God Spared Not His Own Son for Us
Because God has done for our good the greatest that is
conceivable, will He not therefore provide all the other blessings we need?
The apostle Paul enjoys arguing from the greater to
the lesser in Romans 8:32. “He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give
us all things?”
“He who did not
spare His own Son.” God gave His very best for us while we were yet depraved sinners
(Romans 5:8).
God the Father is the One who gave up His Son for sinners. “His own Son” means that there is no
other person who stands in this same relationship to the Father. Jesus called “God His own Father, making
Himself equal with God” (John 5:18; cf. 14:10).
God has many sons by adoption.
But the Scripture allows no confusion to exist between the sonship of the
only begotten and the sonship of the adopted. It is the Father’s own genuine Son as
opposed to an adopted son such as believers that is in view. There is no other person who
stands in such a high relationship to God the Father.
God the Father did not spare His own Son the sufferings inflicted. He
did not withhold or lighten one bit the suffering, but inflicted the full punishment of
judgment upon His well beloved and only begotten Son.
God did not prevent His Son from suffering the death as the
sinner’s substitute. He fulfilled His
own prophetic word in Isaiah 53.
Because God “spared Him not,” He therefore “delivered
Him up for us all.” Christ was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), and He became a curse
for us (Gal. 3:13). The Father delivered the
Savior to the damnation and abandonment demanded by the law. “The wages of sin is
death” (Rom. 8:23). Nothing was spared in the punishment inflicted upon Christ. The
wrath of God was exhausted on Him. God
delivered Christ up for us all.
Who delivered Jesus up to the judgment of God? It was the Father (Acts 2:23-24). It was not “the hosts of darkness,”
Judas or Pilot, or the Jewish leaders, but His own Father. The Father delivered Him up to
“damnation executed with the sanctions of unrelenting justice.”
For whom did Jesus die? The
apostle says, “for us all.” It was
a vicarious death. It was for us Jesus was
delivered up. The contest in
this passage speaks of those who
were foreknown predestined, called, justified, and glorified.
“They are God’s elect (v. 33), those on behalf of whom
Christ makes intercession (v.34), those who can never be separated from the love of Christ
(vv. 35, 39). Christ was delivered up
“for all of us” who belong to the category in versus 1, 28-30. Our
substitute died for us and made atonement for our sins. Only in the believer does the atonement become personally and savingly
effective.
Since God has taken care of the our greatest need, can we not depend
upon Him to take care of our lesser needs? He
will not leave the lesser undone. We can
depend upon Him to take care of all that is necessary for our salvation. Since God has given us His Son to cover all our
sins, there is nothing, which He does not cause to work together for our ultimate good and
His glory. “How will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
God saved us by His grace, and He continues to sustain us by His
grace. He gives freely and graciously out of
His grace.
Everything needed in securing our glorification will be freely and
completely bestowed in God’s grace. How
could God possibly fail to glorify the believer who has been justified by faith when He
has already given His unspeakable and incomparable gift of His only Son?
Christ is God! Every
other grace and blessing depends upon your possession of Him. Is He in possession of you? Are you making yourself available to Him?
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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