Leon Morris has this comment on Romans 5:8 regarding God demonstrating his love for us:

But God’s love is greater: Christ did not die for good people, but for sinners. The cross is the means by which God demonstrates his love. Paul says that the cross shows us God’s own love. One might expect him to say that the cross shows us the love of Christ. It does that, of course, but own puts the emphasis on the love of the Father (cf. 1 John 4:10). “Christ’s action is God’s action. Christ’s love is God’s love” (Nygren). It would be easy to see the cross as demonstrating the indifference of God, a God who let the innocent Jesus be taken by wicked men, tortured, and crucified while he did nothing. And that would indeed be the case were it not that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Unless there is a sense in which the Father and Christ are one, it is not the love of God that the cross shows. But because Christ is one with God, Paul can speak of the cross as a demonstration of the love of God. There is no opposition between the Father and the Son in the means of our salvation. And it was while we were still sinners that Christ died. Still points to our state at the time. God did not make some indication that we were ready to amend our lives a precondition of bringing about our salvation. It was for people who had sinned and were still sinners that Christ died. There is a spontaneity about God’s love. He loves because of what he is, not because of what we are. There is nothing in sinners to call forth the love of God. But he does love us, as the cross so plainly shows. Christ died for us comes at the end with impressive simplicity. It is a succinct statement of the essence of the Christian message (The Epistle to the Romans, PNTC, 224)

Categories: God's Love, Leon Morris, Love, Romans, Uncategorized