Bible Gateway verse of the day: Romans 8:32

Bible Gateway’s verse today is Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all —how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

The emphasis is on God’s giving: of his Son for us, and, eventually, of all things to us.

The point of the verse is that God’s attitude towards us, and therefore our ultimate security, is shown in his action for us, revealed and expressed in Christ. Nevertheless, we must not overlook the prior statement that God did not spare his own Son.

The word elsewhere (Acts 20:29; Rom 11:21) means ‘to keep from trouble’, even ‘to have mercy on’. And in the context this is important, for Paul is addressing the issue of “our present sufferings” (v 18), reassuring us that these are part of God’s plan and purpose.

Thus whole world is “subject to frustration”, but “by the will of the one who subjected it in hope” (v 20). And we ourselves groan, yet in “hope for what we do not yet have” (v 25), helped in our very groanings by the Spirit (vv 26-27).

Moreover the point and purpose of this is that we might be “conformed to the likeness of his Son” (v 29). But how did God treat his Son? He did not spare him. Our hope, then, is not that God will spare us from trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword” (v 35), but that he will enable us to be, like Christ, “more than conquerors” through these things.

John Richardson
22 August 2010

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