To Spare Us, God Spared Not His Own Son

The will of God is the reality of our salvation. The very thought of salvation originated in eternity past in the mind of God. Caught up in the stronghold of sin, no human being could have initiated the idea of restoration for humanity. Love Himself willed it, defined it, organized it, and then decreed it. All who peruse the Bible with eyes of faith, desiring to discover its hidden truths, sees vastly more in the Savior’s death than Roman cruelty or Jewish malice. We see the solemn will of God fulfilled by men, who were the ignorant, but guilty instruments of its accomplishment. With spiritual x-ray vision, we see through the Roman spears and nails, through the Jewish taunts and mockery of Christ to the very heart of the Father. We believe the prophet of old, that “It pleased Jehovah to bruise Him.”

It was divine will that demanded salvation by faith, salvation by way of the new birth, salvation through an atoning sacrifice. God Himself set and established in His own mind the modus operandi of salvation and it was His will that ordered it. It was His will that has brought those of us who are saved into the knowledge of the truth, sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit which sustains us throughout our lives.

To accomplish His divine will to spare us, God spared not Christ Jesus our Lord, His only begotten Son, the indignity of being sent into an evil, corrupt, mean, hostile world to be our Savior; A world where mankind’s entire thought life, emotions, will and behavior was egregiously distorted and depraved.

Jesus did not arrive on earth in any glorious fashion. He was not born of prestigious status. He did not enter this world in great magnificence or grandeur but as a poor infant Boy born of a poor and humble carpenter’s wife. God chose as the place of His birth not a wealthy, glorious metropolis city but in the little town of Bethlehem. His first bed was not an elaborately adorned cradle, but a manger in a stable where animals fed.

To spare us, God spared not Jesus of Nazareth, though very God of very God, the shamefulness of being born in human flesh. Stripped of His heavenly glory and majesty, Jesus descended the staircase of eternity and entered into a sin infested, cursed world to live the life of a human. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the glory of the Father, took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh and walked among us, suffered as we do, hungered and thirsted as we do, and finally died with a crushed body because of sin. We read in Philippians 2:6-8:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

To spare us, God spared not the King of kings and Lord of angels the rejection and cruelty of men. He came into His own and His own received Him not. Man relentlessly sought to find fault with Him, brought false accusations against Him, and attempted to kill Him by throwing Him off a cliff. His disciples forsook Him and fled when He needed them most. Peter denied being His follower and Judas betrays Him for a few dollars. Christ felt the crushing, heart rending pain of it all; He trembled under the burden of it; His soul grew sick because of it, His Spirit weakened in response to it.

To spare us, God spared not the Prince of Peace His judgment against man. Before Jesus went to the Cross He said, “Now is the time for judgment on this world.” God’s justice must be vindicated and His wrath was poured out on Christ as He bore the sins of the world. He did not deserve it for He was pure, spotless and perfect. He was without sin and never spoke anything other than truth. His character was without fault and without blemish. And yet, He took the judgment that was ours. All the judgment in the past that had fallen upon individuals and nations could not have equaled the judgment that fell upon Christ for us.

To spare us, God spared not the Christ of unsearchable riches the crucifixion. Crucifixion was death by torture. Jesus was first beaten and then forced to carry the Cross. He was stripped naked. His hands that had healed the sick with touches of love were nailed to the cross. His feet, which had walked the dusty roads going from town to town ministering sin-sick souls, nailed to the cross. His eyes, which had penetrated the depths of human hearts, looked compassionately at us while we were yet sinners and prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

From the time when God expelled Adam and Eve from paradise, down to the present world conflict involving God’s judgment upon nations, even combined, does not come close to what Jesus experienced. The flood upon a wicked world of sinners; the fire and brimstone upon the degenerate immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah; the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Sea of Reeds; the death sings of poisonous snakes among the Israelites in the desert; every judgment in every age, every famine, every earthquake, every war bringing death and destruction, all together would not, could not equal the punishment and judgment Jesus suffered for you and me at the place of the skull.

If we could somehow calculate or measure the enormous and intense suffering of Christ, it still could not satisfy the debt incurred by our sin. God’s justice demanded death. Sin could only be put away by our Lord’s actual death. So He died in our place; bruised for our transgressions, “God laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

To spare us, God spared not the Chief Shepherd who shall soon appear spiritual separation from His Father. Jesus was one with God. He had said, “I and my Father are one,” and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” He knew what it was to walk in sweet fellowship with the Father; to have the joy of His presence. And yet, on the Cross He cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”

This anguished cry even the martyrs could not make for they knew God was with them. They glorified God and thanked Him in their suffering prayers for the honor of dying for His sake. They shouted hallelujahs as their bodies were consumed by fire and lifted up the name of Jesus as they were being devoured by wild beasts in the coliseums.

But the awareness of God’s acceptance that spurred many a dying saint to champion the Cross with joy was not afforded our Redeemer who suffered in physical and mental torment as has no other in the history of the human existence. He is estranged from God, separated from His Father, emptied of Himself, tormented by God’s wrath poured upon Him. In those dark hours on the Cross, in one sweeping blade of iron wrath, Jesus suffers all the horrors of hell; all that could ever cause weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

There is no way we can see Jesus going up to the Mount of Death, Calvary, and not see ourselves going there. When we see Jesus thrown on His back upon the old wooden Cross, we see all of God’s elect. When we see the nails driven through His holy, blessed hands and feet, it is the whole body of Christ who is there in Him as our Substitute nailed to the tree. The soldiers lift the Cross and dash it into the ground’s socket prepared for it. The bones of our Lord are dislocated and His body torn with agonies indescribable and incomprehensible. It is the Church suffering there, the children of God suffering there in the Scapegoat, our Surrogate. Christ truly died, but not for Himself; in place of, instead of all believers. When He went through the sufferings of death, He was the representative Head of all His people.

What LOVE! “Love divine, all loves excelling.” So loving toward His creatures that to spare us from the deserved fury of His wrath; He spared not His own Son. From its inception to its glorious finish, the all-wise, all mighty, all loving God, designed and planned the way whereby man would be redeemed from the horrible penalty for sin.

Lost and condemned to eternal punishment, God took the cup that Christ drank from and poured into it all the suffering, misery, anguish such as only He can comprehend and that He considered equivalent for all the suffering, all the misery, and all the eternal tortures of everyone that shall at last stand before His throne, bought with the blood of Christ. There, on the Cross was our huge and immense debt which Jesus paid with His own blood. Now “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Though we owe God everything, our life, gratitude, devotion, service and our love, we owe nothing to His justice because Christ in that dark hour of God’s fury paid the debt in full. I was not a partial payment; it was not an exoneration paid in installments, it was a complete and perfect payment and it obtained a complete and perfect cancellation of all the debts of all believers that have lived, do live, or will live, to the very end of time. “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.” Isaiah 44:22.

God provided us the greatest wonder of earth’s miracles, the death of His own Son. It is here, in the death of the Captain of our salvation, we see not only the love of Christ, but the matchless love of the Father. The offended Judge of all men permitted His Co-equal Son to act as our Surrogate and suffer the pains of death for the redemption of a rebellious people. What greater testimony can we give to the love and faithfulness of Jehovah God, Jehovah Jesus, and Jehovah Holy Spirit? How can we neglect so great a salvation?

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all" Romans 8:32.

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Copyright © 1992- present Saundra L. Washington all rights reserved.

* I first preached this sermon at New St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, Detroit, Michigan, March 29, 1992. Revised and edited 2011.