HIS OWN SON

In view of the deep assurances afforded by this chapter and indeed the whole of the apostle’s argument, faith can rest completely secure in the purposes of God’s grace. If God is emphatically ‘for us’, v. 31, what adversary can prevail against us? To know that’God is for us’ is not just theory, for God ‘spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all’. In verse 3 we read of God sending his own Son; here we read of the great objective ‘He .. . delivered him up for us all’.

The first Biblical mention of love is in respect of Abraham and Isaac: ‘Take now ... thine only ... Isaac, whom thou lovest’, Gen. 22. 2. There are clear echoes in our verses of Gen. 22.16: ‘thou ... hast not withheld (spared) thy son’. The Scriptures tell of other fathers who sent their beloved sons on missions which proved unexpectedly dangerous - we might think of Jacob and Joseph, and Jesse and David. Yet, never could one be so fitly described as ‘my beloved Son’, Matt. 3.17,’his wellbeloved’,Mark12.6, or the ‘Son of his love’, Col. 1.13.

‘His own Son’ surely brings out all the poignancy and the incalculable cost of the Father’s supreme gift. That He ‘delivered him up for us all’ reminds us of the sovereignty of God in relation to Calvary. He could never have been delivered up by men, were they not permitted by God, John 19.11.

What precious implications flow from this! We are reminded of the costliness of God’s purchase of his people; ‘purchased with the blood of his own’, Acts 20. 28 JND. The latter part of verse 32 assures us that all God’s lesser gifts are comprehended in the greater. All God’s bounty is secured to us both now and hereafter. Finally, let us never doubt the wisdom and love of God. Let us learn to interpret life’s experiences in the light of this mighty proof of God’s love toward us - a love from which, as verse 39 will tell, no power can separate us. Once again, at the climax of a major section of Romans, there is emphasis on the surpassing love of God; cf. Rom. 5. 5.

In the majestic words of H. Bonar, ‘He spared not his Son, ‘tis this that silences each rising fear; ‘tis this that makes the hard thought disappear, He spared not his Son’.