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was the Lord God Omnipotent in Whose hand our very breath is, that stooped to be made
flesh and to the death of the cross on the behalf of those who had sinned against Him.
A part of the foregoing implies the essential deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He
was "God manifest in the flesh", "The Word (Who) became flesh", the One Whose hands
made the heavens and by Whom all things consist, that emptied Himself, taking upon
Him the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness of men, Who still further
humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. This we
believe to be true, but cannot stay here to attempt to prove this essential doctrine*.
[* - The Deity of Christ or The Form of Sound Words should be
consulted by any reader uncertain of this wondrous subject.]
While God in His essential nature is `one', we creatures whose very constitution limits
us to the conditioned and the relative, know Him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and it
was "The Father" Who "sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World".
John 3: 16 is the direct outcome of the reference made in verse 14 to the lifting up of
the brazen serpent. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. When
God `spared not' His Own Son, but freely gave Him up for us all, He gave Him up to
death. He Who spared not sinners, is here represented as "sparing not" the sinners'
substitutes.
One aspect of this great subject is apt to be missed unless the reader is acquainted both
with the original of the N.T. and of the language of the Septuagint version.
The words of Gen. 22: 12 are:
Ouk epeiso tou
huiou sou tou agapetou
Not hast thou spared the son of thine the beloved.
The Greek of Rom. 8: 32 reads:
Tou idiou huiou ouk epheisato
Of the own Son not He spared.
Isaac is called `the beloved son'. Christ is called "His Own Son"; both indicate
exceeding nearness and dearness. The Apostle who knew his Greek O.T. has purposely
thrown us back to the story of Abraham and Isaac so that we may see in the torn heart of
Abraham as he took the knife, the fire and the beloved on that strange and awful journey,
something of what it cost "The Father" not to spare such a "Son".
Something exists in righteousness, something pertains to God's administration of the
Universe that cannot allow sin to go unpunished. Yet God is love, and love found a way
whereby He might be JUST as well as the JUSTIFIER of the ungodly that believe, and
that way was in the giving up of His beloved Son.