THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans
GOD THE GIVER OF ALL (Part 1)
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Romans 8:32
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IN these concluding verses of chapter 8 of Romans, Paul is seeking to apply all that he has said in this letter up to this point, and particularly to prove the truth of verse 28 where he has told us that God works everything for the good of his believing people. Paul is seeking to bring us into that complete assurance of our salvation which is ours in the Gospel, and which in the very nature of God's salvation is true. Paul wants us to realise that we have nothing to fear as we journey in our pilgrimage in this life, and that we will persevere to the end and reach the heavenly glory, not because we are able to hold on to the Lord and overcome, but because God has purposed and planned that we will, and because of this works everything, and has done everything, and will do everything, for us and in us, so that this glorious end will be ours. Paul knows that we struggle in this life, and that we are afflicted with temptation and manifold weaknesses. He knows we mourn over continual sin, and the fear which such sinning brings, which is that we will fail and fall at last. So Paul wants us to realise that in spite of all this, because God has purposed it, we will persevere to the end, and this is because God has done and is doing everything to make this glorious blessing a reality.

Paul is bringing this assurance to us in a series of propositions which continue to the end of the chapter. We have considered the first of these last time. This proposition is in verse 31 "If God be for us, who can be against us". We are looking at the second one this time. Paul argues "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”. The argument Paul uses here is one of arguing from the greater to the lesser. His argument is that if God has given the greatest and most precious gift for our salvation, it is impossible for him not to give us all the lesser things we need which follow. The argument is that God has given his Son, his only begotten Son, whom he loves -- his most precious possession, indeed his very life. It is impossible to conceive that God would give in this way and then let it all go to waste. This means that he will not let his Son die in vain, and so those whom he has given to his Son to redeem, he will make sure the redemption is fully effective, which means that God will not let his chosen ones fall, but will make sure that he brings us holy and blameless into his kingdom of glory as his beloved children. There is an enforcement of this argument in the original Greek which is lost in our translation. In the original this verses commences with the word 'if' or 'surely'. This enforces the argument, and presents it with irrefutable power.

This is the argument, and in one sense this is all that we need to know. However if this argument is to have its effect, and be powerful to bring us assurance and peace, then we need to apply it by delving deep into it and searching out the depth of the blessing by understanding as much as we can of the greatness of what God has done and is and will do for his elect.

So the first thing to notice is that all the action comes from God. It is God who did not spare his Son. This is something which in our subjective thinking and attitude we fail to take hold of. We always seem to think first in terms of our action, and our chosing, and our receiving, and so on. Then by concentrating on our action we are afraid because we can't fail to feel and appreciate how weak and futile we are in our action. We have only to think of New Year resolutions for this to devastate us. I doubt whether there is any new year resolution that has ever been kept for very long, and if it is kept it is never kept perfectly. We can quieten our sense of failure by bite size ploys. For example, someone may seek to mortify the flesh in Lent by giving up sugar in tea or coffee, or giving up chocolate. Then when at the end of Lent they have achieved this goal, they feel they are growing stronger, and by this they believe they are able to persevere in holiness. However in our sober moments we know this is not true. The fact is that we are saved and we will remain in salvation by God's action alone.

God acted in giving his Son. This was the eternal purpose of God. This is presented to us so fully and completely in Ephesians 1:3ff "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will." As we came to realise in verse 29 of Romans 8, God foreknew us timelessly. We were in his mind, and his action was focused on making us his own, and because of this he acted by giving his Son, for this was and is the only means whereby we could be saved. This shows us that our action has nothing to do with our salvation. Only the mighty action of God could and can save us. God in grace and love so acted.

This action of God in giving Jesus for us as the only power and means of saving us for our sins is revealed in the words of Paul in Romans 3:25 "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (as a propitiation - as the margin in the NIV correctly shows "as the one who would turn aside his wrath, taking away sin), through faith in his blood. God acted to make such a sacrifice, and Christ the Son was obedient to the will of the Father, and became obedient unto death, for us.

We have it expressed again so clearly in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:22ff we read "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead ....." The Jews by their leaders, and the help of Pontius Pilate and the Roman authorities killed, indeed, murdered Jesus, and they were culpable and responsible for this wicked act. But in spite of this it was God who delivered and gave Jesus to this death for our sins, and God did it because this was his eternal plan. The fact is, and the history of the capture, trial and crucifying of Jesus bears this out, that no power on earth could have taken Jesus or harmed him in any way if it had not been the will of God, and the purpose of God to give his Son to die for the sins of his people. Throughout his ministry we have evidence that the Jews tried to kill Jesus many times, but Jesus just passed through them and they could not touch him until it was the time ordained by God the Father. The wicked will of the Jews was always there and so they were to be blamed when finally the time came for Jesus to die. However it was God's action and will that gave Jesus because neither Satan or mankind could have taken and killed Jesus except by the will of God.

This gives such strong assurance to us that having been brought to repentance and faith we will persevere. In fact it sheds true light on our conversion. The fact is that we did not choose Christ. It was not in the first instance our action that saved us. In fact it was by God's action that we were brought to see ourselves as sinners, and were brought to hate our sin and sinfulness, and to mourn over our sin, and were humbled and caused to hunger after righteousness. We acted because of the work God did in our hearts. It was God who opened our understanding to see Jesus as our sin bearer and Saviour, and it was God's action that gave us the gift of faith to believe in Jesus and cling to him as the answer to our need. It was God who gave us the joy and peace in believing by the gift of faith. In this way we see it is God's action that saves us and in this we have our assurance. It is not our frail hold on Christ, but Christ's strong hold on us by which are saved, and so we may be sure we will persevere to the end, because it is God that works in us to will and to do his good pleasure.

Let us now move on in our searching into this action of God which is our assurance that we will not be allowed to fall in the journey of life to heaven. God's action was one of tremendous self sacrifice. God 'did not spare' his Son. What does this tell us about God's action which makes our salvation so sure?

God gave his Son when he sent his Son into the world to take our flesh and become incarnate. For many people this is all they see and will receive. They say that God took our flesh and made himself one of us, and so he has taken humanity into himself, and this is our salvation. The end of this thinking is universalism, which believes that God's love encompasses every human being who has ever lived or will live and none will be lost, but this is certainly denied in the Bible, and it is wishful thinking to hold on to this. The problem of human sin and degradation is not dealt with, and this has to be dealt with completely if God is to uphold his holy character, and his justice.

That God spared not his only Son, speaks of God afflicting his Son with all the suffering and pain which came with the just punishment of sin. Our assurance, in Paul's argument in this verse we are considering, is that God was willing to give his Son to satisfy all the demands of his holy law on account of the sin of his believing people, and to suffer all the pain and punishment which our sin deserved, until our sin was totally and completely purged, and God's holiness fully met, and his law completely satisfied.

Here is a love and a gracious action that surpasses every bounds of our thinking. It is a love which goes beyond all imagining, yet God acted in this way - he did not spare his Son.

Let us be sure that this is the teaching of the whole Bible on this matter. Frequently in the Gospel narrative we hear Jesus telling his disciples that he came into the world to give his life as a ransom for the sin of the world. He told his disciples that he came to suffer and to die and then rise again. John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and said "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." In the context of the Jewish religion and culture and understanding this could only be interpreted in one way. That way is that Jesus was God's sacrificial Lamb who would be sacrificed for sin and bear the penalty and punishment for sin. This concept of atonement for sin was at the centre of the whole of God's ceremonial law given to the Jews. The punishment for sin is death. This Paul affirms in Romans 6:23. Either the sinner dies, in which case death is for ever, or someone bears this death in the place of the sinner. This was the meaning of the sacrificial system. The Jews were taught that their sin was transferred to the lamb, and this was symbolised by the Lamb being touched by the one offering it. The lamb was then slain and burnt on the altar in the place of the offerer. In this way God withheld death from the sinner for the time being. The fact that these sacrifices were continually repeated showed, as the writer of Hebrews makes clear, that these sacrifices could never take away sin. But as the testimony in the letter to the Hebrews goes on to explain, God provided a better and perfect sacrifice, even Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God without blemish, that is sinless, and he became the perfect sacrifice for sin.

Peter affirms that Jesus bore our sins in his body of the cross. John tells us that Christ is the propitiation for our sins, that is by bearing our sins he turns God's just wrath against us for our sin and sinfulness away from us, and turns God's wrath upon himself in our place. We catch a glimpse of this awful suffering when Jesus cried on the cross - my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.

That this was always the action of God in grace and love is shot through the Old Testament. We have seen it is symbolised in the Old Testament sacrificial system, but we have it explicitly stated in the prophesy of Isaiah. Let us remind ourselves of the revelation given there concerning Christ, given over 400 years before it took place in time. In Isaiah 53 we read in verse 6 "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us have turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him (Jesus, the suffering Servant) the iniquity of us all." So again we see God acting, and God acting in causing Christ to suffer all the pain and punishment our sin deserved. So in the verses in Isaiah 53 before this one we are told he was wounded for our transgression, and bruised for our sins. We are told that he suffered our punishment, the punishment we deserved, and we are told that it is because he suffered that we are healed.

This testimony goes on in verse 10 we read "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer" and it was the Lord who gave his life as a guilt offering, and it was because of this will of God that he bore the sin of many.

This is our assurance that God will never let us be lost for whom he gave Jesus to death. If he spared not his Son from all this, he will not let his purpose of love fail.

We must continue with this searching of this assurance until next time.