If God Gave Us His Son, Will He Not Give Us Everything Else?

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
–Romans 8:32

In Romans 8:32, Paul asked this question: If God gave us His Son, then will He not give us everything else He promised us? You may say, “I believe God is sovereign, and I believe God is good. But when I lose my mate, or when I am diagnosed with cancer, or when I lose my retirement savings, how do I know God’s goodness and love are going to be extended to me?” Paul said in verse 32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” If God has given us His Son, then why wouldn’t He give us everything else as well?

When Paul’s audience heard the phrase “He who did not spare His own Son,” that word “spare” would have struck a note of familiarity with them. The Greek word “spare” is the same word used in Genesis 22 in the Old Testament story of Abraham offering his son Isaac. You remember the story. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son. The Bible says Abraham did not spare his son. Of course, God intervened at the last moment. But that was a picture of what Jesus Christ would do one day on that same mountain range of Moriah when He would send His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world. Paul was saying, “If God was willing to do that for us, then why wouldn’t He do anything and everything else for us?” Somebody once asked theologian Karl Barth what the most important word in the Bible is. He did not hesitate in answering. It was not “love” or “forgiveness.” Karl Barth said the most important word is “for.” That is the Greek word “huper,” meaning “in place of.” It is the word used here: God delivered His Son “over for [in place of] us all.” That is the gospel.

A few years ago, I watched a miniseries about the life of Jesus. The Jesus figure in the show was meeting with His disciples and trying to explain His reason for His coming death. He said, “The reason I came to die is so that I might die for the goodness that is in every human heart.” That is not what the Scripture says. Jesus did not come to die for our goodness. God did not look down on humanity and say, “Those human beings are such wonderful people. I want to show them how good they are by sending My Son to die for them.” No, He did not come to die for our goodness. He came to die for our badness–for the sickness and evil in our hearts. That is what makes God’s gift that much more unbelievable. God did not give His best when we were His friends. The Bible says that while we were His enemies, He sent Christ to die for us.

If while you were His enemy, God sent you His best and most costly gift, now that you are His child, don’t you think He will give you everything else? If God gave you His greatest gift while you were His enemy, now that you are God’s child, what is He going to withhold from you?

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “More Than Conquerors” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2014.

Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.