Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Romans 5:6

Romans 5:6. For. This introduces the outward proof, or manifestation, of the love of God, the same love which hath been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:5). But the internal experience would be a delusion, were it not based on this historical fact, in which God's love was specially displayed.

While we were yet weak, i.e., spiritually weak, without the Holy Spirit, through which we must receive spiritual life. ‘The sinfulness is purposely described as weakness (need of help), in order to characterize it as the motive for the love of God interfering to save' (Meyer). ‘Yet' is repeated in the original, according to the best manuscripts, and thus receives an emphasis which we can scarcely reproduce in English.

In due time. At the proper season, which was also the appointed time. Christ appeared when all the preparation for His coming was complete, and when the disease of sin had reached its crisis. It was, therefore, the ‘due time,' and in Paul's mind the death of Christ was the central point of all human history (comp. Galatians 4:4; where, however, the word rendered ‘time' is a different one).

Died for the ungodly. The term ‘ungodly' is chosen rather than ‘us,' which would have been otherwise correct, to bring out more forcibly the strength of God's love. ‘For,' in itself, means ‘in behalf of'; ‘but where the question is concerning a dying for those who are worthy of death, the conception naturally involves a will, understood “instead of;” see Matthew 20:28 '(Lange). The doctrine of the substitutionary death of Christ (His vicarious atonement) rests, not on the preposition, but on the context, on the whole sweep of Biblical thought, and, as far as Paul's view is concerned, on such passages as chap. Romans 3:25; Ephesians 5:2; 1 Timothy 2:6.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Romans 5:6

Old Testament

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