Romans 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? I. THE PERSON DELIVERED. "His own Son." This, though we make it the first step, yet indeed is the top of the ladder, from which the light of His countenance shineth upon us, and showeth that He loved us as His own Son; nay, more. In this manifestation of His love He appeareth rather a Father to us than to Him. He will rob Himself to enrich us; and, to make us His children, deliver up His own Son. 1. A strange contemplation it is. Can God delight to make His own Son a sacrifice who would not suffer Abraham to offer up his? Or might He not have taken an angel for His Son, as He did a ram for Isaac? It was His will to deliver Him; and this cleareth all doubts. If God will do anything, we have but one word left us for answer, "Amen!" "Let it be done!" He might not have done it. He might, without impairing of His justice, have kept Him still in His bosom; but as "of His own will He begat us with the word of truth" (James 1:18), so He delivered up His own Son because He would." For as in the creation God might have made man by His "word" alone, yet wrought him out of the earth; so, in the great work of our redemption, He did not send a Moses or an angel, but "delivered up His own Son," and so gave a price infinitely above that which He bought. He was pleased to pay dear for His affection to us. How should this flame of God's love kindle love in us! That benefit is great which preventeth our prayers; that is greater which is above our hope; that is yet greater that exceedeth our desires: but how great is that which over-runneth our opinion, yea, swalloweth it up! Certainly, had not God revealed His will, we could not have desired it, but our prayers would have been blasphemy; our hope, madness; our wish, sacrilege; and our opinion, impiety. 2. And now if any ask, "What moved His will?" surely no loveliness in the object. In it there was nothing but loath-someness, and such enmity as might make Him rather send down fire and brimstone than His Son. That which moved Him was in Himself, His compassion. He loved us "in our blood"; and loving us, He bid us "live" (Ezekiel 16:6); and, that we might live, "delivered up His own Son" to death. Mercy is all our plea, and it was all His motive; and wrought in Him a will, a cheerful will. II. THE DELIVERY. Delivered He was — 1. Into the virgin's womb. That was a strange descent; and even then, at His birth, began His passion. Here He was made an object for the malice of men and the rage of the devil to work on. 2. Being born, what was His whole life but delivery from sorrow to sorrow? What creature was there to whom He was not delivered? Delivered He was to the angels; "to keep Him," you will say, "in all His ways" (Psalm 91:11). But what need had He of angels who was Lord of the angels? He was delivered to Joseph and Mary, to whom "He was subject" and obedient (Luke 2:51). Delivered He was to an occupation and trade. He was delivered from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod to Pilate again, and from Pilate to the Cross. He was delivered to the devil himself, and to the power of darkness. He was delivered in His body, and in His soul. Delivered He was to envy, which delivered Him (Matthew 27:18); to treachery, which betrayed Him; to malice, which scourged Him; to pride, which scorned Him; to contempt, which spat upon Him; to all those furious passions which turn men into devils. 3. He was delivered not only to their passions, but to His own also, which as man He carried about with Him (John 12:27; Luke 22:44; Matthew 26:37, 38). Trouble, vexation, agony, heaviness, and sorrow were the bitter ingredients which filled up His cup so full that He made it His prayer to have it taken out of His hand (Mark 14:36). He who as God could have commanded a legion of angels, as man had need of one to comfort Him. 4. Can the Son of God be delivered further? Delivered He was — not to despair, for that was impossible; nor to the torments of hell, which could never seize on His innocent soul; but to the wrath of God (Psalm 102:3, 4; Psalm 22:15), the terriblest thing in the world; the sting of sin, which is the sting of death. It were impiety to think that the blessed martyrs were more patient than Christ. Yet who of all that noble army ever cried out they were forsaken? Their torture was their triumph; their afflictions were their melody. But what speak we of martyrs? Divers sinners have been delivered up to afflictions and crosses, nay, to the anger of God; but never yet any so delivered as Christ. God, in His approaches of justice toward the sinner to correct him, may seem to go, like the consuls of Rome, with His rods and His axes carried before Him. Many sinners have felt His rods. But Christ was struck, as it were, with His axe. Others have trembled under His wrath, but Christ was even "consumed by the stroke of His hand" (Psalm 39:10). I mention not the shame or the torment of the Cross; for the thieves endured the same. But His soul was crucified more than His body, and His heart had sharper nails to pierce it than His hands or His feet. 5. But to rise one step more. "He delivered, and in a manner forsook Him"; denied relief, withdrew comfort, stood, as it were, afar off, and let him fight it out unto death (Isaiah 63:5; Psalm 18:41; Matthew 27:46). (1) There now hangeth His sacred body on the Cross, not so much afflicted with His passion as His soul was wounded with compassion; with compassion on His mother, on His disciples, on the Jews, on the temple, on all mankind; bearing the burden of all; delivered to a sense of their sins who feel them not, and to a sense of theirs who groan under them; delivered up to all the sorrows which all men have felt, or shall feel to the time He shall come again in glory. (2) The last delivery was of His soul into His Father's hands. Who can fathom this depth? No tongue, neither of men nor angels, is able to express it. The most powerful eloquence is the threnody of a broken heart; for there Christ's death speaketh itself, and the virtue and power of it reflecteth back again upon Him, and reacheth Him at the right hand of God, where His wounds are open, His merits vocal, interceding for us to the end of the world. III. THE PERSONS FOR WHOM. 1. "For us." A contemplation full of comfort, but not so easy to digest. Why for us? And we must go out of the world to find the reason. It was "the love" of God "to mankind" (Titus 3:4). And what was in mankind but enmity, sin, and deformity? which are no proper motives to draw on love. "For us" men, then, and "for us" sinners, was Christ delivered (Isaiah 53:5). So that He was delivered up not only to the Cross and shame, but to our sins, which nailed Him to the Cross. Our treachery was the Judas which betrayed Him; our malice, the Jews which accused Him; our perjury, the false witness against Him; our injustice, the Pilate that condemned Him. Our pride scorned Him; our envy grinned at Him; our luxury spat upon Him; our covetousness sold Him. "He delivered Him up for us" sinners. No sin there is which His blood will not wash away, but final impenitency; which is not so much a sin as the sealing up of the body of sin when the measure is full. 2. "For us all"; for "all have sinned" (chap. Romans 5:12). The blood of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sins of the world, nay, of a thousand worlds. Christ paid down a ransom of so infinite a value that it might redeem all that are, or possibly might be, under captivity. But none are actually redeemed but they who do as He commandeth, that is, believe and repent. Infidelity and impenitency only limit a proposition so general, and bound so saving and universal, and contract all into a few. IV. THE END OF ALL. That we may have all things. God cannot but give when we are fit to receive; and in Christ we are made capable. When He is given, all things are given with Him — more than we can desire, more than we can conceive. (A. Farindon, B.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? |
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