Monday, October 26, 2020

Heaven's Logic In Romans 8:32

The point of Romans 8:32 is that this love of God for his one and only Son was like a massive, Mount Everest obstacle standing between God and our salvation. Here was an obstacle almost insurmountable: Could God - would God - overcome his cherishing, admiring, treasuring, white-hot, infinite, affectionate bond with his Son and hand him over to be lied about and betrayed and denied and abandoned and mocked and flogged and beaten and spit on and nailed to a cross and pierced with a sword, like an animal being butchered and hung up on a rack?...

Would he really do that? If he would, then we could know with full certainty that whatever goal he was pursuing on the other side of that obstacle could never fail. There could be no greater obstacle. So whatever he was pursuing is as good as done….

Therefore, in Paul's a fortiori argument, God has done the hardest thing to give us everlasting happiness. He did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. What does this guarantee? Paul puts it in the form of a rhetorical question (that means a question he expects us to immediately answer correctly): "how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"…

I said that when I was twenty-three, this logic of heaven penetrated so deeply into my soul that it changed the way I think about everything - and that the change was full of hope….

I live my life every day by the promises of God. I owe every one of them to the logic of Romans 8:32….

Behind every one of those battles is the logic of heaven: "I did not spare my own Son; therefore, my promise to you cannot fail. I will help you. Go. Do what I have called you to do."

(John Piper, Why I Love The Apostle Paul [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2019], 186-89)

1 comment:

  1. Yes, indeed. "A fortiori," arguing from the stronger to the lesser: our own security.
    Good thought Jason, and easy to remember. Thank you.

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