For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. – Romans 5:10

It is quite certain that God did not consider man’s merit when Christ died; in fact, no merit could have deserved the death of Jesus. Though we had been holy as Adam, we could never have deserved a sacrifice like that of Jesus for us. But inasmuch as it says, “He died for sinners,” we are thereby taught that God considered our sin, and not our righteousness. When Christ died, He died for men as black, as wicked, as abominable, not as good and excellent. Christ did not shed His blood for us as saints, but as sinners. He considered us in our loathsomeness, in our low estate and misery-not in that high estate to which grace afterwards elevates us, but in all the decay into which we had fallen by our sin. There could have been no merit in us; and therefore, God commendeth His love by our ill desert.

Again: it is quite certain, because Christ died for us as sinners, that God had no interest to serve by sending His Son to die. How could sinners serve Him? Oh! if God had pleased, He might have crushed this nest of rebels, and have made another world all holy. If God had chosen, the moment that man sinned He might have said unto the world, “Thou shalt be burned”; and like as a few years ago astronomers told us that they saw the light of a far-off world burning, myriads of miles away, this world might have been consumed with burning heat, and sin scorched out of its clay. But no. Whilst God could have made another race of beings, and could have either annihilated us, or consigned us to eternal torment, He was pleased to veil Himself in flesh, and die for us. Surely then it could not have been from any motive of self-interest. God had nothing to get by man’s salvation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0104.cfm

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. – Romans 8:34

When we were sinners, we were sinners against the very person who died for us. “Tis strange, ’tis passing strange, ’tis wonderful,” that the very Christ against whom we have sinned died for us. If a man should be injured in the street, if a punishment should be demanded of the person who attacked him, it would be passing strange if the injured man should for love’s sake bear the penalty that the other might go free; but ’twas so with Christ. He had been injured, yet He suffers for the very injury that others did to Him. He dies for His enemies-dies for the men that hate and scorn Him. There is an old tradition, that the very man who pierced Christ’s side was converted; and I sometimes think that peradventure in heaven we shall meet with those very men who drove the nails into His hands and pierced His side. Love is a mighty thing; it can forgive great transgressors. I know my Master said, “Begin at Jerusalem,” and I think He said that because there lived the men who had crucified Him, and He wanted them to be saved. My hearer, hast thou ever blasphemed Christ? Hast thou ever mocked Him, and scoffed at His people? Hast thou done all thou couldst to emulate the example of those who spat in His holy face? Dost thou repent of it? Dost thou feel thou needst a Saviour? Then I tell thee, in Christ’s name, He is thy Saviour; yes, thy Saviour, though thou hast insulted Him-thy Saviour, though thou hast trampled on Him-thy Saviour though thou hast spoken evil of His people, His day, His Word, and His gospel…

Go away and rejoice; for if thou be the chief of sinners thou shalt be saved, if thou believest. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0104.cfm

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous. – Romans 5:19

Let us for a moment consider what sort of sinners many of us have been, and then we shall see it was marvelous grace that Christ should die for men-not as penitents but as sinners. Consider how many of us have been continual sinners. We have not sinned once, nor twice, but ten thousand times. Our life, however upright and moral it has been, is stained by a succession of sins. If we have not revolted against God in the outward acts which proclaim the profligate to be a great sinner, yet the thoughts of our heart and the words of our lips are swift witnesses against us that we have continually transgressed. And oh! my brethren, who is there among us who will not likewise confess to sins of act? Who among us has not broken the Sabbath-day? Who among us has not taken God’s name in vain? Who of us shall dare to say that we have loved the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength? Have we never by any act whatsoever showed that we have coveted our neighbour’s goods? Verily, I know we have; we have broken His commands, and it is well for us to join in that general confession-“We have done those things which we ought not to have done; we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.” Now, the sweet thought is, that Christ died for us, whilst He knew that we should be continual transgressors. Men, brethren, and fathers, He did not die for you as those who have committed but one fault, but as those who were emphatically “sinners;” sinners of years’ standing; some of you sinners with grey heads; sinners who have persevered in a constant course of iniquity. As sinners we are redeemed, and by it we become saints. Does not this commend Christ’s love to us, that He should die for sinners, who have dyed themselves with sin as with crimson and with scarlet; great and continual sinners?

My hearer, if thou hast so sinned, do not therefore despair, it may be He will yet make thee rejoice in His redemption.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0104.cfm

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. – Romans 5:6

It was much love when Christ became man for us, when He stripped Himself of the glories of His Godhead for awhile, to become an infant of a span long, slumbering in the manger of Bethlehem. It was no little condescension when He divested Himself of all His glories, hung His mantle on the sky, gave up His diadem and the pleasures of His throne, and stooped to become flesh. It was moreover, no small love when He lived a holy and a suffering life for us; it was love amazing, when God with feet of flesh did tread the earth, and teach His own creatures how to live, all the while bearing their scoffs and jests with cool unangered endurance. It was no little favour of Him that He should condescend to give us a perfect example by His spotless life; but the commendation of love lieth here-not that Christ lived for us, but that Christ died for us.

Do any of us know what is contained in that great word “die?” Can we measure it? Can we tell its depths of suffering or its heights of agony? “Died for us!”…All that death could mean Christ endured; He yielded up the ghost, He resigned His breath; He became a lifeless corpse, and His body was interred, even like the bodies of the rest that died… “Ah! it is a solemn and an awful thing to die.” But, my hearers, “Christ died for us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0104.cfm

But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”- Romans 5:8

It is the highest commendation of love, that it was Christ who died for us. When sinful man erred from his Maker, it was necessary that God should punish his sin. He had sworn by Himself, “The soul that sinneth it shall die;” and God-with reverence to His all-holy name be it spoken-could not swerve from what He had said. He had declared on Sinai that He would by no means clear the guilty; but inasmuch as He desired to pardon the offending, it was necessary that some one else should bear the sufferings which the guilty ought to have endured, that so by the vicarious substitution of another, God might be “just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.”

Now, the question might have arisen, “Who is he that shall be the scapegoat for man’s offence? Who is he that shall bear his transgressions and take away his sins?”…”He hath commended His love” to you, my brethren, in that it was Christ, the Son of God, who died for us.~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0104.cfm

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” -James 4:6

A poor minister began to preach once, and all the world spoke ill of him; but God blessed him. By-and-bye they turned round and petted him. He was the man-a wonder! God left him! It has often been the same. It is for us to recollect, in all times of popularity, that “Crucify Him; crucify Him” follows fast upon the heels of “Hosanna,” and that the crowd to-day, if dealt faithfully with, may turn into the handful of to-morrow; for men love not plain speaking. We should learn to be despised, learn to be contemned, learn to be slandered, and then we shall learn to be made useful by God. Down on my knees I have often fallen, with the hot sweat rising from my brow, under some fresh slander poured upon me; in an agony of grief my heart has been well-nigh broken; till at last I learned the art of bearing all and caring for none. And how my grief runneth in another line. It is just the opposite. I fear lest God should forsake me, to prove that He is the author of salvation, that it is not in the preacher, that it is not in the crowd, that it is not in the attention I can attract, but in God, and in God alone. And this thing I hope I can say from my heart: if to be made as the mire of the streets again, if to be the laughingstock of fools and the song of the drunkard once more will make me more serviceable to my Master, and more useful to His cause, I will prefer it to all this multitude, or to all the applause that man could give.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0131.cfm