The Great Giver # 2

The Great Giver # 2

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 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 the 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 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! 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!

"How shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" Is it temporal mercies that the reader is in need of? Are your circumstances adverse so that you are filled with dismal forbodings? Does your cruse of oil and barrel of meal look as though they will soon be quite empty? Then spread your need before God, and do it in simple childlike faith. Do you think that He will bestow the greater blessings of grace - and deny the lesser ones of Providence" No! My God shall supply all your needs. True, He has not promised to give all you ask, for we often ask "amiss." Mark the qualifying clause: "How shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" We often desire things which would come in between us and Christ if they were granted, therefore does God in His faithfulness withhold them.

Here then are four things which should bring comfort to every renewed heart.

The Father's costly sacrifice

The Father's gracious design

The Spirit's infallible inference

The comforting promise

May the Lord add His blessing to this little meditation!

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)