5:8
However, God’s love is far greater. Christ died for us while we were still sinners. There was nothing in us to commend us to God. There was nothing religiously righteous about us, and we certainly are not good, sin does awful things to us. The motivation came purely from God’s love. Note that it talks about the love of God, and then says Christ died for us. As it says in John 3:16, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. The Father and the Son are one and are in complete agreement, working in perfect harmony with each other. People who talk about the cross as “cosmic child abuse” or who reject the atoning nature of the cross do nothing but demonstrate their own ignorance and spiritual blindness.
5:9
We have been justified by Christ’s blood. The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament was pointing forward to the one true sacrifice who would genuinely take away all our sin, truly pay the price for all our wickedness. So if we are justified we are certain to be saved from God’s wrath. This is probably looking forward to the coming wrath, the judgement of God upon all of the earth. We have no need to fear this for we have been justified, declared right. And this is not on the basis of anything we have done, but on the basis of what God has done, so it is built upon a sure foundation. However, we should perhaps also bear in mind that in Rom 1:18 Paul said God’s wrath is being revealed against all mankind. Ie there is a present element to this as well. We stand in God’s grace today, we are no longer subject to wrath. But this does not mean we will not suffer (see 5:3). As an aside, the Greek actually just says “the wrath”, rather than “God’s wrath”. For Paul God’s wrath is the only wrath that exists.
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