By Robert Halsey Pine
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.” (Romans 5:1-11 NRSV).
God created us and He loves us dearly. Since the Garden of Eden, God has been trying to show us His love by being a good parent. A good parent’s love contains a teaching of discipline in what is right and good. From the very beginning, we ignored His love in discipline. We are just like Adam. We listen to poor advice from the wrong people and give in to the temptations of the devil.
Unlike Adam, Jesus was created by God as God and Man. He was created out of God’s love for us to help us understand our heritage in God. He was created to love the ungodly and unlovable. As in Christ’s time, many do not understand and appreciate God’s intention to show us that He loves us. He wants us to have knowledge of His everlasting kingdom so that we can have the security in our natural lives of knowing where we have come from and where we are going.
Have you ever really cared for someone but couldn’t seem to communicate your feelings to that person? Maybe your efforts to let that person know how you felt about them were rejected. What heartache this can be. So it is with God. He loves his children dearly but He just can’t seem to get through to all of us. We are sinful and deny Him, but this has not stopped God from loving us and wanting to see better things for us. His heart aches for us.
The good news is that because He loves us in our sinful and ungodly ways, we know that He will receive us when we turn to Him. The seal that He placed on this promise was His coming to us through Christ Jesus to show us His love, even as He was being persecuted and dying on a cross at the hands of the children He was seeking to reach. He has justified each of us by His blood. We must find a way to understand this awesome love.
Robert Halsey Pine was born at Newark, Ohio in 1943. He is a graduate of Northeastern University and completed the program of Theological Education by Extension: Education for Ministry, School of Theology, the University of the South.