Romans 5:7-8 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. The grand doctrine of the Bible is that God loves apostate man. Nowhere else do we learn this. Nature teaches that God loves His creatures, but the volume of nature was written before the Fall, and it says nothing as to His affection towards man as a sinner. In every conceivable form the Bible impresses us with the fact that God loves man though a sinner. Note — I. THAT MAN HAS, CONSTITUTIONALLY, A KIND AFFECTION FOR HIS SPECIES. The apostle is speaking here of men generally, and he says that in some cases the generous instincts of human nature would prompt to the utmost self-sacrifice. That man has this social kindness I maintain in the face of all the oppression and cruelty that make up a large portion of history. Notwithstanding the Pharaohs, Herods, Neros, Napoleons, there is a spring of kindness in human nature. 1. The tendency of sin is to destroy this element. Had sin not entered into the world, this element would have united all races in the bonds of a loving brotherhood. 2. The tendency of Christianity is to develop this element. Christianity recognises it, appeals to it, strengthens it. Blessed be God, bad as the world is, there is a fountain of love in its heart. II. THAT SOME CHARACTERS HAVE A GREATER POWER TO EXCITE THIS AFFECTION THAN OTHERS. 1. The righteous man is not likely to excite it. "Scarcely." Who is a righteous man? He is one who conforms rigorously to the outward forms of morality: he pays all that is demanded of him, and he will be paid to the utmost fraction of his due. He is what the cold mercantile world would call a "respectable" man. He has no generous impulses, no heart, and therefore cannot awaken love in others. The just man is not a very popular character. 2. The "good" man has power to excite it — the kind man — the man of warm sympathies, who can weep with those who weep. Such a man evokes the sympathies of others. He has often done so. Job opening, by his kindness, the heart of his age; Pythias enduring the punishment for Damon; and Jonathan and David, are cases in point. III. THAT THE SACRIFICE OF LIFE IS THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF AFFECTION. There is nothing man values so much as life. Friends, property, health, reputation, all are held cheap in comparison with life. To give life, therefore, is to give that which he feels to be of all the dearest things most dear. A man may express his affection by language, toil, gifts, but such expressions are weak compared with the sacrifice of life, which demonstrates powerfully both the intensity and the sincerity of that affection. IV. THAT CHRIST'S DEATH IS THE MIGHTIEST DEMONSTRATION OF AFFECTION. This will appear if you consider — 1. The characters for whom He died — "sinners." 2. The circumstances under which He died. Not amid the gratitude of those He loved, but amid their imprecations. 3. The freedom with which He died. He was not compelled. 4. The preciousness of the life He sacrificed.Conclusion: Learn — 1. The moral grandeur of Christianity. There is no such manifestation of love in the universe. 2. The moral power of Christianity. The motive it employs to break the heart of the world is this wonderful love. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. |
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