21. He Loved Us Then; He'll Love Us Now

Maybe you have been a Christian for years. You know the right answers. And yet you just failed at the same thing again, and a quiet thought slides in: surely he is tired of me by now. Ortlund's chapter takes up exactly this fear, the worry that a long-time believer who sins again has finally used up Christ's patience. Romans 5 is a good place to answer it.

Start with what Paul says Christ saw when he came. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." Weak and ungodly are not flattering words. A few verses later Paul says it again: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Notice the timing. Christ did not wait for us to clean up. He acted while we were at our worst. That means your latest failure is not new information to him. He did not look at you at the start and assume you would be a better project than this. He knew what he was getting and went to the cross anyway. You cannot shock someone who already paid for the worst of you.

Now watch Paul's logic in verses 9 and 10. Twice he says "much more." If we were enemies and were reconciled by the death of his Son, "much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Paul is arguing from the harder thing to the easier thing. Winning enemies was the hard part. Keeping friends is the lesser work. The book draws attention to the phrase "saved by his life." Your standing does not rest on your record this week. It rests on a Savior who is alive right now and is still for you.

So where does that heavy feeling come from? Guilt does a predictable thing: it makes us want to hide. We stay away from prayer, skip church, and keep our distance until we feel presentable again. The chapter makes the point that the voice saying God is sick of you is not his voice. Compare what he says through Jeremiah, in a passage Ortlund draws on: he has loved his people with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). An everlasting love does not expire at your fortieth failure.

That does not mean sin is small. It means his love is bigger than your sin, and that is the very thing that makes honest repentance possible. People run toward someone who will not throw them out.

Paul ends with joy: "we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Reconciliation is already received. You do not have to earn your way back into the room you are already standing in.

One caution. If this kind of self-accusation is constant, loud, and exhausting, more than an occasional bad day, please talk with a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend. Heavy guilt that never lets up is worth bringing to someone who can sit with you.