Do some words penetrate so deeply into your soul that they change the way you think about everything?And change is hopeful. This is what the Apostle Paul would say for me when I awoke to the global logic of heaven in Romans 8. 32. I was twenty-three years old.
When I saw this verse, as I had never seen before, God implanted it so firmly in my soul that He became a living and permanent agent of practical power, which gives hope and changes life.
- Of all the places in the Bible that provide a solid place to bow when everyone around them trembles.
- This has been my cornerstone more than any other.
“He who spared not even his own Son, but abandoned him for all of us, will he not give us all with him?”
Romans 8. 32 is a superior summary of the argument (and the argument is the right word!) From the first eight chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans. There is a logic on this map, the greatest of all, I call it the logic of heaven.
This type of logic has a technical name. You may or may not know the name of the logic, but you certainly know how to use it. You can call it an argument or logic, from large to small. The technical name is “a fortiori”, which is the Latin term for “due to something stronger”. The idea is that if you’ve tried to do something difficult, you can definitely try to do something easier. This is an argument a fortiori.
So suppose you say to your child, “Please run to the house next door and ask Mr. Smith if you can lend us the pliers. “Then your son says, “But what if Mr. Smith doesn’t lend us the pliers?”How can you convince your son that Mr. Will Smith will ever lend him his tongs?Using a fortiori argument!
This is so: you say to your son, “Yesterday, Mr. Smith was happy to lend us his car all day. If he was happy that I could borrow his car, he’d be very willing to lend us the tongs. “Your car was a greater sacrifice than lending your pliers. This made it harder to borrow your car than borrowing your pliers. If he were willing to do the hardest thing, he’d be willing to do the simplest thing. This is how we use arguments a fortiori.
Now watch Paul use that kind of argument for the biggest event in the history of the world. He says that God did not forgive his own Son, but abandoned him for all of us. That’s the hardest part. Therefore, he will certainly give us everything with him. This is the simplest thing. When this argument penetrates the hardened surface of familiarity, it becomes gloriously hopeful and complete.
I’ve been reading this verse all my life. But here I am, at 23, and for the first time, this logic, this God-inspired logic, this holy, heavenly, glorious and inexhaustible logic, penetrated my soul and settled to become an unwavering foundation and a deep root of my life. hope and power. I’ll explain why in a moment. But first, look with me for a moment at the contents of the two halves of this verse.
First, think with me of the first half of Romans 8. 32: “He who spared neither his own Son, but for all of us, has abandoned him. “
What are the great obstacles between us and eternal happiness?An obstacle is our sin. We are all sinners (Romans 3:23), and the wages of this sin are eternal death (Romans 6:23). Another obstacle is Dieu’s wrath. If God is justly angry with us because of our sinful guilt, then we have no hope of eternal happiness. And Paul leaves no doubt that we are under the wrath of God. In fact, are we children of anger, as are others?(Ephesians 2. 3).
These seem to be the biggest obstacles between us and eternal happiness, but are they really?I believe that there is a greater barrier, which is much harder to overcome, which Paul points out in this first half of Romans 8. 32, this obstacle is God’s love and infinite joy for the beauty and honor of his own Son.
See if you don’t hear this obstacle in the first half of Romans 8. 32: “He who has not forgiven his own Son before, for we have all abandoned him. “Paul expects us to felt the massive tension between the phrase that his own Son and the sentence has spared. Should this seem like the hardest thing ever done?God sacrificing the Son of God. ” Your own son. “
When Paul calls Jesus the Son of God Himself, the fact is that there is no one like him, and that he is infinitely precious to the Father (Matthew 3:17; 17. 5). In Colossses 1:13, Paul calls him “the Son of his love. “
Jesus himself recounted the parable of the labradors, in which the servants of a master were beaten and killed by the wicked when the servants came to gather the fruits of the harvest that belonged to the master. Surprisingly, you decide to send your own child back to try to get back what was right for you. Jesus describes this figure of God in these terms: “He still had one, his beloved son”; (Mark 12. 6) A son is all God the Father had, and he loved her very much.
The point of Romans 8. 32 is that God’s love for his only Son was as enormous an obstacle as Mount Everest between God and our salvation, an almost insurmountable obstacle. Could God want it? Overcome his beloved, admirable, precious, fiery, infinite and loving union with his Son and deliver him to be slandered, betrayed, denied, abandoned, mocked, whipped, punished, spat upon, nailed to a cross. and pierced by a sword, like an animal slit and suspended from a easel?
Would you really do that? If he did, we could know with absolute certainty that any target pursuing the other side of that obstacle could never fail. There couldn’t be a bigger obstacle. So, what I was looking for should be almost complete.
The unthinkable reality affirmed by Romans 8. 32 is that God did this and gave it to him. Can you say, Judas hasn’t given up?(Mark 3:19), didn’t Pilate hand it over? (Mark 15:15), Did Herod and the crowd not deliver him?(Acts 4. 27 – 28). Worst of all, do we not comply?(1 Corinthians 15. 3; Galatians 1. 4; 1 Peter 2. 24). And perhaps most surprisingly, didn’t Jesus abandon himself?(John 10. 17; 19. 30). The answer to all these questions is yes.
But in Romans 8. 32, Paul enters through all these agents, all these instruments, death. He said the most unthinkable thing: inside, behind, below, and by all these human agents, God gave His Son to death. “This [Jesus] being delivered by the determined design and prescience of God” (Acts 2. 23). In Judas, Pilate, Herod, in the multitude and in the pagan soldiers, in our sins and in the submission of Jesus as the lamb, God Himself gave to his Son, nothing greater or more difficult has ever happened, or will happen.
Therefore, in Paul’s fortiori argument, God did the hardest thing to give us eternal happiness. He spared not even his own Son, but gave it to all of us. What does that guarantee? Paul asks this in the form of a rhetorical question (i. e. , a question he expects us to answer immediately and correctly): “Perhaps he will not give us everything kindly?”
Paul expects us to make a strong and secure statement. Namely, “He will certainly give us everything gracefully as well. “
Since God has not forgiven his own Son before, for all of us He has given us, He will certainly give us all things in grace with him.
All things! This is not the promise of a sweet life. Four verses later, Paul said, “For thee, we are dead all day, we were considered sheep for the slaughterhouse” (Romans 8. 36).
“Will you give us everything? It means everything we need to do his will. Everything we need to glorify you. Everything we need to go from predestined to called, justified, and glorified, that is, for eternal happiness (Romans 8:30).
For God did not spare his own Son, but abandoned him for all of us
? All things will work together for our good (v. 28). Will we conform to the image of your Son (v. 29). ? We will be glorified (v. 30). No one can succeed against us (v. 31). There will be no charges against us (v. 33). Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (v. 35). In tribulation, in anguish, in persecution, in hunger, in nudity, in danger and in the sword, we are more than victors (v. 35?37). No death, no life, no angels, no principalities, no things of the present, no future, no powers, no height, no depth, no other creature can separate us from god’s love. it is in Christ Jesus our Lord (c. 38:39).
I said that when I was twenty-three, this logic of heaven penetrated my soul so deeply that it changed the way I thought about all things?And that change was hopeful. What I meant was this: this logic of heaven teaches that the Father does not face the Son, he assures all the promises that I have already trusted or trust in.
I live my life every day according to God’s promises. Each of them is due to the logic of Romans 8. 32. See how vast and complete this is for me?All my hope depends on Dieu’s promises. All promises (all things) are guaranteed by the logic of Romans 8. 32.
Paul said, ?? How many are God’s promises, so many have [Jesus] the yes?; (2 Corinthians 1:20). This is because the Father has not forgiven his Son. Did you do this for all things? All these promises were absolutely perfect for those who trust Him. Have I fought every battle in my life with promises?of God?battles against fear, lust, greed, pride and anger. Battles for courage, purity, contentment, humility, peace and love. All because of the word of God? God’s promises.
Behind each of these battles lies the logic of heaven: “I did not forgive my own Son; therefore, my promise cannot fail. I’ll help you. Come on, do what I asked you to do.