What did God give? Nothing less than His Son. This is the love of God, that He gives us Someone–a living person–not something or another blessing, but Him who is all life and blessing.
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His son. He who has the Son has life. He who has does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12)
How did God give the Son?
- He gave Him in His birth as man, to be forever one with us. Christ Jesus was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history. He came into history from the outside. He is not the best human being the human race can boast of; He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate; God coming into human flesh from the outside.
Jesus said of himself, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23). His life is the highest and the holiest yet entering through the most humble of doors.
- He gave Him in His death on the cross as a guarantee to take away sin and curse. Sacrifice is at the very core of God’s nature. The greatest of all Christian virtues is love (1 Cor. 3:13), and the purpose of the greatest sacrifice ever made was to release the love of God on all men and women. It was out of love for us the Father sacrificed His only Son.
- He gave Him on the throne of heaven as our representative and intercessor over all the powers of heaven. Sacrifice also releases power. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the power released. The greatest of all sacrifices, the sacrifice of Jesus, has released the greatest power of all. At the very moment of His death, even before the resurrection, the natural realm could not contain the power released from the throne of heaven. The power of the cross invaded every realm of this world. It shook the foundations of the earth. It assaulted the religious realm, ripping open the veil of the temple from top to bottom–from heaven to earth. It even took on the greatest enemy of all, death, releasing dead and rotting bodies from their tombs (Matt. 27:51-52).
- He gave Him in the outpouring of the Spirit to dwell in us.
Note this quote from John G. Lake:
“In the Patriarchal dispensation, we see God appearing to man at long intervals. Abraham furnished the best example, for to him God appeared at long intervals of 20 to 40 years apart, so with the other Patriarchs.
“Under the Mosaic dispensation, there is a deeper and clearer manifestation of God. God was ever-present in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. He was present also in the tabernacle where the Shekinah glory overshadowed the mercy seat. This is a continuous abiding revelation of God. It was God with man not to man as was the Patriarchal dispensation. God was leading, guiding, forgiving, sanctifying, and abiding with man.
“But the revelation of God under the New Testament dispensation is a much deeper and truer revelation of God than this. It is God in man. It is the actual incoming of the Spirit of God to live in man. This brings us to where we can see the purpose of God in revealing Himself to man by progressive stages of revelation.
“Oh, wondrous salvation, wondrous Christ, wondrous atonement! Man born in sin, shaped in iniquity, forgiven, cleansed, purified outside and inside by the blood of Jesus and made the habitation (dwelling place) of God. It was that man once created in the likeness of God should again become the dwelling place of God.”
He gave His Son to us, for us, and in us. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”