For God So Loved the World

12/05/22/ to 12/11/22

God Gave His Son

By Michael Youssef, Ph D.  12/07/22

When God wanted to show us His love, He gave. And He gave everything. Only in heaven will we come close to grasping the unity of the Godhead and what it means that the Father “did not spare his own Son” (Romans 8:32). But because God desires a relationship with us, because He wants us to know Him, He graciously helps us understand the wonder of the Gospel by communicating to our limited, finite minds with a relationship familiar to us. He chose to communicate the depth of His love for us through the image of the father-son relationship.

In the Hebrew culture into which Christ was born, the father-son relationship was precious—the two persons were inseparable. So when God revealed Jesus to the world, He revealed Him as Son, and every Hebrew who heard Jesus’ words understood the power and weight of this claim (see Matthew 3:17; John 5:16-27). They understood the sacrifice implied for the Son to be parted from the Father. They understood the equality Jesus claimed with God the Father. They may have rejected Jesus’ claims, but they certainly understood the magnitude of His assertion: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Through the father-son relationship, God reveals the wonder of His sacrificial gift to the world: The God of glory, who said, “Let there be light,” laid that glory aside and came down to earth to bring us into the family of God forever.

Prayer: Father, You gave me everything in Christ. You have called me out of darkness—called me Your own. Your kindnesses are staggering; they are infinite. Thank You for making me Your child through Jesus Christ. I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).