But God commendeth ... - God has exhibited or showed his love in this unusual and remarkable manner.

His love - His kind feeling; his beneficence; his willingness to submit to sacrifice to do good to others.

While we were yet sinners - And of course his enemies. In this, his love surpasses all that has ever been manifested among people.

Christ died for us - In our stead; to save us from death. He took our place; and by dying himself on the cross, saved us from dying eternally in hell.

But God commendeth his love, etc. - συνιστησι· God hath set this act of infinite mercy in the most conspicuous light, so as to recommend it to the notice and admiration of all.

While we were yet sinners - We were neither righteous nor good; but impious and wicked. See the preceding verse, and see the note on Romans 5:6.

But God commendeth his love towards us,.... That is, he hath manifested it, which was before hid in his heart; he has given clear evidence of it, a full proof and demonstration of it; he has so confirmed it by this instance, that there is no room nor reason to doubt of it; he has illustrated and set it off with the greater lustre by this circumstance of it,

in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. God's elect were sinners in Adam, in whom they were naturally and federally, as all mankind were; hence polluted and guilty; and so they are in their own persons whilst unregenerate: they are dead in sin, and live in it, commit it, are slaves unto it, and are under the power and dominion of it; and many of them are the chief and vilest of sinners; and such they were considered when Christ died for them: but are not God's people sinners after conversion? yes; but sin has not the dominion over them; their life is not a course of sinning, as before; and besides, they are openly justified and pardoned, as well as renewed, and sanctified, and live in newness of life; so that their characters now are taken, not from their worse, but better part. And that before conversion is particularly mentioned here, to illustrate the love of God to them, notwithstanding this their character and condition; and to show that the love of God to them was very early; it anteceded their conversion; it was before the death of Christ for them; yea, it was from everlasting: and also to express the freeness of it, and to make it appear, that it did not arise from any loveliness in them; or from any love in them to him; nor from any works of righteousness done by them, but from his own sovereign will and pleasure.

Commendeth

See on Romans 3:5. Note the present tense. God continuously establishes His love in that the death of Christ remains as its most striking manifestation.

His love (ἑαυτοῦ)

Rev., more literally, His own. Not in contrast with human love, but as demonstrated by Christ's act of love.

But God {h} commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet {i} sinners, Christ died for us.

(h) He commends his love toward us, so that in the midst of our afflictions we may know assuredly that he will be present with us.

(i) While sin reigned in us.

5:8 But God commendeth his love. His love is not like human love. Christ died, not for friends, but for enemies. It was while we were yet sinners that he died for us.

5:8 But God recommendeth - A most elegant expression. Those are wont to be recommended to us, who were before either unknown to, or alienated from, us. While we were sinners - So far from being good, that we were not even just.

8. But God commendeth-"setteth off," "displayeth"-in glorious contrast with all that men will do for each other.

his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners-that is, in a state not of positive "goodness," nor even of negative "righteousness," but on the contrary, "sinners," a state which His soul hateth.

Christ died for us-Now comes the overpowering inference, emphatically redoubled.

5:6-11 Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless, but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their everlasting destruction would be to the glory of God's justice. Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet sinners when he died for us. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, chap. 8:7; Col 1:21. But God designed to deliver from sin, and to work a great change. While the sinful state continues, God loathes the sinner, and the sinner loathes God, Zec 11:8. And that for such as these Christ should die, is a mystery; no other such an instance of love is known, so that it may well be the employment of eternity to adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the apostle when he supposed the case of some one dying for a righteous man? And yet he only put it as a thing that might be. Was it not the undergoing this suffering, that the person intended to be benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are believers in Christ released by his death? Not from bodily death; for that they all do and must endure. The evil, from which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. There is no evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which the apostle actually affirms, sin, and wrath, the punishment of sin, determined by the unerring justice of God. And if, by Divine grace, they were thus brought to repent, and to believe in Christ, and thus were justified by the price of his bloodshedding, and by faith in that atonement, much more through Him who died for them and rose again, would they be kept from falling under the power of sin and Satan, or departing finally from him. The living Lord of all, will complete the purpose of his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost. Having such a pledge of salvation in the love of God through Christ, the apostle declared that believers not only rejoiced in the hope of heaven, and even in their tribulations for Christ's sake, but they gloried in God also, as their unchangeable Friend and all-sufficient Portion, through Christ only.