So we're going to have two readings
today, one that we're familiar with in Romans chapter eight,
but before that, I'd like to read Psalm 22. So Psalm 22 and
verse one. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime,
but Thou hearest not, and in the night season I am not silent. But Thou art holy, O Thou that
inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in Thee,
they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto
Thee, and were delivered, they trusted in Thee, and were not
confounded. But I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that
see me laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake
the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou
art he that took me out of the womb, thou didst make me hope
when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the
womb, thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls
have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round,
they gaped upon me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring
lion. I am poured out like water and
all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it is melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a pot-shard, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought
me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me, the
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and
my feet. I may tell all my bones, they
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them,
they cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord. O my strength, haste thee to
help me. Deliver my soul from the sword,
my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's
mouth, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the
congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise
him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify
him and fear him. All ye the seed of Israel. For
he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted,
neither hath he hid his face from him. But when he cried unto
him, he heard. My praise shall be of thee in
the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them
that fear him. The meek shall eat and be satisfied. They shall praise the Lord that
seek him. Your heart shall live forever. All the ends of the world shall
remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations
shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's,
and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be
fat upon earth shall eat and worship. All they that go down
to the dust shall bow before him, and none can keep alive
his own soul. A seed shall serve him. It shall
be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come
and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that he hath done this. Amen. And then a few verses once
again in Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified. and whom he justified, them he
also glorified. What shall we then say to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. It is always my purpose in preaching
the Gospel to encourage you who hear to look away from yourselves
and to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe I have divine
authority for this approach. Divine authority from the Apostle
who tells us always to be looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. There are many preachers whose
ministry revolves around pressing their hearers for greater commitment
and berating them when they fall short. These preachers equate the Christian
faith with Christian living and they promote self-examination
to discover if their congregation are living as they should, serving
as well as they might, and trying their best to live up to some
locally accepted standard of behaviour. Let me tell you, that is the
path to depression. That is the path to insecurity
and failure. I'm going to be blunt. If your
hope of heaven and your spiritual assurance is built on your personal
conduct, and the approval of your local church or the endorsement
of your pastor or your priest, then it's a house built on sand
and it has no solid foundation. If you think that God's attitude
towards you is governed by what you do or you don't do, and your
chances of going to heaven are based on how well you live for
Christ, then at best you're poorly taught and at worst you've never
heard the Gospel at all. So I repeat myself, stop looking
at yourself and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. All our personal holiness is
as filthy rags. All our righteousness, all our
justification and our sanctification and our heavenly glory and our
hope for eternal life must be in Christ alone. As we saw before, the question
is not, am I for God? Do I please him enough? Only
one question matters, is God for me? If God is for us, who
can be against us? Now we have seen in the time
that we have spent on this passage, these verses in Romans chapter
eight, how all things work together for our good. and we have previously
noted that all things includes the divine persons, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. As those loved and chosen by
God, the Father is working for our good. The Son is ministering for our
good and the Holy Spirit is active and engaged for our good. All the persons of the Godhead
are working together for our good. That's what Paul is telling
us. Furthermore, all the elements of the everlasting covenant of
grace and peace that the Apostle Paul has been identifying and
outlining and tracing here for us, all these elements of the
everlasting covenant are designed and applied for our good. God's love works for our good. God's sovereign election distinguishes
us from the world for our good. Effectual calling quickens us
for good. Our justification, our conversion,
and ultimately our glorification, all providentially work together,
assuring us of God's good purposes of grace towards us. And this,
says the Apostle Paul, this is how God shows himself to be for
us. Now, I've listed here the divine
persons and the high doctrines of God's goodness and mercy. But during the week, a friend
wrote to me about another way of looking at this question of
all things working together for our good. And he drew his comment
from a sermon by a gospel preacher, the late Ernest Rowe, a sermon
that he had preached on these same verses from Romans. And
here's a section of what was written and of that sermon. Ernest Rowe said in his sermon,
We know that all things work together for good. And he continued,
and I'm going to begin at the worst thing. And when we have
dealt with that, there is nothing more to be said. That will cover
the lot, all things. I'm going to take sin, he said. Because that is the one you will
pick out and say, that does not work for good. Ah, but it does. And if that does, well, it needs
no argument about the rest, does it? Now let me preface my remarks
strongly. God is not the author of sin. The Most Holy One and sin can
never be linked together. But the fall wrought the channel
for mercy to run, says that dear old dockyard labourer John Kent,
and he is right. Kent was a hymn writer. Did the
fall happen by chance? God, you will say, permitted
it. True. But what God permits, God wills
to permit. And there is no arguing the point. For if he did not will to permit,
he would not permit it and it would not come about. Now this
is me speaking now. by which we see that whether
we think about the high things, the triune God and the eternal
covenant, the eternal purpose of God, or the low things of
man's rebellion and Adam's sin and the sin that is in the world,
the sin that is in our own soul, the sin that is in our own heart,
the sin that is in our own mind, all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. So let there be no doubt, poor,
helpless sinner, God is for us. And here in verse 32, the apostle
substantiates this fact that God is for us by providing us
with the single greatest piece of scriptural evidence to support
his claim. We read this, he spared not his
own son. but delivered him up for us all. How can I possibly know that
God is for me? By this single fact, he spared
not his own son. I have three questions that I
wish to answer from this scripture today. First one is this, who
was not spared? God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, why did the Father
not spare? For his great love wherewith
he loved us. And thirdly, from what was Christ
not spared? And we'll think briefly about
his humiliation, his suffering, and his death on the cross. So
taking the first of these three then, let us ask this question,
who was not spared? our Lord Jesus Christ, God's
own Son. That's what the Apostle Paul
tells us. He spared not his own Son. The price of our redemption,
the price of our salvation was the lifeblood of Jesus Christ,
God's own Son. And this was a personal cost
God was both required and willing to pay. Some theologians have
enquired as to whether God being God could not have devised and
designed another way to save sinners. God's God, could he not have
come up with another way to bring redemption, to bring salvation,
to bring union with God, to bring a fallen sinful people into communion
and union with God? I think if blood redemption by
Jesus Christ is the way to life settled upon by the all-wise,
all-powerful God, it must have been the only way, because it
cost the Father so dearly. God spared not his own son. The Apostle Paul tells us earlier
in Romans that God sent his own son. Here he tells us that he
spared not his own son. It was one in the same activity. The sending of his son and the
sparing not of his son was the same work of grace. It was the same work of provision
for the salvation of his people. It effected the same end. Our
Saviour came to suffer and die for our sins. God sent his own
Son, God spared not his own Son. And we may think of this, although
it's God that's mentioned here, we may think of this as God the
Father, though that is not to the exclusion of God the Holy
Spirit. I pointed out yesterday that
in Isaiah 48, verse 16, we are told there, Isaiah tells us,
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's Christ that's speaking as
it were. Isaiah's speaking prophetically
of Christ's words. Come ye near unto me. Hear ye
this, I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, from the
time that it was there am I, and now the Lord God and His
Spirit hath sent me. So yes, God the Father and God
the Holy Spirit sent the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit spared not the Lord Jesus Christ, His
own Son. And God, the Son, as well, as
part of the Trinity, as part of the triune God, He willingly
came. He was willing to be sent. He acquiesced. He humbled Himself. Jesus Christ is God's own Son
and the only begotten of the Father. God has many sons. Angels are called the sons of
God by creation. Redeemed men and women are called
the sons of God by adoption. But Christ is God's Son by nature,
God's true and proper Son, the same in substance and equal in
power and glory. And God sent his own son and
God spared not his own son. And here's something is obvious,
but I'm going to say it anyway. Salvation comes to us as a free
gift of God's grace. But it was not freely obtained. It cost a lot. Mercy laid a heavy
burden on the Godhead. God the Father gave up something
dearly loved and infinitely precious when he gave his Son and spared
not his own Son but delivered him up for us all. And however
it is that this something is to be properly expressed, and
I confess that words come to the end of our understanding,
such is the infinite mystery of that great transaction of
redemption and the God man coming into this world, taking our flesh,
joining himself to our humanity and dying in our place, that
it is almost inexpressible. Language, vocabulary, defeats
us in trying to properly express what the Lord Jesus Christ did
and what it cost God to accomplish our salvation. But we should
not forget that a cost was borne by the Father upon the giving
of the Son. It was a price worth paying,
but it was a price nonetheless. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. And I mentioned yesterday
in the little note that I sent around that there's a fine type
here in the close connection between this act of God in sparing
not his son and Abraham's act of obedience in Genesis 22 when
he offered Isaac on an altar on Mount Moriah or in the mountains
of Moriah. Verse 12 of that chapter, right
back in the first book of the Bible, in the book of Genesis.
Verse 12 of Genesis 22 reads, Thou hast not withheld thy Son,
thine only Son, from me. And that is rendered in the Greek
version of the Old Testament. That is rendered as this. Thou
hast not spared thy beloved son for me. Thou hast not spared
thy beloved son for me. And God did not spare his son
for us. He did not withhold him. but
he willingly gave him that we might live. This then tells us who it was
that was not spared. It was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me ask this question. Why the Father did not spare? Our God in his triune persons
is so completely for us that he spared not his own son but
delivered him up for us all. This is the greatness of the
commitment that God has made for the salvation of his people. Now, I don't quote too many modern
hymn writers, but I'm going to quote one now, a man called Stuart
Townsend, and he wrote this couplet, or this verse. How deep the Father's
love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that he should give
his only Son to make a wretch his treasure. This is the measure of God's
everlasting love for us all. That is, all who were called
and set apart in the covenant of grace, all who are foreknown,
predestinated, justified in Jesus Christ. Paul is showing us the
extent of God's commitment for us. If God be for us, and the certainty of His promises
be for us. Who can be against us? Our confidence,
our hope, our assurance, our confidence in this world, our
safety, our salvation here. and the goodness and the mercy
of God towards us that follows us all the days of our life,
says the psalmist David in Psalm 23, isn't founded on our obedience
or our service or our commitment to God, but on his unconditional
commitment to us. so that our personal assurance,
our comfort and joy, our peace and security, our hope is born
of love, God's love towards us and certified by God's giving
His Son and sparing not His Son. The Lord Jesus is God's beloved
Son in whom he is well pleased, and yet it pleased the Lord to
bruise him. Because this is the price of
our salvation. Even God's own Son was not spared
in bringing many sons to glory. And finally, here's my last thought. From what was Christ not spared? We love our children dearly. I hope we do. I hope we do. And we're ready to do them good
whenever we can and whatever we can. to ease their burden
and smooth the path of their lives. I remember standing at
the bedside, the cot of my baby daughter many years ago, listening
as she struggled to breathe under the effects of a cold. And I just, I wanted, I wished
with all my heart that I could take that congestion and I would
happily have struggled for breath myself so that she could sleep
restfully without the distress that that cold was causing her.
It was a small thing, but it has stayed with me. And it doesn't
change. She's now a mother with her own
children and she knows that feeling in turn. But we still gladly
do what we can to ease any trouble and spare any distress of our
children. Not God. He spared not his own
son. God ordained our Lord Jesus. He ordained that he be not spared
the humiliation of taking weak human flesh and assuming our
human nature. Nor was Christ spared from enduring
the contradiction of sinners against himself. He was hated by his enemies. He was rejected by his brethren. He was denied and forsaken and
betrayed by his friends. Psalm 22 speaks about the bulls
of Bashan, the roaring lions, the power of the dog that was
in his soul. He was not spared the cruel suffering
of the cross or of tasting the bitterness of death for us all. He was not spared the breach
of fellowship that occurred at the cross to aggravate his agony
when his father forsook him in the hours of darkness. Another part of that verse that
I quoted earlier said, how great the pain of searing loss the
father turns his face away as wounds which mar the chosen one
bring many sons to glory. In sparing not his son, it pleased
the father to lay on him the iniquity of us all. and for the
deliverance of his people, it pleased the Son to bear all that
was agreed in the covenant of peace. Christ made full atonement
for every sin of every chosen sinner. He suffered the whole
payment of our debt that law and justice might be fully satisfied. This is our confidence. This
is the ground of our hope. Because he spared not his own
son, we can say, if God be for us, who can be against us? Amen. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today.