Romans 5:7

We are probably willing to help good people with something they need. Even for a person that is not so good, we might go out of our way to lend a hand. If need be, for someone especially good we may even be willing to give our life—for a son, a mother, a close friend. But for a bad person, would we be willing to go that far? Would it be worth it? What sense would it make? Yet that’s exactly what Christ did for us. He did not come so much to call good people, but sinners, to repentance (Matthew 9:13b).

That is the point Paul drives home in Romans 5:7, “Scarcely for a righteous person will someone die; maybe for a good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrated his love to us since while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul as “chief of sinners” would have especially appreciated this point, but that is only a matter of degree. The observation applies equally to us all, and our observing these emblems of his voluntary death for us acknowledges our recognition of that feat.