The Wondrous Cross

Romans 8:32
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, July 11, 2010
Copyright © 2010, P. G. Mathew

The wondrous cross of Christ is the theme of Romans 8:32. Paul declared that the preaching of the cross is “foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). When he was in Corinth, he says he “resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). To the Galatians he says, “Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1).

Without the gospel of the cross, there is no forgiveness of sins. Paul tells us, “May I never glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world is crucified to me and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). Jesus himself foretold, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” that is, “I will save them from all their sins” (John 12:32). May we get out of the mud of gloom, misery, depression, and self-justification, and be freed as we look to the wondrous cross.

Christians suffer all the afflictions common to man, such as sickness, famine, accidents, and death. They also suffer troubles peculiar to being believers in Christ, whom the world hates. Jesus himself calls us to deny ourselves daily, take up the cross, and follow him. Paul says, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Paul himself was persecuted all his life and was finally beheaded. We are also daily tempted by the devil. We may be plagued by the question: “What about the sins I have committed after trusting in Jesus Christ?” Not only that, we are also viciously hated by false Christians who profess Christ and call him “Lord, Lord,” but who are ravenous wolves and servants of Satan.

When we are so afflicted and persecuted, we may be tempted to doubt God’s love for us. While in prison, John the Baptist questioned whether Jesus was the Messiah, or should he wait for another. Jesus assured him that he was the true Messiah. Yet John was beheaded.

In Romans 8:32 Paul puts forward a second unanswerable question to assure us that God’s infinite love toward his elect shall never diminish. It remains constant, from eternity past to eternity future. The apostle provides the most powerful argument he can for this assurance. We must therefore know this argument from the wondrous cross and meditate on it. Then we too can live and die for the glory of God in triumph.

This argument is the ground of all our confidence in life and in death. Before he died, Paul said, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).

The Father Spared Not

“He who did not spare his own Son . . .” In the Greek text, Paul uses a two-letter intensive particle (ge), which is not translated in the New International Version. It means “indeed” or “surely.” So this verse begins, “He who indeed did not spare his own Son.” This intensive particle is intended to magnify the great generosity of God’s love for us in his saving act of handing over his Son to be crucified.

We must understand the significance of Paul’s usage of “his own Son.” Paul used this phrase earlier: “For what the law was powerless to do, God did by sending his own Son” (Rom. 8:3). We are adopted sons by grace, but God did not spare his own Son, his one and only Son by nature, the second person of the holy Trinity. He is the beloved Son, with whom the Father was well pleased.

Theological liberals do not believe Jesus is God’s own Son. For them, Jesus was a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary by natural generation, a sinner who thought he was God. They would say, “Jesus was a moral teacher, a reformer, a revolutionary, the first Marxist, a friend of the poor and the downtrodden, and a community organizer. He was a good man, though somewhat deluded. And he died and never rose again.”

No! The Scriptures say the Father did not spare his own Son. Jesus is God’s Son, and the Jews tried to kill him because of it: “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Later on Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Jews reacted to Jesus’ words, saying, “We are not stoning you for any of these, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33). They concurred with the liberal view that Jesus is a mere man.

But Jesus is not a mere man; he is God incarnate. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:1, 14, 18). Thomas finally confessed and said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

God did not spare his own Son, who is eternal Deity. He is the unique Son: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Heb. 1:3). Paul writes, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). Paul describes this Son as being the one “who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:4).

The Father did not spare the only Son of his bosom. Paul is reflecting on Gen. 22:12-13, which speaks of the sacrifice of Isaac when God tested Abraham’s love. It is not enough for us to profess love for God; that love must be tested, and God himself does it. So God demanded that Abraham prove his love by sacrificing his son, his only son, his beloved son Isaac-not Ishmael, but Isaac, the son of promise through whom nations and kings were to come, and through whom the Messiah was eventually to come. And in reality, Abraham did not spare his son. It was God who intervened and spared Isaac from instant execution.

The Greek word pheidomai (spare) is used in the Septuagint version of Genesis 22:12 and 16. It is the same word Paul uses in Romans 8:32, as well as in Acts 20:29: “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will notspare the flock.” Peter also used this word: “God did not spare the angels when they sinned” (2 Pet. 2:4).

Juries and judges in this world spare criminals, for there is no perfect justice in this sinful world. Perfect justice will come only when Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead. But to satisfy the justice of God, the Father did not spare his own Son. No other substitute could make atonement for the sins of the whole world. Isaac was spared because his death could not atone his own sin, let alone the sins of the world. No rams or bulls or any other animals can atone our sins. The Hebrews writer declares, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). Yet he then states, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin” (Heb. 10:4). Not even the holy angel Gabriel can atone for our sins. Whose blood, then, can atone our sins?

We needed the incarnate Son of God to atone our sins. His blood alone avails. So the Father loved us so much that he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us on the cross. Think about this: Had he spared his Son, he would have had to destroy us.

Abraham asked God, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25). To be just in justifying sinners, it was necessary that the Father not spare the only One who was qualified to make atonement in behalf of his elect. Peter says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed. . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (1 Pet. 1:18-20). Paul states, “This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:9-10).

To spare us from eternal damnation, the Father spared not his own Son. Jesus is our Passover lamb. The Lord told the Israelites, “The blood of the Passover lamb will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Ex. 12:13). We have trusted in Jesus Christ and his blood, and we are spared. Paul says, “We have been justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:9). Let us rejoice in God who spared us in Christ!

The Father Gave Him Up

“But gave him up for us all.” The adversative “but” (alla) is a strong contrast. Negatively, the Father did not spare his own Son; positively, he gave him up to the death of the cross.

People make and break promises all the time. In the presence of God and witnesses, they lie. But what God promises, he fulfills. He purposed in eternity and promised in Genesis 3:15 that the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, the devil. This promise has been fulfilled in Christ. It is not a promise anymore; God the Father fulfilled it when he handed his Son over to be sacrificed. Paul writes, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:4). The eternal became temporal; the immortal became mortal; God became man. He humbled himself as a servant and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.

On the cross, Jesus experienced the hell of our death, which is the wages of sin. God the Father so loved us that he gave up his own Son to such a death to save us. Love gives the best, the most precious. The Father’s best was his one and only Son. He gave him up to save us through his substitutionary death. The cross of Christ preaches God’s eternal, undying, never-failing love to us. Our love for God may fail, but the Father’s love never fails.

To whom did the Father give up his Son? He handed him over to the powers of darkness. Jesus said, “Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour-when darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53). He handed him over to the prince of this world. Jesus told his disciples, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me” (John 14:30). God handed his Son over to powers and authorities. Paul explains, “having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us . . . [Christ] took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Col. 2:14-15). He also handed him over to the Jews, the Gentiles, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Caiaphas, Pilate, and all the forces of darkness. Jesus told those who came to arrest him, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin” (John 19:30). Peter declared, “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” (Acts 2:23). These wicked men only did what the Father had decided beforehand should happen (Acts 4:28).

The cross reveals the wisdom of God. By wisdom, God uses the best means to achieve his best goal. The best means to achieve our redemption was the death of his Son on the cross. This brings greater glory to God. The cross is foolishness, a stumbling block, and an offense to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it reveals the power, wisdom, and surpassing love of God. So we glory in the wondrous cross! It is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to us it is life eternal.

If there were no cross of Christ, there would be no eternal life. May we therefore glory in this truth, that because Jesus suffered the full penalty of God’s holy law, we are now outside of the reach of God’s holy law, and, therefore, outside of death and sin. These things cannot touch us because Christ died for our sins. Paul declares, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:56-57). Praise the Lord for our victory in Jesus Christ!

Christ, who obeyed the Father perfectly in life and death, prayed three times that the Father would remove the cup of his wrath from him. But finally he said, “Yet not my will but thine be done.” It was God’s will to spare us by crucifying his own Son. This purpose of God was unchangeable. Yet Christ’s death was not the death of a martyr, for not only is Jesus true man, but he is also very God. Christ was without sin, but he died for our sins. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we sinners might become nothing less than the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor. 5:21). The Father did not count our sins against us; he counted them against his Son.

In the Old Testament sacrificial system, a sinner would bring a prescribed animal to the priest to make atonement for his sins. As the sinful worshiper would lay his hands on the animal’s head and confess his sins, his sins would be transferred to the animal. Then the animal would be killed in the place of the sinner and its blood sprinkled. The worshiper’s sins would be forgiven in view of the Messiah’s sacrificial death to which the sacrifice of the animal pointed. Yes, Christ died for the sins of all his elect of all times.

The Father gave his Son the cup of his foaming wrath that was against us. Paul writes, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). And the psalmist says, “In the hand of the LORD is a cupfull of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs” (Ps. 75:8). Isaiah calls, “Awake, awake! Rise up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes men stagger” (Is. 51:17).

The Father would not remove this cup from his Son. He must drink it, and he drank it to the very dregs. No more wrath remains to be poured out upon us. Why did he drink it? Because he loved his Father. Why did he drink it? Because he loved the church. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Why did he drink it? Because he loved each one of us individually. So we can exult with Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

Oh, the high price of our redemption! We were not redeemed with silver or gold or thousands of lambs. The prophet Hosea redeemed his sinful wife from the slave market for fifteen shekels of silver plus a homer and a lethek of barley. But the price of our redemption was the death of God’s beloved, eternal Son.

The Father abandoned his Son on the cross, laying on him all our sins. So Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46, KJV). The answer is, “Because I love every elect sinner personally with everlasting love. There is no other way to redeem them but by your death in their stead.”

The cup of God’s wrath is empty; no more wrath can be poured out against us. All our sins have been forgiven, and Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us. Oh, the glory of this double transaction! All our sin is imputed to God’s own Son, and all his righteousness is imputed to us. Now we are given a different cup. It is the cup of salvation (Ps. 116:13), the cup of blessing (1 Cor. 10:16), and the cup that runs over (Ps. 23:5). Jesus said, “I give them eternal life. I have come that they may have life and that more abundantly and overflowing.”

There is expiation and propitiation. God not only forgives our sins, but he is also reconciled to us. He is not angry with us anymore; he is gracious to us. (PGM) And now we can come boldly to the throne of grace. We now can have fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus did not die on the cross to change the Father’s mind. It was always the Father’s plan to save us this way. His love for us spared not his Son. The Father loved us and therefore gave his Son up to the death of the cross. Isaiah prophesied this: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . .Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer” (Isa. 53:6, 10). Paul says, “God presented [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement. . . . But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 3:25; 5:8). In his commentary, Professor John Murray quotes Octavius Winslow: “Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy;-but the Father, for love!”1

The law stated, “Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out” (Deut. 27:26). Paul says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). The psalmist declared, “Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me. . . . Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. . . . They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn-for he has done it” (Ps. 22:12-13, 16, 31). And from the cross Jesus pronounced, “Tetelestai-it is finished.” The work of redemption was finished. Murray says, “There was only one . . . who bore the full weight of the divine judgment . . . and bore it so as to end it.”2

In view of the Father’s action and Christ’s obedience displayed by the wondrous cross, how can we ever doubt God’s love for us in life and in death! The Father gave him up for us all. “For us all” means in our place and for our salvation. Christ’s life and death were substitutionary. He actively and passively obeyed in our place and for our eternal salvation. Forgiveness of sins and perfect righteousness now come to all who trust in the person and work of this divine substitute. Isaac asked his father, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “Jehovah Jireh: the Lord will provide.” Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, is our Jehovah Jireh. In Jesus, the Lord will provide everything that we need.

Christ is our only vicar. His death was vicarious in behalf of us all. Note, this is not speaking of universalism. Jesus did not die for every person in the world; he died only for those whom the Father foreloved, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified. That is a definite number of people from all the families of the earth. The “us” of verse 31 is the “those” of verses 29-30. It is the same as the “us” of verses 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, and 39. Paul is speaking of the elect of God, not everybody in the world. God gave his Son up for all who repent and trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. If you refuse to repent truly, trust savingly, and live in obedience to Christ, then he did not die for you.

The Blessings That Flow To Us

“How shall he not together with him freely give us all things?” The argument is, if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, if he already did the most difficult thing and paid the highest price for our redemption, if he has given us the greatest and most precious gift he possessed, then it is absolutely impossible for him not to give us all lesser things.

It is an argument from the greater to the lesser. It is sound reasoning and pure doctrine. We see similar logic illustrated in Judges 13. God revealed himself to Manoah’s wife and later came to speak to her husband. They realized that this person speaking to them was neither a man nor an angel, but God himself. Manoah, speaking emotionally, exclaimed, “We are doomed to die! . . . We have seen God!” (Judges 13:22). But Manoah’s unnamed wife exercised logic and answered her husband, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things nor now told us this” (Judges 13:23). What a mind! In other words, she was reasoning, “God did not come to kill us. He brought us good news, the gospel, that we would have a son who would be a judge to deliver his people from foreign domination.”

A parallel argument from the greater to the lesser is found in Romans 5:8-10. If helpless, sinful, ungodly enemies can be reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! As we resist the devil through such powerful biblical arguments, he shall flee from us. Therefore, we must think logically. We are living at a time when irrationalism rules. Irrationalism is the very heart of postmodernism. No one wants to think. People would rather ask, “How do you feel about it?” But we must exercise our minds. We can be delivered from all our shackles of sin and misery if we understand biblical arguments and believe them.

There is also an argument we can make based on our union with Christ. Paul says, “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ as raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. 6:3-4). By faith we died with Christ, were buried with Christ, and were raised with Christ to live the resurrection life of Christ. Christ never dies again; he lives forever. And because he lives, we shall also live forever. He is the vine; we are the branches, and the branches live by the life of the vine. Christ is our life, and with him, the Father gives us all things. This is the type of thinking we must engage in.

We also find in the Bible arguments from the lesser to the greater. Read Matthew 6:25-34 from this point of view and see the substantial arguments Jesus makes. If God cares for the birds and the lilies of the field-those are the lesser things-how much more will he care for his children of grace! So Jesus asks, “Are you not much more valuable to God than birds?” The answer is “Yes,” for we are created in the image and likeness of God, and for us Christ died. So Jesus exhorts us in that passage not to worry about temporal things-food, clothing, housing, and all other things our physical bodies need. In fact, he says, “Don’t worry” four times in that passage (Matt. 6:25, 28, 31, 34).

But realize that God provides these things to us through our work. An idle, lazy man is a sinner who every day lives against God and his law. Work six days a week, and the Lord will bless your work, and all your needs shall be met. Did you ever think about the fact that birds work to get their food? Even the lilies of the field work.

God freely gives us all things; everything we have, we receive by grace, not by our merit. Even God’s enemies live because of his common grace. They are given daily bread through their work. God’s sun shines upon them, the rain comes upon them, and the earth produces food for them.

But in Jesus Christ we are given also special grace, which flows to us from the cross of Christ-the blessings of regeneration, repentance, saving faith, righteousness, the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of God, adoption as sons, and glorification.

What is Paul’s argument? If God has already given us his most precious, indescribable gift in Jesus Christ, how much more will he lavish every other gift upon us freely? The cross proves the Father’s super-generosity of love toward his children. No wonder Mary was generous in taking all her money to buy the most precious perfume and pour it on Jesus! Those who give generously to God and his church are those who have appreciated the super-generosity of divine grace.

Dr. John Stott says the cross “is the guarantee of the continuing, unfailing generosity of God.”3 Dr. Douglas Moo says God’s giving up of his Son guarantees his all-future blessings.4

We find promises of these blessings in the psalms:

*Ps. 23:1: The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

*Ps. 84:11: For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

*Ps. 85:12: The LORD will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest.

*Ps. 86:17: Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

*Ps. 103:1-5: Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

In Christ we are given all things, spiritual and temporal, that we need to live. Paul exclaims, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). In Christ we are given all things necessary for our preservation, perseverance, and final glorification. So Paul writes, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength. . . . And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:13, 19; see also 2 Cor. 9:8; 12:9; 1 Cor. 4:7).

What about temptation? This week I was tempted not to exercise. But I resisted the devil and said, “I am going to spend even more minutes today exercising because you tempted me.” Paul declares, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

God also gives us much needed instruction and counsel. The psalmist says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you” (Ps. 32:8). Our problem is that too often we do not want to heed the counsel.

The late Dr. James Boice says Romans 8:32 “is a blank check for our true needs.”5Professor John Murray says, “The costliness of the sacrifice assures us of the greatness of the love and guarantees the bestowal of all other free gifts.”6 Dr. John Piper quotes John Flavel:

How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this [giving up his Son for the death of the cross], spirituals or temporals, from his people? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them? Surely if he would not spare this own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.7

Now we do not have all things, but they shall come to us in due time. As for now, God’s mercies are new every morning. Soon we shall put on also immortality and glory.

All blessings, spiritual and temporal, flow to us from the Father and in and through his Son, Jesus our Lord, who loved us and gave himself for us on the cross. He is our Savior. But he is also the Judge of all who will not surrender to his lordship. All judgment is given to him by his Father. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry. . . . his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:12).

Either God’s own Son bears our wrath for us, or we must bear it ourselves. That is the choice we all face. John Murray says, “The lost in perdition will everlastingly bear the unrelieved and unmitigated judgment due to their sins; they will eternally suffer in the exaction of the demands of justice.”8

God’s people alone confess, “Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification.” God’s people alone can say, “Jesus Christ loved me and gave himself for me.” God’s people declare, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” May God help all of us to trust in Jesus Christ today, that we may be saved and enjoy this glorious freedom from the wrath of God. Jesus said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” May we live in obedience to God and enjoy eternally the sunshine of his love. Amen.

1 John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 324.

2 John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 77.

3 John R. W. Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994), 255.

4 Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 539.

5 James Boice, Romans, Vol. 2: The Reign of Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 954.

6 Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 17.

7 Piper, http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2002/100_God_Did_Not_Spare_His_Own_Son/

8 Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 77.