<p>5:6- see on Rom. 4:19. Paul in Rom. 5:6-8 lays out a three point logical case for the supremacy of God&rsquo;s love. Each of those three verses ends with the Greek word &ldquo;die&rdquo;, to stylistically emphasize the step logic.</p><p><i>For while we were yet weak</i>- The Greek word is pronounced as-then-ace; &ldquo;the ungodly&rdquo; translates a Greek word pronounced as-eb-ace. Bearing in mind the generally illiterate nature of Paul&rsquo;s primary readership, such literary devices which assisted memorization of the text are common in the NT. Christ died for us before we had anything at all to commend us. He didn&rsquo;t await our faith or repentance and then die for us, but He died for us in order to inspire those very things. Paul describes all of us as having been saved although we were &ldquo;without strength&rdquo;, using the same word used about the disciples asleep in Gethsemane (Mt. 26:41 = Rom. 5:6). He saw the evident similarity between them and us, tragically indifferent in practice to the mental agony of our Lord, failing to share His intensity of striving- although we are so willing in spirit to do this. And yet, Paul implies, be better than them. Don't be weak &ldquo;without strength&rdquo; and sleepy as they were when Christ wanted them awake (Mt. 26:40,41 = 1 Thess. 5:6,7). Strive for the imitation of Christ's attitude in the garden (Mt. 26:41 = Eph. 6:18). And yet in Romans 7, a depressed but realistic Paul laments that he fails in this; his description of the losing battle he experienced within him between flesh and spirit is couched in the language of Christ's rebuke to the disciples in Gethsemane (the spirit was willing, but the flesh weak).</p><p><i>In due time</i>- The Greek could imply &lsquo;at just the right time&rsquo;. Perhaps God&rsquo;s wrath was set to destroy the earth by the time of Christ, but He came and successfully did His work at the right time. But perhaps the idea is more that Christ died for us &ldquo;at that very time&rdquo; when we were weak and ungodly. He died for us in the hope of what we could potentially become through exercising faith; and our sacrifices for others, not least in the work of preaching and nurturing, are made in the same spirit. They are made whilst the objects of our attention appear immature, non-existent or unbelieving.</p><p><i>Christ died for</i>- All that is true of the Lord Jesus becomes in some sense, at some time, true of each of us who are in Him. It&rsquo;s true that nowhere in the Bible is the Lord Jesus actually called our &ldquo;representative&rdquo;, but the idea is clearly there. I suggest it&rsquo;s especially clear in all the Bible passages which speak of Him acting&nbsp;<i>huper</i>&nbsp;us- what Dorothee S&ouml;lle called &ldquo;the preposition of representation&rdquo; (1). Arndt and Gingrich in their Greek-English Lexicon define&nbsp;<i>huper</i>&nbsp;in the genitive as meaning &ldquo;&rsquo;for&rsquo;, &lsquo;in behalf of&rsquo;, &lsquo;for the sake of&rsquo; someone (2). When used in the sense of representation,&nbsp;<i>huper</i>&nbsp;is associated with verbs like &lsquo;request, pray, care, work, feel, suffer, die, support&rsquo;&rdquo;. So in the same way as the Lord representatively prays, died, cares, suffers, works &ldquo;for&rdquo; us, we are to do likewise, if He indeed is our representative and we His. Our prayers for another, our caring for them, is no longer a rushed salving of our conscience through some good deed. Instead 2 Cor. 5:15 becomes our motivation: &ldquo;He died for (<i>huper</i>) all of us, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for (<i>huper</i>) them&rdquo;. We are, in our turn, to go forth and be &ldquo;ambassadors for (<i>huper</i>) Christ... we pray you in Christ&rsquo;s stead (<i>huper&nbsp;</i>Christ), be reconciled to God&rdquo; (2 Cor. 5:20). Grasping Him as our representative means that we will be His representatives in this world, and not leave that to others or think that our relationship in Him is so internal we needn&rsquo;t breathe nor show a word of it to others. As He suffered &ldquo;the just for (<i>huper</i>) the unjust&rdquo; (1 Pet. 3:18), our living, caring, praying for others is no longer done &ldquo;for&rdquo; those whom we consider good enough, worthy enough, sharing our religious convictions and theology. For whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died&nbsp;<i>huper</i>&nbsp;us (Rom. 5:6). And this representative death is to find an issue in our praying&nbsp;<i>huper</i>&nbsp;others (Acts 12:5; Rom. 10:1; 15:30; 2 Cor. 1:11), just as He makes intercession&nbsp;<i>huper&nbsp;</i>us (Rom. 8:26,34). We are to spend and be spent&nbsp;<i>huper&nbsp;</i>others, after the pattern of the Lord in His final nakedness of death on the cross (2 Cor. 12:15). These must all be far more than fine ideas for us. These are the principles which we are to live by in hour by hour life. And they demand a huge amount, even the cross itself. For unto us is given &ldquo;in the behalf of Christ <i>huper</i>&nbsp;Christ, not only to quietly, painlessly, theoretically believe on Him, but also to suffer for (<i>huper</i>) his sake&rdquo; (Phil. 1:29). In all this, then, we see that the Lord&rsquo;s being our representative was not only at the time of His death; the fact He continues to be our representative makes Him our ongoing challenge.&nbsp;</p><p><i>The ungodly</i>- connecting with how we read in Rom. 4:5 that by faith, the ungodly are declared right with God. And the context there suggests Abraham was along with us all in that category of &ldquo;ungodly&rdquo;. Elsewhere, &ldquo;the ungodly&rdquo; are those who specifically will be condemned at the day of judgment (1 Pet. 4:18; 2 Pet. 2:5; 3:7; Jude 15). We stand in the dock before God&rsquo;s judgment and are condemned. We aren&rsquo;t just the passive, the rather lazy to respond to God- we are, every one of us, &ldquo;the ungodly&rdquo;, the condemned. But Christ died for&nbsp;<i>us</i>, so that we might be declared right, become de-condemned, have the verdict changed right around.</p>