The Book of Acts: Building Something New

This week’s devotional was written by J.D. Walt and is entitled The Word of the Day and of Eternity. J. D Walt is the Executive Director of seedbed.com. We hope this devotion encourages you this week.

ROMANS 5:7–8 (NIV)

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

CONSIDER THIS

We have heard a lot of big words in Romans so far. Today, we introduce a new word. So far in Romans, we have discussed the weighty concepts of sin and righteousness and faith and justification and mercy and peace and hope and circumcision and the heart and justice and judgment and law and atonement and repentance, and all of this is the stuff of the gospel. There is another word that brings all of these words together into the deep coherence of the gospel. That word, of course, is grace. But that is not the new word. 

As I look over the list of terms it occurs to me they are all somewhat abstract concepts. They all mean something and yet their meanings all together point beyond themselves. In other words, they are describing something larger. Even this word bringing coherence to them all—grace—points beyond itself. They are all nice words, even powerful words, with strong meanings and yet they remain abstractions; until we read this:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Amazing grace can only come from one place: amazing love. 

As our fight song has it, “He left his Father’s throne above, so free so infinite his grace, emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race.”

The word is love. Though we have hardly seen it to date, we will begin to see it everywhere in Romans. 

Paul refers to the gospel as the “power of God” precisely because the gospel is the love of God. It is why I maintain that rather than the conventional nomenclature of “the gospel of Jesus Christ,” it should read, “The gospel is Jesus Christ.”

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love is the question and the answer. It is the rule and the reason. The love of God in Jesus Christ is not only the grace that saves us but it is the very life of God in us that makes us agents of salvation for others. The apostle John will later capture the logic of love in these words:

“This is how we know what love is—Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).  

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Grace is an idea. Love can only be a person. Indeed, grace is the big idea of God, but love is his nature and his name. 

Yes, “Amazing love how can it be, that thou my God wouldst die for me.” 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

THE PRAYER

Our Father in heaven, thank you for sending your Son to this earth to die for us; even for me. I understand this to the point where I can accept it in my understanding and yet I hardly grasp it. I want to break free into a new level—not of grasping for you but of being grasped by you. Something tells me this will come down to my own willingness to receive and be loved. Something in me doesn’t want it to be about love, but about power or justice or sovereignty or something that feels more weighty to me. Forgive me for this. I think it begins by being honest; so that is my honesty today. I believe my knowledge about you keeps me at a safe distance. I am ready to trade this in for the real knowing and being known by you. I am ready to personally receive the demonstration of love who is Jesus. Praying in his name, amen. 

THE QUESTION

Do you want it to be about something other than love? Why? Does love feel soft and flimsy to you or has it come into the category of the eternal weight of glory; of ultimate durability and final substance?