How God Proves that He Loves Us

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

How can we know that God loves us? Some Christians say that they can feel God’s love from their personal experiences. However, that is not the experience of all Christians. Many Christians struggle to “feel” God’s love, and it is unhelpful when fellow Christians tell them that they just have to have more faith, or be more faithful to God. What does the Bible say?

Romans 5:8 says that “God demonstrates his own love toward us.” The Greek word for “demonstrate” here is synistēmi, which means “to prove”, that is, “to provide evidence of a personal characteristic or claim through action” (BDAG). How does God prove his love for us? What evidence does God provide? The text answers: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Notice that the text does not say that God demonstrated his own love toward us. Rather, the present tense is used, “demonstrates”. This means that Jesus’ death on the cross for us 2,000 years ago is how God presently—even right now, constantly, and continually—shows us that he loves us!

Therefore, we do not need to seek evidence of God’s love for us through feelings or personal experiences. Rather, we can look to the cross, where God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us while we were still sinners. That is how God is presently, constantly, continually, ever proving his own love to us.