Don't Hold Back
A missionary in Africa had poor health and depended on goat milk for his source of vitamins. One day, the tribal leader came to visit the missionary. After a few minutes, it was evident that the tribal leader was interested in the goat. The missionary decided to give the goat to the tribal leader as a gesture of kindness to build the trust needed to share the love of God. In return, the tribal leader gave the missionary his walking stick. Without the goat milk, the missionary became weaker and weaker over the next couple of days. Using the walking stick he got from the tribal leader, he walked into the village to purchase goat milk. His money was not accepted when he offered to buy the goat milk. Instead, he was told he was entitled to anything he wanted in this village. When the missionary asked why, the villagers explained that the walking stick he held was the scepter belonging to the tribal leader. Possessing that scepter entitled him to everything in the village.
Like the tribal leader’s scepter, God has given us His Son to remind us of His willingness to provide access to every resource needed to live an abundant Christian life. In Romans 8:31-32, to reassure believers of God’s willingness to give sacrificially and freely, Paul stated, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 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?” We can derive several principles from these few verses that include God’s example of giving.
First, Paul assures us that God is working and acting on our behalf (Rom. 8:31). After Paul offered a rhetorical question that embraces Romans 5-8, he informed the Christian community of the wonderful truth that nothing could match the God who is working and acting on behalf of those in the Christian community. Paul didn’t speak of the possibility of God working and acting on our behalf. Contrastingly, Paul spoke of a fulfilled condition that offers the assurance of God working and acting on our behalf. In The Message (MSG), Eugene Peterson paraphrased Romans 8:31 by writing, “So what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?” Every believer should know that God is working on their behalf for His divine purpose (Rom. 8:28-29).
Ironically, God acted for us when we were against Him. In Romans 5:10, Paul said, “while we were enemies” of the Creator, God reconciled us to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death (Rom. 5:8). Long before Paul spoke of God working and acting for us, the psalmist proclaimed the same sentiments when he declared, “The Lord is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?” (Ps. 118:6). Since God works and acts on our behalf, we should never worry about anything. God working for us can cure any of our anxieties (Matt. 6:25-33).
God works and acts for every believer through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8:34, Paul asked and responded, “who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who is at the right hand of God, and also intercedes for us.” Paul said that Christ “interceded for us.” The Savior was for us when He gave His life in our place, and He is for us by constantly interceding on our behalf. God also works and acts for us through the person of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8:26, Paul wrote, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” With the Son and the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf, we have the divine gift of double intercession and mediation.
A second principle is Paul’s example of how God is for us (Rom. 8:32). Paul said that God “did not spare His own Son” (v. 32). The words “did not spare” means that God deliberately chose His Son to pay the ultimate price (death on the cross) for our sins. When we were at our worst, God gave us His best (Rom. 5:6-8). If God had held back His Son, we would still need a sacrifice for our sins, and justification would be a humanly impossible task. Thankfully, God didn’t hold back His Son. In Romans 4:25, Paul said that Jesus was “delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” God credits us for a behavior we have not displayed through justification by placing righteousness in our account (Rom. 4:24).
Through a fortiori argument (from the greater to the lesser), Paul argues that God’s willingness to offer His Son for our salvation (the greater) is proof that He is willing to give us spiritual and material blessings (the lesser) in Christ. In Romans 8:32, Paul wrote, “how will He not also freely give us all things?” Paul assumed that since God had provided everything needed for salvation, there was so much more that God had and would provide for His children.
Thus, each believer should live thanking God for not holding back His Son. Since God didn’t hold back His Son, we should be motivated to surrender everything to God, who always works and acts on our behalf. Do your best to live daily, knowing God gave you His best. Don’t hold back your best from God.