If we take the love of God for granted we shall not appreciate the
sequence of the apostles thought. But when we assess our weakness and particularly our ungodliness, then we discover both the need and the marvel of the proof God has given. What looms up in our conviction when our ungodliness is properly weighed is our detestability and the wrath of God, and it is impossible to take God's love for granted. That God could love the ungodly, far less that he did love them, would never have entered into the heart of man (cf. I Cor. 2:9, 10). On that background the text must be understood. The marvel of God's love is that it was love to the ungodly. And here is the proof-"Christ died for the ungodly". And not only so. When Christ died for them they were still weak, that is to say, they were still ungodly and contemplated as ungodly. Hence the love of which the death of Christ is the expression and provision is a love exercised to them as ungodly. It is not a love constrained by commendable qualities in them, not even by the qualities which they would one day exhibit by the power of God's grace. It is an antecedent love because it is the love presupposed in the death of Christ for them while they were still in misery and sin. It is not the love of complacency but love that finds its whole urge and incentive in the goodness of God. That is the kind of love the death of Christ demonstrates and it is a love efficient to a saving purpose because the death of Christ is on behalf of the ungodly and therefore to the end of securing the high destiny which the context has in view.
— John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans