Much More

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

Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”

Romans 5:8, 9 (NIV)

Dear verse 9, where oh where have you been all of my life?

I grew up in church and I am exceedingly familiar with verse 8, but verse 9 and I are in the beginning stages of getting to know each other.

Verse 8 reminds us of God’s great love for us when we were sinners. While we weren’t thinking of God, He was looking for a way to show us how much He loved us. He did the greatest thing He could do; He sent Jesus to die for us.

After we become Christians, we share God’s love with people who don’t know Him. We tell them God loves them just the way they are, no matter what they have done. We are confident in God’s love and acceptance for them, and rightly so. As many church services ended during my childhood, we boldly sang, “Just as I am, without one plea,” and we prayed the unsaved would respond to God’s love for them.

I met Jesus when I was very young, but when I was in 2nd grade I realized I couldn’t put my finger on an exact moment, so I went forward in children’s church to make sure. I still don’t have an exact date to commemorate, but I remember the experience well.

After I was sure of my salvation, my mindset slowly began to change. I came to Jesus as a sinner, lost without Him. I felt unworthy of God’s love, yet I received His mercy and grace. But after I was saved, anytime I made a mistake, I felt as if God was mad at me. Any time I sinned, I wondered how He could love me at all. I believed God greatly loved me before I was saved, but after becoming His daughter, I had trouble believing His love was constant, no matter what I had done. There is something wrong with this type of thinking.

Let’s look at verse 9.

”Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”

“How much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath…”

It doesn’t say, “…how much less shall we be saved from God’s wrath…” as my mind had been telling me most of my life.

It doesn’t even say, “…in the same way shall we be saved from God’s wrath…” which would still be good news.

But no, it says, “…how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath…”

This is great news! God is not mad at me. Nor is He mad at you. Because Jesus died on the cross for our sin, and we have received Him as our Savior, God is not mad at us no matter what we do.

In spite of this, we should not act crazy and live like a sinner. Though God would not be mad at us, sinning confuses our relationship with Him, and we would be downright miserable as we made a mess of our lives.

The love of God that reached out to us before we became a Christian is the same love of God that is ours after salvation. We could not earn His love before we were saved and we cannot earn His love after we are saved. His love is constant and unchanging; upon this we can hang our hat!

TDT (The Dara Translation) of Romans 5:8, 9…

“Even while we were sinners, God was looking for a way to show us how much He loved us. He did the greatest thing He could do; He sent His only Son to the earth. And thankfully, His only Son willingly died on the cross in our place.

And now that we have been completely saved by the blood of Jesus, we can be even more certain that God doesn’t have an ounce of anger toward us.”

We can live in God’s love, knowing He is not mad at us. He just isn’t.