God's Goodness and Severity



“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” -ROMANS 8:32 [KJV]

We may observe, in one view, the wonderful goodness and inflexible severity of God. So great was His goodness that, when man was by sin rendered incapable of any happiness, and obnoxious to all mercy; incapable of restoring himself, or of receiving the least assistance from any power in heaven or in earth; God spared not His only begotten Son, but, in His unexampled love to His own, gave Him Who alone was able to repair the breach.

Every gift of God is good. The bounties of His common providence are very valuable that He should continue life, and supply that life with food, raiment, and a variety of comforts, to those who by rebellion had forfeited all, was wonderful: but what are all inferior blessings compared to this unspeakable gift of the Son of His love? Abraham had given many proofs of his love and obedience before he was commanded to offer up Isaac upon the altar; but God seems to pass by all that went before, as of small account in comparison of this last instance of duty. “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me” [GENESIS 22:12].

Surely we likewise must say, in this was manifested the love of God to us, because He gave His Son, His only Son, for sinful men. But all comparison fails. Abraham was bound in duty, bound by gratitude; neither was it a free-will offering, but by the express command of God. But to us the mercy was undesired, as well as undeserved. “Herein is love, not that we loved God” [I JOHN 4:10].

On the contrary, we were enemies to Him and in rebellion against Him, but He loved us and “sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” the sins we had committed against Himself. My friends, ought not this love to meet a return? Is it not most desirable to be able to say, as the Apostle in I JOHN 4:19, “We love Him, because He first loved us”? Should it not also be our continual inquiry, “What shall I render to the LORD for all His benefits,” especially for this, which is both the crown and the spring of all the rest?


-Gospel report by preacher John Newton (1725–1807 A.D.)

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