The Great Giver # 2

The Great Giver # 2

Yes, for you fellow Christian, who are sometimes tempted to interpret your afflictions as tokens of God's hardness; who regard your poverty as a mark of His neglect, and your seasons of darkness as evidences of His desertion, O, confess to Him now the wickedness of such dishonoring doubtings, and never again question the love of Him who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.

Faithfulness demands that I should point out the qualifying pronoun in our text. It is not God "delivered him up for all," but "for us all." This is definitely defined in the verses which immediately precede. In v. 31 the question is asked, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" In v. 30 this "us" is defined as those whom God did predestinate and has "called" and "justified." The "us" are the high favorites of heaven, the objects of sovereign grace. God's elect. And yet in themselves they are, by nature and practice, deserving of nothing but wrath. But yet, thank God, it is "us all" - the worst as well as the best, the five hundred pounds debtor, equally as much as the five pence debtor.

3. The Spirit's Blessed Inference.

Ponder well this glorious "conclusion" which the Spirit of God here draws from the wondrous fact stated in the first part of our text, "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things." How conclusive and how comforting is the inspired reasoning of the apostle. Arguing from the greater to the lesser, he proceeds to assure the believer of God's readiness to also freely bestow all needed blessings. The gift of His own Son, so ungrudgingly and unreservedly bestowed, is the pledge of every other needed mercy.

Here is the unfailing guaranty and pledge of perpetual reassurance to the drooping spirit of the tried believer. If God has done the greater - will He leave the less undone? Infinite love can never change. That love which spared not Christ - cannot fail its objects nor begrudge any needed blessings. The sad thing is that our hearts dwell upon what we have not - instead of upon what we do have. Therefore the Spirit of God would here still our restless self-communings and quiet the repinings of ignorance with a soul-satisfying knowledge of the truth, by reminding us not only of the reality of our interest in the love of God, but also of the extent of that blessing which flows therefrom.

Weigh well what is involved in the logic of this verse. First, the great Gift was given unasked; will He not bestow others for the asking? None of us supplicated God to send forth His beloved; yet He sent Him! Now, we may come to the throne of grace and  there present our requests in the virtuous and all-efficacious name of Christ.

Second, the one great Gift cost Him much; will He not then bestow the lesser gifts which cost Him nothing but the delight of giving! If a friend were to give me a valuable picture, would he begrudge the necessary paper and string to wrap it in? Of if a loved one made me a present of a precious jewel, would he refuse a little box to carry it in? How much less will He who spared not His own Son, withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly.

Third, the one Gift was bestowed when we were enemies; will not then God be gracious to us now that we have been reconciled and are His friends? If He had designs of mercy for us while we were yet in our sins, how much more will He regard us favorably now that we have been cleansed from all sin by the precious blood of His Son!

4. The Comforting Promise

Observe the tense that is used here. It is not "how has he not with him also freely given us all things," though this is also true, for even now are we "heirs of God" (Romans 8:17). But our text goes further than this: "How shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" The second half of this wondrous verse contains something more than a record of the past; it supplies reassuring confidence both for the present and for the future. No time limits are to be set upon this "shall." Both now in the present and forever and ever in the future God shall manifest Himself as the great Giver. Nothing for His glory and for our good, will He withhold. The same God who delivered up Christ for us all "does not change like shifting shadows."

Mark the manner in which God gives: "How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" God does not have to be coaxed; there is no reluctance in Him for us to overcome. He is ever more willing to give than we are to receive. Again, He is under no obligations to any; if He were, He would bestow of necessity, instead of giving "freely." Ever remember that He has a perfect right to do with His own as He pleases. He is free to give to whom He wills.

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 3)