Divine Giving

Romans 8: 32

In order to confirm our confidence in God, Paul presents this text to prove that God
is certainly with us, and also to assure us that we shall receive from Him every blessing.
There are circumstances which are calculated to inspire distrust in the mind of Christian.
There are afflictions which press upon us in this world.
Afflictions which are common to all men, and are peculiar to the followers of Christ.
There are circumstances calculated to cloud the hopes of Christian, and there are sins
of which the Christian is guilty.

When the believer is suffering so many troubles, and has difficulty in persuading himself
that he is favored by God and is ready like Gideon to exclaimed to the angel,
"Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then is all this befallen us?"

The Christian might think that since he is by nature a child of wrath, and sins daily,
how can he be sure that God is with him, and not rather against him?

Paul answers these objections by declaring that God hath not spared His own Son,
but delivered Him up to death for us.
This argument is offered to prove that God is for us, and will give us all things.
He gave Jesus to redeem us from all our sins.
So, surely after such a great gift as that of His own Son, nothing will be refused
which is consistent with the glory of God and the salvation of our souls.

"He that spared not His own Son. "
"Spared" is an expressive word, denoting God's great sacrifice in
giving up His only begotten Son. (John 3: 16; 5: 18)
The word, "spared," has overtones and stirs memories which cannot be ignored
in a context like this.

We are reminded of Abraham offering Isaac in obedience to the divine command of God.
God had called him by name and told him what was required:
"Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thy lovest... and offer him...
for a burnt offering. " (Genesis 22: 2)
Imagine the stress and strain that those words would impose.

He had only one son.
He was the child of his old age; yet that was the son that he had to offer.
That child was the child of promise.
In him all the nations of the earth would be blessed; yet that was the son he had to offer.

Abraham's willingness to do what God required was a mark of faith and obedience
of a supreme order.
It won divine recognition in words which haunt the mind: "Thou hast not withheld
thy only son, from me." (Genesis 22: 12,16)

As he spared not his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, so God spared not His Son,
his only Son, Jesus, whom He loved; and what that meant is spelled out by saying
that "He delivered him up for us all."

Isaac was rescued by divine intervention, and a ram was substituted,
but there was no intervention of God's only Son, Jesus!
He was "delivered up for our sins." (Romans 4: 25; cf. Galatians 1: 4)

It was for us, for our benefit, and for our salvation that God gave Him up to suffer and die.
Paul could not adequately express what he thought of the height and depth of God's love
for mankind.
God could not love unless He gave, nor could He give less than His Son.
This meant that there was sacrifice on the part of God even before there was sacrifice
on the part of His Son; God had to give if His Son word to die.

This repudiates all those semi-pagan ideas of an angry God who would not forgive until
His wrath had been appeased by the death of Jesus on the cross.
God could not give His Son except at great cost and with great loss to Himself.
There was a sense in which such a gift would impoverish heaven itself because
it would be deprived of its chief glory.

He did not spare His Son from the trials and infirmities of the incarnation, nor from
the pain and anguish of the cross.
He, who might have withheld the cup, chose to press it into His hands; it was the cup
which the Father gave Him whose dregs He had to drain. (John 18:11)
Paul could not think of all that this meant without breaking into words of awe and worship:
"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." (2 Corinthians 9: 15)

In place of us all "He was delivered up to death. "
God "delivered "Him up.
This word is used of several agents.
it was used of Judas (John 19: 11); of Pilate (John 19: 16); the high priests (Matthew 27: 2)
and the people (Matthew 20: 19).

One word is used, but the act proceeds from several causes.
The people delivered Him out of ignorance and zeal. The next half of this verse directs our thoughts to the many other acts of divine giving.
So, this text argues that the transcendent sacrifice which God made in the gift of His own Son
is a sure proof that He will give us all that we need.
Our needs may be great, but they cannot exceed His grace and love.

This text is really a summary of Christianity.
It is a history declaring the most glorious fact.
It is a logic deducing the most precious assurance.

God is a benefactor -- a giver! As believers, we are His special beneficiaries.
His tender mercy is over all his works, but His delights are with those who know and love him.
Here, the Father speaks to as His family that we may know Him more, and that with hope
we may rejoice in Him more passionately; and that with love we may serve Him
more adequately.

So, we are taught in this text, that God's gifts to us are twofold:
1. The gift of His Son
2. The gift of all things.

Since, God has given the supreme gift, the greatest gift, we can be assured that
all the lesser gifts are sure to be added.
There is a most important sense in which God bestows all things on us.
About all things spiritual -- there can be no doubt.

God gives all these to all His children.
He feeds all of us with the same milk of the Word, and with the same meat of truth.
He pours upon us all the same Spirit, and kindles and maintains in us all the same
Divine Life, and leads us all in the same way -- to the same heaven.

If we have not, it is either because we ask not or because we ask amiss.
"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. "
"Good" is a relative term, what is good for one person may not be good for another,
or for the same person in different circumstances.
We must leave the interpretation of the text in specific cases to its author, the great Giver
-- our Father.
He alone can justly determine what is good.

So, the gift of God's Son assures us of the gift of all things.
In order to grasp the the intent of what Paul is presenting to us in this verse,
we must understand that Paul is speaking to believers in the midst of a groaning world
whose hope must be sustained by the very strongest evidence.
It was not enough just to speak of God's purpose, and of His promise, so a more triumphant
argument was used.

He is saying that God has already done so much that all that remains to be done
is hardly anything in comparison.
The gift of all things with Christ, would be nothing without Christ.
The promise is that God will give us all things with Christ.
Tell me that all things are promised, and I might ask for riches and pleasures and honors,
but tell me that all things are promised with Christ, and I shall be ashamed to ask for that
which would not be consistent with with Christ.

Also, remember that God gives nothing to His people with which He does not at the same time
give Christ.
He may give riches, but He gives Christ with riches, so that sanctified by our Saviour,
they shall be employed to His glory.
He may give sources of earthly happiness, but He gives Christ with them which makes them
even sweeter.
And yet, to prevent their drawing off the affections from heavenly joys, He may also
allow troubles, but He gives Christ to enlighten the darkness, and to quiet the unrest.
The Christian shall find nothing precious or permanent in which he does not find Christ.

This is what we read concerning our Saviour: "It hath pleased the Father that in Him
should all fullness dwell. "
The words, "all fullness," describes the extent of our resources.
And Jesus says, "My joy shall remain in you, and your joy shall be full."

We read of our Saviour given for us that "the Father hath committed all things into His hand."
Then, these also are ours.
And Paul positively says so in so many words.
"All things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's; having and possessing all things."
And we read of Him that "all power is given unto Me in heaven and in the earth. "
We also read that "He giveth strength" to His people, and that we are to be
"strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might. "

It is no wonder that with such omnipotent resources that Paul says, "I can do all things..."
it is no wonder that with the Lord for his Shepherd, David says, "I shall not want."
He gave Himself, and yet has all to give.

Think of our mighty sun, and how little it feels the mighty drain on its resources.
Oceans of glowing, radiant light has poured from it, since the day when God said,
"Let there be light. "
The think of the past thousands of farm fields that the sun has nursed and ripened
into rich and golden corn.
Think of the mountains of ice it has thawed, and of the unnumbered snows it has melted
into fertile and beneficent streams.

Think of the millions and generations of luscious fruits and blooming flowers
it has matured and painted in magnificent colors.
Think of the magical changes it has wrought in the blue heavens above us
and on the green earth beneath us since the day when God first hung it high in the heavens.
And yet, it's glowing furnace has never cooled, neither has its natural strength diminished one bit.
It's still shines in all its glory, a true symbol of the exhaustless down the of its God and ours.

So it is with the Son of righteousness.
He who spared not Himself, but delivered Himself up to pour out His life to give us
life and light, and to conquer death and darkness, and to open heaven for all the human race.
He, who is all power, shall lift up my soul, and shall lighten my burdens,
and shall succor my spirit and shall soothe all my sorrows, and shall cheer my heart,
and shall dry my tears.
And He always will.

His love is as great as His power, and there is no measure or end to either.
Let us remember that the greatest gift of the father to us was not things.
It was not calling, nor justification, nor even glorification.
It is not even the security which Paul concludes in verse 39.
But it is the unspeakable and incomparable giving up of His own Son.

So great is that gift, so marvelous are its implications, and so far-reaching its consequences
that all graces of lesser proportion are certain to be ours.
Since He is the supreme expression and embodiment of the free gift, and since
His being given over by the Father is the supreme demonstration of the Father's love,
every other grace must follow the possession of Jesus Christ.

God does not begin to build by being unable to finish, and He does not miscalculate
His resources.
God lays His plans with His inexhaustible knowledge and power and having first bestowed
the greatest gift will always with His unlimited ability follow it up with all the lesser ones.

Christ said, "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
Do you think He will not give you bread and water on the road to the end of the way?
Will He send out His soldiers half equipped?
Will it be found when they are on their journey that they are ill equipped to fight
the battle of life?
Shall the children of the King, on the road to their home in heaven be left to scramble
along somehow lacking what they need to get there.
That is not God way of doing things!

He that hath begun a good work will also perfect the same, and when He gave to you and me
His Son, He made it plain that it was His intention to make His Son's work complete in each of us.
Everything was given us when Christ is given to us because Christ is the heir of all things,
and we possess all things in Him.

The Riches of His Love

"Come, take the riches of Christ,
Exhaustless, and free is the store,
Of its wonderful fullness to receive,
Till you hunger and thirst nevermore.

All that I want is in Jesus,
He satisfies,... joy He supplies;
Life would be worthless without Him,
All things in Jesus I find."

Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White
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