Bringing Life to His Enemy

We’ve addressed the character trait of God, that God is love. But how do we know that kind of love? What is God like if God is love? God has to show us. So, 1st John 4:9 says, “God has sent His only begotten Son into the world.” And Jesus would say in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” We can learn about what God is like by looking at Jesus and how He acts, and that is the only way we can know about God’s love. Jesus reveals that love. He is the revelation of God.

But let me ask you, what is the purpose of revelation? Is it simply to satisfy our intellectual curiosity? No! 1st John 4:9 says “that we might live through Him.” That’s the purpose – that we might live. But how can we live who are born dead? John, you need to tell us the method by which we can gain life.

John does:
1st John 4:10 - In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

We’ve talked about that word before – propitiation. In some of the modern translations, it is rendered atoning sacrifice. This should cause us to think of the sacrificial lamb killed on the altar on the Day of Atonement when the blood is shed and presented to God to make atonement. It has the idea of appeasing God’s wrath over sin -of satisfying His divine requirement. And the requirement is death – the wages of sin is death.

Remember? God is love, but also, God is holy, and that puts Him in a bind. Because He’s holy, He must uphold his holy law, the law we continue to trample. And there are consequences. Our sin must be punished by death. That death penalty is upon each and every one of us. We are already condemned. Romans 3:10 says: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Yet, because of God’s love, He wants to forgive us. He longs to save sinners.

How can God resolve this dilemma? The answer is the cross. Christ Himself bore our punishment there. Christ met the demands of God’s holy law by dying in our place. Christ died in our place so we could live. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, He could offer eternal life to us as a free gift. Romans 6:23 says, “The gift of God is eternal life.” It is offered freely, and we can claim it by faith.

Romans 5 gives us an explanation.
Romans 5:1-2, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

Do you see? “We have access by faith.” As someone said, “Jesus paved the Turnpike to heaven, and faith is the only toll.”

Continue reading: Romans 5:6-10
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet 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 wrath through Him. 10 For if when 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.

What a magnificent description of God’s love. Did you catch these facts? When did Christ die for us?
1st - Christ died for the ungodly (verse 6)
2nd - while we were still sinners (verse 8)
3rd - when we were enemies (verse 10)

He didn’t die for us after we got elected to the Deacon Board, or had perfect attendance in Sunday School for six straight years, or anything else like that. He didn’t wait for us to scrub up and clean out our lives, or to turn over a new leaf. He didn’t wait until we sanitized our music play list and our DVD collection and emptied the alcohol out of our refrigerators. No, He died for us while we were totally unlovely, ungodly, sinful creatures -we were heinous enemies of God.

But isn’t calling us an enemy a little strong? No! That’s a cold, hard word for enemy in the Greek language. It is defined as a hostile person who seeks to do ill to another. It is someone who is out for your demise and destruction. And that’s the way we were in relation to God. wasn’t our enemy, we were His. The Anglo Saxon word equivalent is foe. The Latin word translates as hostile. The German word translates as fiend.

In war, the enemy is someone who will kill you if they can. And for us, as unredeemed man, our enemy was God. Yet, God loved us in spite of that.

Another passage that shows this is:
Romans 8:7-8 - "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

We were hostile toward God by both nature and choice. Our sinful nature was set against Him, and we regularly chose against Him. Yet, God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us, in our place.

It wasn’t because we were pleasing God. Romans 8:8 just told us, “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” It wasn’t because we were doing anything, nor could we do anything, that pleased God. We were totally incapable of pleasing God. We had no way to remedy our own condition. We were trapped and hardened in our hostility.

Remember what Romans 5:6 said? “When we were still without strength.” That’s when Jesus loved us and died for us, when we were powerless - powerless to escape sin and death, and powerless to please God in any way. The standards are simply too high. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus told us, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” That’s a standard we could never reach. Only Jesus could reach it.

Sorry this is so uncomplimentary to us, but this whole sermon is to show the un-surpassing, incredible, awesome love of God toward us. And what shows that more than that He loves us in spite of ourselves? What we’ve been discussing should overwhelm us with wonder. God loves even me.

This is the stuff fairy tales are made of. If a beggar desires to marry the lovely princess, there’s slim chance of an Aladdin’s Lamp miracle. And there is little chance of a frog turning into a prince. But both beggar and princess are the same – they are people. But God and man are not alike - God is holy, while we are sinful. How then can a man reach God? He can’t! Rather, God must reach out to man. And God did with love – the love of Calvary.

Do you see? God’s holiness demanded the cross. God had to punish sin, He had no choice. His holiness wouldn’t allow Him to open the back door and let us slip in the way we were. God couldn’t let us slip in under the cover of darkness. God can’t wink at sin – He can’t say: “That’s OK, we’ll make an exception in your case.” Nor could God allow us to offer a cheap substitute. He won’t be bribed by our feeble attempts to win His favor. The case is closed – our sin required death.

But because of God’s love, He offered the sacrifice Himself. It was no cheap substitute. It was God’s own precious Son.

Like it says in 1st Peter 1:18-19
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

What greater proof could there ever be that God is love? What greater demonstration of that love? And God’s love was directed at us. It was poured out upon us so that we could have life.