The Inclusive Gift

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?—Romans 8:32.

1. The chapter from which these words are taken is full of encouragement and comfort. The Apostle’s object, at least in the latter part of it, is to point out the peculiar privileges of believers, and the certainty of the foundation on which their hopes and prospects rest.

2. St. Paul seems to have in mind especially the outward condition of believers, as if the meanness of their external condition, and the peculiar trials and afflictions to which they are often exposed, might be looked upon as an objection to the truth and reality of those spiritual privileges of which he has shown that they were possessed, and as inconsistent with the special love and favour which God has been said to bear to them. In opposition to this notion, the Apostle shows, with conclusive reasoning and impressive eloquence, that everything connected with even their outward condition is the result of God’s sovereign and gracious appointment. The whole of their history, and everything connected with them, composes a great scheme, originating in infinite love, arranged from eternity by infinite wisdom and executed in time by infinite power; and their various trials and afflictions, however numerous and remarkable, instead of being inconsistent with God’s special love to them in Christ, are just proofs or expressions of it. For they are the means which infinite wisdom had selected as the best fitted, and which infinite power would certainly overrule, to promote the great object which God has in view in all His dealings with them, the bringing of them to that incorruptible and unfading inheritance which He has prepared for them that love Him.

I

The Gift of His own Son

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.”

1. “Spared not.”—In this word we have an allusion to, if not a distinct quotation from, the narrative in Genesis, of Abraham’s offering up of Isaac. The same word which is employed in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, to translate the Hebrew word rendered in our Bible as “withheld,” is employed here by the Apostle and rendered “spared not.” And there is evidently floating before his mind the thought that, in some profound and real sense, there is an analogy between that wondrous and faithful act of giving up, and the transcendent and stupendous gift to the world, from God, of His Son.

The analogy seems to suggest to us, strange as it may be, and remote from the cold and abstract ideas of the Divine nature which it is thought to be philosophical to cherish, that something corresponding to the pain and loss that shadowed the patriarch’s heart passed across the Divine mind when the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Not merely to give, but to give up, is the highest crown and glory of love, as we know it. And who shall venture to say that we so fully apprehend the Divine nature as to be warranted in declaring that some analogy to that is impossible for Him? Our language is, “I will not offer unto God that which doth cost me nothing.” Let us bow in silence before the dim intimation that seems to flicker out of the words of the text, that so He says to us, “I will not offer unto you that which doth cost me nothing.” “He spared not his own Son”—withheld Him not from us.

While we must be careful to exclude from the idea conveyed by the language of the text anything like a struggle or conflict between opposite principles and feelings existing in the Divine mind, we are entitled, and even expected, to view the act of God in giving up His own Son with feelings substantially the same in kind as those with which we would contemplate an act of heroic self-denial, or of generous sacrifice, performed by one of our fellow-men for the advancement of our happiness.1 [Note: W. Cunningham.]

There is a story of a poor family in Germany who were ready to perish in a time of famine. The husband proposed to the wife to sell one of their children for bread. At length she consented. But the difficulty arose—which of them should it be? The eldest was named. This was their first-born, and the beginning of their strength. The second was named. He was the living image of the father. The third was named. In him the features of the mother breathed. The last was named. He was their youngest, the child of their old age. They agreed to starve together rather than sacrifice one.

2. “His own Son.”—The reality of the surrender is emphasized by the closeness of the bond which, in the mysterious eternity, knits together the Father and the Son. As with Abraham, so in this lofty example of which Abraham and Isaac were but as dim wavering reflections in water, the Son is His own Son. The force of the analogy and the emphasis of that word, which is even more emphatic in the Greek than in the English, “his own Son,” point to a community of nature, to a uniqueness and singleness of relation, to a closeness of intimacy, to which no other is a parallel. And so we have to estimate the measure of the surrender by the tenderness and awfulness of the bond. “Having yet therefore one Son, his well-beloved, he sent him.”

3. “Delivered him up.”—The greatness of the surrender is made more emphatic by the contemplation of it in its negative and positive aspect, in the two successive clauses. “He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up,” an absolute, positive giving of Him over to the humiliation of the life and to the mystery of the death.

(1) He delivered Him up to Suffering.—If it behoved Christ to become man, He might have been spared the trials that are generally the lot of men, trials which they very rightly deserve because of their sins. Let the one sinless Man be spared the sufferings that sinners meet with as their due. But no! Very few, if any, are the sufferings incident to human life that Jesus was exempted from. He was not spared the endurance of poverty. Into poverty He was born, in poverty He lived, and in poverty He died. Poorer than the foxes that had holes, and the birds of the air that had nests, He often had not where to lay His head.

(2) He delivered Him up to Temptation.—He was in all points tempted like as we are. Tempted to distrust God, tempted to presumption, tempted to worldliness. And very bitter enmity was His portion. Perhaps few have been more utterly detested than He was while in the world. It is true that for a time He was popular with the multitude, but, it would seem, only so long as they thought He would provide them with loaves and fishes. But the hatred that assailed Him was intense: it expressed itself in many vile and abusive epithets, in many false accusations, in many attempts, public and private, to take away His life.

(3) He delivered Him up to Ingratitude.—“Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” That was only one instance out of multitudes in which those whom He benefited showed their utter unthankfulness. His own brethren did not believe in Him, but said that He was mad, and would have kept Him under restraint like a lunatic.

(4) He delivered Him up to Death.—He was spared nothing that could make His sufferings terrible: the treachery of Judas; the cowardice of the other Apostles; the barbarous, brutal treatment to which He was subjected by Herod, and by the soldiers under Pontius Pilate. Of all the deaths that man could die, there was none more torturing than the death of the cross, and there was none so degrading; He was not spared that. And to make it all the worse, to add to the contempt and shame, He was crucified between two thieves. Amply true are the Apostle’s words, “God spared not his own Son.”

Enough, my muse, of earthly things,

And inspirations but of wind;

Take up thy lute, and to it bind

Loud and everlasting strings,

And on them play, and to them sing,

The happy mournful stories,

The lamentable glories

Of the great crucified King!

Mountainous heap of wonders! which dost rise

Till earth thou joinest with the skies!

Too large at bottom, and at top too high,

To be half seen by mortal eye;

How shall I grasp this boundless thing?

What shall I play? What shall I sing?

I’ll sing the mighty riddle of mysterious love,

Which neither wretched man below, nor blessed spirits above

With all their comments can explain,

How all the whole world’s life to die did not disdain!

I’ll sing the searchless depths of the compassion divine,

The depths unfathomed yet

By reason’s plummet, and the line of wit;

Too light the plummet, and too short the line;

How the eternal Father did bestow

His own eternal Son as ransom for His foe;

I’ll sing aloud that all the world may hear

The triumph of the buried Conqueror;

How hell was by its prisoner captive led,

And the great slayer, Death, slain by the dead.

Methinks I hear of murdered men the voice

Mixed with the murderers’ confused noise,

Sound from the top of Calvary;

My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see

Who ’tis hangs there, the midmost of the three;

O! how unlike the others He;

Look! how He bends His gentle head with blessings from the tree,

His gracious hands, ne’er stretched but to do good,

Are nailed to the infamous wood!

And sinful man does fondly bind

The arms which He extends to embrace all human kind.1 [Note: Abraham Cowley.]

4. “For us all.”—He delivered Him up for us all. There was a national election of the Jew in which the Gentile had no part; but the drift of the Apostle’s argument is that the highest blessing and the fulness of that blessing are for Jew and Gentile alike. The Gospel is catholic; it knows nothing of national predestination and privilege. If God gave His Son for us all, He will not distribute unequally the blessings which flow from that unspeakable gift. Whatever were the national and temporal blessings of the Jew, the Greek and barbarian shall equally share with him in the sovereign gifts of grace. And so the gifts of grace are not given unequally among the various classes of society. “The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.” It is for the Christian Church to do its utmost to put all nations in possession of their spiritual inheritance.

Soul, which to hell wast thrall,

He, He for thine offence

Did suffer death, who could not die at all.

O sovereign excellence!

O life of all that lives!

Eternal bounty, which all goodness gives!

How could Death mount so high?

No wit this point can reach;

Faith only doth us teach,

For us He died, at all who could not die.1 [Note: William Drummond.]

II

With Him all Things

“How shall he not also with him freely give us all things?”

After the gift of Jesus Christ, every other gift is comparatively a small matter. Abraham did not spare his son Isaac, but delivered him up to God. In his mind, in his heart, he surrendered him as truly as if he had slain him and burned him on the altar. And after that proof of love to God, do you suppose Abraham possessed anything that he would have been unwilling to give? If God had asked his flocks and his herds, his silver and his gold, we may well suppose that Abraham would have given all without a murmur. And God having given us Christ, we cannot imagine Him unwilling to bestow any favour that would really be a favour.

He will give all things for these reasons—

(1) The greater gift implies the less. We do not expect that a man who hands over a million pounds to another, to help him, will stick at a farthing afterwards. If you give a diamond you may well give a box to keep it in. In God’s gift the lesser will follow the lead of the greater; and whatsoever a man can want, it is a smaller thing for Him to bestow, than was the gift of His Son.

Southey told an anecdote of Sir Massey Lopes, which is a good story of a miser. A man came to him and told him he was in great distress, and £200 would save him. He gave him a draft for the money. “Now,” says he, “what will you do with this?” “Go to the bankers and get it cashed.” “Stop,” said he, “I will cash it.” So he gave him the money, but first calculated and deducted the discount.1 [Note: Greville Memoirs, ii. 61.]

There is a beautiful contrast between the manners of giving the two sets of gifts implied in the words of the original, perhaps scarcely capable of being reproduced in any translation. The expression that is rendered, “freely give,” implies that there is a grace and a pleasantness in the act of bestowal. God gave in Christ what we may reverently say it was something like pain to give. Will He not give the lesser gifts, whatever they may be, which it is the joy of His heart to communicate? The greater implies the less.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

(2) This one great gift draws all other gifts after it, because the purpose of the greater gift cannot be attained without the bestowment of the lesser. He does not begin to build and then find Himself unable to finish; He does not miscalculate His resources, or stultify Himself by commencing upon a large scale and then have to stop short before the purpose with which He began is accomplished. Men build great palaces and are bankrupt before the roof is put on. God lays His plans with the knowledge of His powers, and having first of all bestowed this large gift, is not going to have it bestowed in vain for want of some smaller ones to follow it up.

Men are fond of distinguishing between general and particular providences. They are willing to acknowledge the finger of God in some striking event, or in the swift flashing out of God’s sword of justice. They do not hesitate to admit that life as a whole is under God’s direction; but they hesitate to say that He is concerned with its ordinary commonplaces, valueless as the sparrow’s fall, slight as the hair of the head. Miles if you like; but not steps. But love refuses to believe this teaching. It looks on it as practical atheism. It feels that God cannot afford to let the thread of its life pass from His hands for a single moment.3 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]

(3) This great blessing draws after it, by necessary consequence, all other lesser and secondary gifts, inasmuch as, in a very real sense, everything is included and possessed in Christ when we receive Him. “With him,” says St. Paul, as if that gift laid in a man’s heart actually enclosed within it, and had for its indispensable accompaniment, the possession of every smaller thing that a man can need. Jesus Christ is, as it were a great Cornucopia, a horn of abundance, out of which will pour, with magic affluence, all manner of supplies according as we require.

O world, great world, now thou art all my own,

In the deep silence of my soul I stay

The current of thy life, though the wild day

Surges around me, I am all alone;—

Millions of voices rise, yet my weak tone

Is heard by Him who is the Light, the Way,

All Life, all Truth, the centre of Love’s ray;

Clamour, O Earth, the Great God hears my moan!

Prayer is the talisman that gives us all,

We conquer God by force of His own love,

He gives us all; when prostrate we implore—

The Saints must listen; prayers pierce Heaven’s wall;

The humblest soul on earth, when mindful of

Christ’s promise, is the greatest conqueror.1 [Note: Maurice Francis Egan.]

1. All things.—All things are ours in Christ. All things necessary to our salvation from sin, to the purification of our nature, to the safety of our spirit amid infinite besetments, to the fulness of our joy, to our present and everlasting triumph, all are guaranteed in our Divine Redeemer. All other gifts are assured in the accomplished gift of Calvary. He who spared not His own Son will not withhold anything that is necessary for the completion of the gracious design. He who has laid the foundation at such amazing cost will not spare to complete the edifice.

(1) Whatever is necessary for our justification will be given. How vain are all our misgivings in the presence of the infinite sacrifice! Our sins are crimson in colour, colossal in magnitude, countless in number; yet let us once appreciate the merit and mercy of Calvary, and we know the peace of God which passeth understanding. Our city rivers are foul enough; but the Atlantic Ocean receives them into her emerald depths, purifies them from pollution, and imparts to them a strange splendour and song. Our city smoke belches forth by day and night, threatening to darken and defile the very heavens; but the ampler air refines the base vapours, they leave no shadow or spot, and lose themselves in the lights and colours and mysteries of the firmament. So are our sins swallowed up in the redeeming love, to be remembered against us no more. “It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

(2) Whatever is necessary for our sanctification is sure. Great as is the task of perfecting a nature that has gone so utterly to the bad as ours, it is nevertheless gloriously possible in the infinite affluence of our ascended Lord. He now exerts the fulness of the Spirit, and saves to the uttermost all who come to Him. The doctrine of the perfectibility of human nature, apart from evangelical grace, is a dream of dreams, the most hopeless of ideals, the wildest of fictions, a mocking and cruel apocalypse of the bible of philosophy. But the perfectibility of man in the power of Him who has received the Spirit without measure is a doctrine we may welcome without doubt or fear.

(3) Whatever is necessary for our eternal life and glory is also freely given. Christ has obtained eternal redemption for us. Everything for the life that now is, everything for the life that is to come, is richly ours in our crucified and ascended Lord. The greatest possible act of God’s love is the giving up of His Son; in that whatever else can be wished for lies enclosed.

This is a democratic age—the people everywhere claim a full share in everything. After ages of slavery and feudalism, of monopoly and exclusion, the multitude are awaking to a sense of larger right and privilege. They claim their full share in the authority of the sceptre, in the distribution of wealth, in the spoils of knowledge, in the flowers of pleasure. Our day may in some wise remind us of the apostolic age, when narrow privilege gave way to cosmopolitan rights and gifts. But is the claim for right and privilege to go no farther than material things and political influence? Alas, if it stops there! The best things of all, the heavenly things, belong equally to all, and they must not be forgotten. In the faith of Christ we find peace of mind, purity of heart, strength to live nobly, victory over all things mean and base, patience, charity, humility, kindness, peace, and abounding hope; these are the gifts most earnestly to be coveted, the gifts without which other blessings are vain. What a glorious day will dawn when the democracy awake to their rights and privileges in the Kingdom of God—when they clamour for the sceptre of self-government, when they solicit the wisdom that is more precious than rubies, when they array themselves in white raiment, when they agitate for the inner riches of love and light, of pureness and strength, which are the true riches! The rarest prizes are still largely unclaimed. The city of God awaits the democracy; its liberties and riches, its glories and joys, are theirs.1 [Note: W. L. “Watkinson.]

2. Freely.—He will give all things freely. He gave us His dear Son freely. He did not even wait to be asked to deliver Him up for us all. The gift of Christ was no answer to prayer. It was the purely spontaneous bounty of God. Nowhere in Scripture can we discern the slightest reluctance or hesitation on God’s part as to the bestowment of that gift, great as was the suffering which it cost the Giver as well as the Gift. It was not to a world all penitent and in tears, prostrate at His throne in anguish and despair, that God gave His well-beloved Son; but to a world still at enmity against Him, still disobedient, impenitent, hard-hearted. And yet He gave Him freely. And therefore we surely may not, must not, think of any unwillingness on God’s part to give these other gifts. Freely? Yes, of course. Whatever God gives, He gives freely. He loveth a cheerful giver, for He is Himself a cheerful giver. And there is not a gift of grace, there is not a gift that concerns us, whether for time or for eternity, that He will not freely give with Christ to all who ask Him.

There are some hearts like wells, green-mossed and deep

As ever summer saw,

And cool their water is, yea, cool and sweet;

But you must come to draw.

They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content,

And not unsought will give;

They can be quiet with their wealth unspent,

So self-contained they live.

And there are some like springs, that bubbling burst

To follow dusty ways,

And run with offered cup to quench his thirst

Where the tired traveller strays;

That never ask the meadows if they want

What is their joy to give;

Unasked, their lives to other life they grant,

So self-bestowed they live.

And One is like the ocean, deep and wide,

Wherein all waters fall;

That girdles the broad earth, and draws the tide,

Feeding and bearing all.

That breeds the mists, that sends the clouds abroad,

That takes again to give;—

Even the great and loving heart of God,

Whereby all love doth live.

The vital things of nature, the manifold riches of sea and shore, of earth and sky, are free gifts. We often reason as if we had paid handsomely for all things, and then grumble as if we had got short measure; but it is the greatest possible blunder. If we reject free gifts, we must send back every beam of the sun, every drop of rain and flake of snow, every green leaf, every spray of blossom, every purple cluster, every golden sheaf. Neither does God sell His glorious gifts of intellect. There was no king’s ransom ready in the house where Shakespeare was born. All may see that Heaven does not dispense its most splendid talents where wealth is, or greatness; the immortal painter, singer, or inventor is born in attic, cellar, or cottage into which no other royalty ever looked. And God does not sell anything that belongs to the realm of the soul. The principle of barter has no place in the highest world. If we thought to purchase the noblest things with silver or gold, with gifts or sacrifices, we are sternly reproved: “Thy money,” thy goods, thy goodness, “perish with thee.” And as it is not God’s way to sell His glorious things to pride and greatness, we certainly have no ability to buy them. All is, must be, free.

When in the days of your youth the infinite passion, for the first time, lit up its glow in you, was there anything that you could do for the maiden of your heart that you would not do? Was there anything that you esteemed too precious for the creature to whom you had given your heart? In giving where you had given your heart, your whole nature was in force, and was one pleasure. That is the basis of the “freely.”1 [Note: John Pulsford.]

3. With Him.—The expression “all things,” unlimited as it is in the letter, must be limited in the spirit. Than the idea of God giving us all things that we might wish and ask for there could be nothing more perilous, more certain to prove destructive. What would become of us if God were in this unqualified manner to give us all things? There are in the text two words that are very important. They are the words “with him,”—“shall he not also with him freely give us all things?” The “all things” that He will give us are all things with Christ, and the expression suggests a certain relationship of congruity or fitness. Suppose a man makes his son a present of a microscope, the probability is that he will, with the instrument, give him all the apparatus necessary for making full use of the instrument. Or if he gave his son a house, he might, perhaps, with the house give him the furniture suitable for it, that so he might with comfort live in the house that was given him. And God will give us, and freely give us, all things with Christ, all things that are connected with the gift of Christ, all things that will make the gift of Christ of practical service to us. So all things with Christ are all things that stand related to Christ, and to the purpose which God in the gift of Christ has in view.

I would be quiet, Lord,

Nor tease, nor fret;

Not one small need of mine

Wilt Thou forget.

I am not wise to know

What most I need;

I dare not cry too loud,

Lest Thou shouldst heed;

Lest Thou at length shouldst say,

“Child, have thy will;

As thou hast chosen, lo!

Thy cup I fill!”

What I most crave, perchance

Thou wilt withhold;

As we from hands unmeet

Keep pearls, or gold;

As we, when childish hands

Would play with fire,

Withhold the burning goal

Of their desire.

Yet choose Thou for me—Thou

Who knowest best;

This one short prayer of mine

Holds all the rest!1 [Note: Julia C. R. Dorr.]

“With Him,” observe; not without Him. It may be that, without Christ, God will in His providence give us many things, and many good things too. He may give us health, He may give us riches, He may give us much worldly comfort and prosperity. But these His best gifts, really far the best, the gifts of His grace, in forgiveness, holiness, life eternal, He gives only with Christ, only to those who in faith and thankfulness accept Christ.

There is often a strange coldness and unbelief in men when precious things are pressed upon them. One of our later poets has noticed this blindness and insensibility:

A dog will take

The bone you throw to him; a mortal stares

In obstinate hostility if one,

Longing to swell the number of his joys,

From laden hand beseech him to be blest.

Teach men to suffer, and the slaves are apt;

Give them fresh hope, entreat them to delight,

They grow as stubbornly insensible

As miser to a beggar’s eloquence,

Clutching their clownish imbecility

As the gods grudged them that.

But surely this unwillingness to accept high blessing brought to our very doors finds its last and strangest expression in the insensibility of men to the gift of God in Christ! Let us thankfully, exultantly, promptly, open our heart to the full noon of spiritual blessing which shines upon us in the Son of God.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the devil’s booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,

Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking;

’Tis heaven alone that is given away,

’Tie only God may be had for the asking.2 [Note: Lowell.]

The Inclusive Gift

Literature

Brown (H. S.), Manliness and other Sermons, 346.

Cunningham (W.), Sermons, 174.

Faithful (R. C.), My Place in the World, 90.

Hoare (E.), Fruitful or Fruitless, 143.

Jay (W.) Short Discourses, ii. 253.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Romans, 191.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, xi. 57.

Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 251.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Christ in the Old Testament, 47.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869), No. 255; lvi. (1910), No. 3204.

Spurgeon (C. H.), (Mrs.), Carillon of Bells, 1.

Watkinson (W. L.), Studies in Christian Character, ii. 7.

Christian World Pulpit, xvii. 296 (Pulsford).