22. Romans Chapter 5 Verses 6-9 - Messages In Romans - Helpless And Hopeless But Christ Died For The Ungodly – Justified By Blood - Message 22 Series

22. ROMANS CHAPTER 5 VERSES 6-9 - MESSAGES IN ROMANS - HELPLESS AND HOPELESS BUT CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY – JUSTIFIED BY BLOOD - MESSAGE 22

After those wonderful verses that commence Chapter 5 of Romans and which took us 4 postings, we continue in this remarkable chapter and start from verse 6, and the next 6 verses are – let us use the word FANTASTIC. I want to progress here carefully, a verse at a time.

[A]. HELP, I AM IN THE QUICKSAND

{{Romans 5:6 “While we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly”}}

Christ died for sinners. Yes! Christ died for the ungodly. Yes! But we read He did it “at the right time”. What does this mean ?

What I love so much about this verse is the opening of it – “ While we were still helpless”. If a baby falls out of a cot, what do you do? Do you sit back and think, “Well I hope that baby works out for himself how to get back into the cot, or do you go to the child’s aid?” The answer is too obvious but the application is just as relevant.

Did God say, “Well I will sit back and hope the individual works out how to relieve himself of sin, see if he can make his own way out of the quicksand?” No way, whatever. That would never work. The verse says, “While we were still helpless.” The AV uses “without strength,” and other translations use “powerless” or “weak”, but it seems the best word here is “helpless” as we are utterly incapable of helping ourselves. We are as helpless as that baby on the floor in trying to get back into the cot, when it comes to solving our sin problem.

“Weak” is a bad word in my opinion. Weak means you have some ability, some of you is good, but you are not strong enough in the final run. Before I was saved, I was not weak in righteousness. I had none! I was not weak in goodness. There are none that are good. I was not weak in holiness. I had none. The translation of “weak” in the ESV is not a good choice.

We were yet without strength – one has commented, “The word used here ?s?e??? asthenon is usually applied to those who are sick and feeble, deprived of strength by disease; Matthew 25:38; Luke 10:9; Acts 4:9; Acts 5:15. But it is also used in a moral sense, to denote inability or feebleness with regard to any undertaking or duty.”

Self-reformation does not, and will never work. Because men and women are so sinful, it is like we are made up through and through, of rotted fabric that keep crumbling inside, and we have to be dressed in the finest clothing for a function. We are helpless. Reforming ourselves is like drinking bleach to try to whiten up the decayed and rotting inside that is already crumbling.

Trying to live by the golden rule will not work. Meditation will not work. Ascribing to Buddhism or Bahai as a way of living will not work. Pursuing eastern religions and New Age practices will not work. Nothing will work because we are helpless! In fact, if it was possible, the unconverted person is even worse than helpless.

I heard of a man who went to an alcoholics anonymous meeting because of the addiction to drink, but he said the place was so full of smoke he could hardly breathe. You see if the sin problem is so great and you try to reform it, then you just lean to another area of sinfulness. It will never work. Men and women must reach the point in their lives when they say, “I have had enough! Help, I am sinking in quicksand. Help me!”

When I was typing this, on one occasion I mistyped “helpless” and made it “hopeless”. As I thought about it I decided that is not such a bad word to use here and the following verse suggests that – {{Ephesians 2:12-13 “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, HAVING NO HOPE and without God in the world, but now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ”}}

However the whole turn around in that Ephesian passage is the start of verse 13 “BUT”. There was only One who could do anything about our helpless state, and it is not ourselves.

Isaiah describes the man who is like the baby on the floor – {{Isaiah 1:5-6 “Where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion? The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”}} and Jeremiah says a similar thing – {{Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”}}