Moreover, God goes to the unheard of length of commending His love to us by this fact. The word “commend” (“demonstrate,” KJV) is used in two ways in the New Testament. It sometimes means “to establish, prove or make certain.” In this sense the death of Christ certainly “proves” God’s love for us, the meaning the NIV translators have favored. But “prove” is a cold word. It has the temperature of algebraic axioms and corollaries. It seems remote. The other use of “commend” in the New Testament is “to recommend or set forth in such a manner that the matter appeals to the heart.” This surely is the fullness of the meaning here. The death of Jesus Christ does indeed prove the reality and demonstrate the nature of God’s unfathomable love. But more than that, it commends it to us in such a manner that we will repent of our sin, which being unrepented of keeps us from God, and instead leads us to embrace Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior.
Have you done that? If not, notice that the word “commend” (“demonstrate”) is in the present tense (“commends” or “demonstrates”), rather than in the past tense (“commended” or “demonstrated”). That is, it is not merely a past happening that today may be forgotten. It is a present reality, as much a force today as it has ever been. It is today—right now—that God is commending His deep and genuine love to you by Jesus’ death.
Today you and I may look back at Joseph’s brothers and fault them for their ignorance of Joseph’s identity and their slowness to repudiate past sin. But if we try, we can find at least some partial excuses for them. Their sin was long past. There was nothing they could do to change its consequences. So far as their recognition of Joseph was concerned, how could they possibly guess that this powerful Egyptian was the despised brother they had last seen as he was led off into slavery?
There are no such excuses for us. We know there is a God; the Bible says that only fools deny it (Ps. 14:1). We know that all we are and have come from God’s hand; the Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). When we stop to think about it, we even know that God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to save us by giving His life in our place. But do we acknowledge this? We do not, unless God awakens our consciences and turns us from our manifest ingratitude.
That is what you must allow God to do for you, if you have not turned from sin previously. You must allow Him to turn you to faith in your older brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has loved and continues to love you perfectly.
