The Free Gift of All Things as the Profit of Christ's Deliverance
“He thatspared not His own Son, but delivered Him upfor us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
Beloved reader, this is what Paul is asking of those who are at Rome, the beloved of God, called to be saints (Romans 1:7). In this eighth chapter he instructs them about a walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. In such a walk a saint behooves to walk. This is also his or her desire.
In this Paul himself was an example (1 Corinthians 11:1). When God stopped him on his way to Damascus, he received the beginning of such a walk. He asked for it: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). And the Lord taught him in such a measure that he was able to lead others, in word and deed, but only by the grace of God. He said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”
In the times when he wrote this epistle, it was extremely difficult to live according to the Word of God as a congregation. We can read of this in verses 35 and 36, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” With these words we can see that the Lord did not spare them from difficult ways in regard to the flesh.
When affliction upon affliction is the portion of God's children, how soon unbelief can arise. Soon self-pity fills their hearts, and the frame of Asaph in Psalm 73 becomes theirs. But what then does our text in verse 32 tell us? “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
Beloved reader, we are in the Passion weeks, the six weeks before the week of Good Friday in our ecclesiastical year, in which we commemorate in our sermons the necessary suffering and death of the Son of God in the state of His humiliation while He was upon earth. In that state He purchased salvation, and in the state of His exaltation He applies salvation. “He that spared not His own Son.” No, that was not possible for Him, because the Father, as the first Person in the holy Trinity, maintains and upholds the honor of God.
He had once spoken clearly to Adam in Paradise, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” And when Christ Jesus was born and came to the last days of His life upon earth, He would know that. “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50). “He that spared not His own Son,” that Son of whom it was once exclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” When the hour of God's wrath-executing righteousness was now come, He had to die. Oh, what a deep way was His humiliation, bowing under God's justice.
“But delivered Him up for us all.” Although all were responsible for what they did, yet Christ Jesus was delivered up by God His Father into the hands of murderers (Acts 2:23, Acts 4:28, John 19:11, Luke 23:25). And mark now what the text says, “For us all.” Do not think, reader, that this is for the whole world, for each and every one. Note the verses preceding this one. We already referenced chapter 1:7, to whom Paul was writing, “Beloved of God, called to be saints.” But notice also in this eighth chapter, verses 28-30, and verse 33, “God's elect.” It is for them that Christ became man, went through the steps of His humiliation, died on the cross, arose again, ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right hand of God.
“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” What an unfathomable love of the Father towards His chosen ones by the giving of His Son! But also what an unfathomable love of Christ Himself in becoming such a gift! For that purpose it was necessary that He became man, but yet remained God. What an unfathomable love of the Spirit to record all this in the Scriptures and to bring it to the understanding of those who by nature are completely blind. This will be done by the preaching of the gospel to all creatures, instrumentally first by the apostles, but until today by God's servants.
We read further in the text, “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” What things are these? First of all there is necessary for their eternal salvation a new heart in the hour of their regeneration, as the heavenly fruit upon the calling (see verse 30). That is a consequence of God's predestination, God's eternal decree in election and reprobation. One is called early, another late. The Jews were first, but now the Gentiles benefit from that same decree in receiving justification, but also sanctification. Although sanctification is not mentioned in verse 30, it is comprehended in the entire chapter.
It is to this that our text pertains, for “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” To that end read also Matthew 19:27-28, “Then answered Peter and said unto Him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Is this not “all things”? Is anything lacking in it?
We must realize that Paul had not only a sharp thorn in the flesh but also many more afflictions in that life of sanctification. For the flesh, Christ's footsteps are a continual mortification. However, when they may believe “but delivered Him up for us all,” they rejoice in hope. In that deliverance their debt was paid by the price of His blood. In that deliverance are also comprehended their own innumerable sins against a holy, righteous, and good-doing God; and He blotted them all out, for “who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?”
Dear reader, the Lord did not spare His own Son, but that also means that He cannot leave the sin of mankind unpunished. Oh, seek forgiveness in the blood of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. It is time and again preached unto you for another season. Will it be the last time? How many thousands have had to exchange time for eternity as God's judgments are upon the earth!
People of God, let the death of the Son of God be your life, and may your life testify of His death, even as Paul wrote in another place, “I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” And whereas we have, during the Passion weeks, also our own Prayer Day, is it not evident that He has obtained for His church their daily bread? In His suffering and death He takes away the curse of God upon this creation. This will not be seen to its full extent until the time when a new heaven and a new earth will come, and then that which is old will disappear.
Here in this life there is the profit of His death on the cross, so that all they who may believe in Him not only have soul's profit, but also bodily profit. Their water will be sure and their bread certain, for He bought His church with soul and body. “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Israel was maintained for forty years in the wilderness, yet we also read of famine in verse 35. Does that also belong to “all things”? Yes, dear reader, but His church is not without Him in such distressing ways and times, and that is the difference between them and the world. They must go through the same judgments, as being God's righteous judgments, yet for them they are a fatherly chastening. Seek to discover for yourselves if your daily maintenance is from His right hand or from His left hand.
May the Lord bless you with a spiritual hunger and thirst after righteousness. Then you will be filled, as surely as you have read these lines. God bless you.
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Bekijk de hele uitgave van dinsdag 1 maart 2005
The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's
Bekijk de hele uitgave van dinsdag 1 maart 2005
The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's