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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Romans 8:32 - 8:32
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
He - rather, “He surely.” (It is a pity to lose the emphatic particle of the original).
that spared not - “withheld not,” “kept not back.” This expressive phrase, as well as the whole thought, is suggested by Gen 22:12, where Jehovah’s touching commendation of Abraham’s conduct regarding his son Isaac seems designed to furnish something like a glimpse into the spirit of His own act in surrendering His own Son. “Take now (said the Lord to Abraham) thy son, thine only, whom thou lovest, and ... offer him for a burnt offering” (Gen 22:2); and only when Abraham had all but performed that loftiest act of self-sacrifice, the Lord interposed, saying, “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou HAST NOT WITHHELD THY SON, THINE ONLY SON, from Me.” In the light of this incident, then, and of this language, our apostle can mean to convey nothing less than this, that in “not sparing His own Son, but delivering Him up,” or surrendering Him, God exercised, in His Paternal character, a mysterious act of Self-sacrifice, which, though involving none of the pain and none of the loss which are inseparable from the very idea of self-sacrifice on our part, was not less real, but, on the contrary, as far transcended any such acts of ours as His nature is above the creature’s. But this is inconceivable if Christ be not God’s “own (or proper) Son,” partaker of His very nature, as really as Isaac was of his father Abraham’s. In that sense, certainly, the Jews charged our Lord with making Himself “equal with God” (see on Joh 5:18), which He in reply forthwith proceeded, not to disown, but to illustrate and confirm. Understand Christ’s Sonship thus, and the language of Scripture regarding it is intelligible and harmonious; but take it to be an artificial relationship, ascribed to Him in virtue either of His miraculous birth, or His resurrection from the dead, or the grandeur of His works, or all of these together - and the passages which speak of it neither explain of themselves nor harmonize with each other.
delivered him up - not to death merely (as many take it), for that is too narrow an idea here, but “surrendered Him” in the most comprehensive sense; compare Joh 3:16, “God so loved the world that He GAVE His only-begotten Son.”
for us all - that is, for all believers alike; as nearly every good interpreter admits must be the meaning here.
how shall he not - how can we conceive that He should not.
with him also - rather, “also with Him.” (The word “also” is often so placed in our version as to obscure the sense; see on Heb 12:1).
freely give us all things? - all other gifts being not only immeasurably less than this Gift of gifts, but virtually included in it.