful towards Him. The problem is they are being spiteful to themselves, for their rejection guarantees God’s judgement will be executed against them. This defiance is not even a Pyrrhic victory.
Side Note: I suspect that as our society has become more and more scientific, relying on reason and logic and the scientific method we have become somewhat immune to the concept of transcendence. The death we face in this physical life is scary enough, and we do not want to face the possibility of a ‘second death’ - one that we cannot see or feel or measure. The Bible is fairly clear there is a death that separates us from God for eternity which is labeled the ‘second death’. That is the death Paul mentions in 1 Cor. 15:55, 56. These verses include a quote from Hos. 13:14.
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