What a retrospect it is! Let us trace it from the first words of this paragraph again. First, here is the _sure fact_ of our acceptance, and the reason of it, and the method. "_Therefore_"; let not that word be forgotten. Our Justification is no arbitrary matter, whose causelessness suggests an illusion, or a precarious peace. "_Therefore_"; it rests upon an antecedent, in the logical chain of divine facts. We have read that antecedent, ch. iv. 25; "Jesus our Lord was given up because of our transgressions, and was raised up because of our justification." We assented to that fact; we have accepted Him, only and altogether, in this work of His. _Therefore_ we are justified, δικαιωθέντες,[70] placed by an act of divine Love, working in the line of divine Law, among those whom the Judge accepts, that He may embrace them as Father. Then, in this possession of the "peace" of our acceptance, thus _led in_ (προσαγωγή), through the gate of the promise, with the footstep of faith, we find inside our Refuge far more than merely safety. We look up from within the blessed walls, sprinkled with atoning blood, and we see above them the hope of glory, invisible outside. And we turn to our present life within them (for all our life is to be lived within that broad sanctuary now), and we find resources provided there for a present as well as a prospective joy. We address ourselves to the discipline of the place; for it _has_ its discipline; the refuge is home, but it is also school; and we find, when we begin to try it, that the discipline is full of joy. It brings out into a joyful consciousness the power we now have, in Him who has accepted us, in Him who is our Acceptance, to suffer and to serve in love. Our life has become a life not of peace only but of the hope which animates peace, and makes it flow "as a river." From hour to hour we enjoy the never-disappointing hope of "grace for grace," new grace for the next new need; and beyond it, and above it, the certainties of the hope of glory. To drop our metaphor of the sanctuary for that of the pilgrimage, we find ourselves upon a pathway, steep and rocky, but always mounting into purer air, and so as to shew us nobler prospects; and at the summit--the pathway will be continued, and transfigured, into the golden street of the City; the same track, but within the gate of heaven.
Into all this the Holy Ghost has led us. He has been at the heart of the whole internal process. He made the thunder of the Law articulate to our conscience. He gave us faith by manifesting Christ. And, in Christ, He has "poured out in our hearts the love of God."
For now the Apostle takes up that word, "_the Love of God_," and holds it to our sight, and we see in its pure glory no vague abstraction, but the face, and the work, of Jesus Christ. Such is the context into which we now advance. He is reasoning on; "_For_ Christ, when we still were weak." He has set justification before us in its majestic lawfulness. But he has now to expand its mighty love, of which the Holy Ghost has made us conscious in our hearts. We are to see in the Atonement not only a guarantee that we have a valid title to a just acceptance. We are to see in it the love of the Father and the Son, so that not our security only but our bliss may be full.
[Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =For Christ, we still being weak,= (gentle euphemism for our utter impotence, our guilty inability to meet the sinless claim of the Law of God,) =in season,= in the fulness of time, when the ages of precept and of failure had done their work, and man had learnt something to purpose of the lesson of self-despair, =for the ungodly--died.= "_For the ungodly_," ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν, "_concerning them_," "with reference to them," that is to say, in this context of saving mercy, "in their interests, for their rescue,[71] as their propitiation." "_The ungodly_," or, more literally still, without the article, "_ungodly ones_"; a designation general and inclusive for those for whom He died. Above (iv. 5) we saw the word used with a certain limitation, as of the worst among the sinful. But here, surely, with a solemn paradox, it covers the whole field of the Fall. The ungodly here are not the flagrant and disreputable only; they are all who are not in harmony with God; the potential as well as the actual doers of grievous sin. For them "_Christ died_"; not "lived," let us remember, but "died." It was a question not of example, nor of suasion, nor even of utterances of divine compassion. It was a question of law and guilt; and it was to be met only by the death-sentence and the death-fact; such death as HE died of whom, a little while before, this same Correspondent had written to the converts of Galatia (iii. 13); "Christ bought us out from the curse of the Law, when He became a curse for us." All the untold emphasis of the sentence, and of the thought, lies here upon those last words, upon each and all of them, "_for ungodly ones--He died_," ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν--ἀπέθανε. The sequel shews this to us; he proceeds: [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =For scarcely,= with difficulty, and in rare instances, =for a just man will one die;= "_scarcely_," he will not say "_never_," =for for the good man,= the man answering in some measure the ideal of gracious and not only of legal goodness,[72] =perhaps someone actually ventures to die.= [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =But God commends,= as by a glorious contrast (συνίστησι), =His love,= "_His_" as above all current human love, "_His own love_," τὴν Ἑαυτοῦ, =towards us, because while we were still sinners,= and as such repulsive to the Holy One, =Christ for us did die.=