Tense

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us"
Romans 5:8

There are probably a few different reactions to this verse. For the non-Christian, you could be confused about what sin is, why Christ died, or how someone dying is a demonstration of God's love. That's fine and we could get into that, but that's for another day. A non-Christian could also look at that and think it's a bunch of mumbo-jumbo in some book that people put entirely too much faith in. That's fine too, and we could also get into that...but that's also for another day. Finally, the Christian reads this verse and probably thinks, "Duh! Why am I still reading this? I'm not learning anything!" So now I ask that you bear with me.

Now to be honest, at first glance this verse seems kinda dry and elementary. It's what we've learned since Sunday School and singing "Jesus loves me this I know". Anyone who's been around a church more than a couple times has probably heard something along those lines. With all that said, if you look at Romans 5:8 a second time, there is one word in there that makes it absolutely extraordinary. You can have a second to guess which one it is.











Alright, think you got it? The word is: were. Yup, were. And it's not so much the word (after all, any form of "to be" is as dry as it gets), it's the tense of the word. Let's look at the verse again:

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

Let's go through a thought-process of analyzing this verse.

So God demonstrates His love for us. How? In this. What's this? This = "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us". Ok, so were is the past-tense of "to be". Who's "wereing"? We are (or were? =P). What were we? Sinners. What's a sinner? An enemy of God, deserving of an infinite punishment (Eesh!). And since the verse says "we", it means all of us were sinners.

With these thoughts, let's write the verse a little differently:

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While all of us were enemies of God, and deserved an infinite punishment, Christ died for us

Said that way, we start to appreciate the power of this verse. We were God's enemies! In Jesus, God said to us traitors, "Want a punishment? Here! I'll.....die for you. I'll take on what you deserved so you don't have to!" Amazing.

However, we're not done yet =D Now let's look at were. We said before it's the past-tense of "to be". So, we were enemies of God. That means we are something else. That means we are no longer enemies of God! How? Because God placed His punishment on Christ!

In other words we were sinners. We are now saints! We were dead. We are now alive! We were stained. We are now washed clean!

Many times, we live life thinking we have to measure up to God. We think we have to be good enough for Him to love us. When you think of that, think of Romans 5:8. Through Jesus, God took away the measuring stick. You are a saint!

To be continued...

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"
Romans 8:1