Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2341
“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Romans 5:6.
BELOVED Friends, whatever the condition of a child of God is, he is not without hope. A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ may be very sorely tried. His afflictions may be multiplied and they may be very keen, but, even in that condition, he has hope. It is not possible for him to be forsaken of God—his God must help him. If the worst comes to the worst, and he is altogether forsaken of men and sees no way of escape out of his tremendous difficulties, still, his God must help him. He has no right whatever to be afraid!
The argument of our text is this—since the Lord Jesus Christ saved us when we were ungodly and came to our rescue when we were without strength—we can never be in a worse condition than that! And if He, then, did the best thing possible for us, namely, died for us, there is nothing which He will not do. In fact, He will give us all things and He will do all things for us, so as to keep us safely and bear us through. The argument is that, looking back, we see the great love of God to us in the gift of His dear Son for us when there was nothing good in us—when we were ungodly, when we had no power to produce anything good—for we were without strength. At such a time, even at such a time, Christ came on wings of love and up to the bloody tree He went—and laid down His life for our deliverance! We, therefore, feel confident that He will not leave us, now, and that He will not keep back anything from us whatever we may need. He has committed Himself to the work of our eternal salvation and He will not be balked of it. He has already done too much for us to ever run back from His purpose and, in our worst estate, if we are in that condition, tonight, we may still confidently appeal to Him and rest quite sure that He will bring us up even to the heights ofjoy and safety! That is the drift of the text and of the sermon tonight.
There are three grand points of consolation suggested by the text. The first lies in this one line, “Christ died for the ungodly” The second lies in this sentence, Christ died for us “when we were yet without strength.” And there is a rich vein of comfort in the third statement, that Christ died for us “in due time.” “In due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Time is often a very important element when one is in trouble. In the nick of time Christ came for our deliverance—and so He will again.
I. The first point of consolation in our text is this—if any child of God, here, is in sore dismay and bowed down by reason of trouble, fancying that God will leave him—let him first meditate on this word, “CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY.”
I should like to have this sentence put up at the corner of every street, “Christ died for the ungodly.” I am afraid that it would cause a great many observations to be made. Some would kick at it very heavily, but there are others who would leap very joyfully at the sight of it. “Christ died for the ungodly.” Does it mean what it says? The common notion, not expressed in so many words, but harbored in many minds, is that Christ died for the godly—that Christ died for good people—but the text says, “Christ died for the ungodly.” “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” I say again that the current notion, unexpressed but still believed, is that Christ came into the world to save saints. This is not true. He came into the world to save sinners, or, to come back to the very words of the text, “Christ died for the ungodly.”
I remember reading of a young woman who had long been in great distress of conscience. She found comfort from an utterance of Mr. Moody Stuart in prayer, when he quoted these words of my text, “Christ died for the ungodly.” She had
never caught at that idea before—she had always been trying to see something good in herself and she thought that if she could spy out some good thing in herself, then she would know that Christ died for her! It was like a new revelation when she really understood that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and that He “died for the ungodly.”
Now this must be true, for Scripture puts it so plainly, “Christ died for the ungodly.” It must be true for, in the first place, there was nobody else to die for but the ungodly! In this same Epistle, Paul says that all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin. As it is written, “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one.” So he sums us all up with his sweeping condemnation, “None righteous, no, not one.” And so, if Christ had died for anybody, He must have died for the ungodly, since the whole human race has degenerated into that condition! And that is the state by nature of every man that is born of woman. Some are openly ungodly. Many are religiously ungodly, a very dangerous, because very deceitful, condition—having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. This first point is clear, then—Christ must have died for the ungodly since there was nobody else for whom to die.