Perfect Timing
By Grant Gaines
They say that timing is everything, and whoever “they” are is right. Just take a look at Hollywood. Timing the sappy music to match the atmosphere of the romantic kiss can melt the viewers’ hearts. The perfectly timed loud explosion to cut through the thick silence during the most intense part of the movie can cause the audience to jump out of their seats. Timing will either win awards for movies or cause them to be a major flop. It’s the difference between a blockbuster and a budget buster.
Timing also has a rather important role in our everyday lives. Take a nap in your bed and your body will be refreshed. Take a nap while driving and your body will get beat up.
And this may be an extremely obvious statement but I’ll go ahead and make it anyways—timing is rather important to God as well. The sun rises and sets at the time the Creator designates. God speaks a word and the seasons come and go like clockwork every year. And the King of the Heavens and the Earth, as big as He is, still cares enough to intentionally control the timing of your heartbeat every second.
There’s just no getting around it—timing is everything.
In fact, that’s exactly what Romans 5:6 (NIV) says—“…at just the right time…”—God saved us. God came down to earth in the form of Jesus Christ to rescue us with the promise of eternal salvation in the nick of time.
Of course it is interesting to ask what made Christ’s coming such great timing, isn’t it? I mean, if Romans 5:6 says that God’s love rescued us at “just the right time”, what made that time any more special than any other time?
To answer this question I’m going to zoom out a little bit so we can examine the context of “just the right time” in Romans 5. As the whole verse goes, “You see, at just the right time, when we were ______, Christ died for the ______.” (Romans 5:6, NIV).
If you were around while Romans was being written by the apostle Paul and he asked you to help him fill out this sentence, you might have some great ideas to complete this verse. “…when we were seeking God, Christ died for the religious.” “…when we were cleaned up, Christ died for the repentant.” “…when we were getting our act together, Christ died for the moral.” Your list might have different adjectives, nouns, or verbs but it would only make sense that a perfect God with perfect timing would only reach out to a perfect people, wouldn’t it?
Thankfully for our sake, we didn’t write the Bible, the Holy Spirit did (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21). And since the Holy Spirit was the Author it leaves room for an inconceivable God to do things that don’t make logical sense to our brains—like dying for us “at just the right time”.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6, NIV, bold mine). “Powerless” and “ungodly” doesn’t sound like perfect timing to me but the story doesn’t stop there because Romans 5 gives us an even better idea of what “the right time” looks like.
You see, not only were we powerless and ungodly when Christ died for us, but we were also legally indebted to God (5:1), sinners (5:8), God’s enemies (5:10), and in desperate need of reconciliation (5:10) to the very One who looked down upon us and said, “Yeah, this is the perfect time to sacrifice My only Son for them.”
Perfect timing? But we were so ungodly, unholy, un-perfect. How can that be perfect timing?
While it doesn’t make sense to us, think of the freedom that comes with the knowledge that you didn’t do anything at all to attract God’s attention or love to you when He chose to save you. You didn’t earn God’s love. You never took the initial step towards God. He looked down upon you when you were literally at your worst and loved you because that’s just who He is (1 John 4:8), not because of who you are.
This is great news because Revelation 12:10 describes Satan as the “accuser of our brothers and sisters” which means that whenever you mess up, he’s in your ear telling you how worthless, how awful, and how unlovable you are. He tells you that you’ll never be good enough, strong enough, or faithful enough to win God’s love. He’ll tell you that you’ve fallen, sinned, alienated yourself from God one too many times.
That is why Romans 5:6 is so beautiful because while Satan will accuse you time after time about your failure, your righteousness never had anything to do with God saving you. It was when you were powerless, ungodly, indebted, sinners, enemies, and in need of reconciliation that Christ died for us.
Satan tells you that your sin has separated you from the Savior. Scripture, on the other hand, says that, “…nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NLT).
Satan accuses you with doubts of the future while God points to His faithfulness of the past. Don’t let Satan paralyze your relationship with the Father—remember His perfect timing.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
