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LOVE

“Love is indeed the very Being of God,” says Stephenson in his Chief Truths of

the Christian Faith. “Love is His Nature and Essence, so that whatever God

intends and designs, Love intends and designs. Love is the supreme directing

principle in all His actions. It is the supreme relation between Himself

and all created life-yea, the supreme relation between the Persons of the

ever-blessed Trinity. Were the Divine Nature capable of being expressed in

a single word, that one word would assuredly be Love.”

Because of this stupendous fact, this “deepest secret of heaven,” because

indeed God is love, He made the sublime decision to take upon Himself

human flesh, and in the person of His Son, live upon this earth as a man.

Says your Bible: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever

believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, RSV).

Why did God do this? Love is the only answer. He saw that this was the only

way to reclaim the human race from the bondage of sin into which it had

fallen as a result of the sad tragedy described in the third chapter of Genesis.

Because the inhabitants of earth were the creatures of His hand, He loved

them, deploring the sorrow and suffering that had come upon them. He

longed to bring them again into full fellowship with Himself, such as He had

enjoyed with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Man could not restore himself to that relationship. He had gone too far. He

had sunk too low. He was morally enfeebled by sin and doomed by God’s

own edict to die (Genesis 2:17).

There was nothing God could do but receive in Himself the penalty He had

decreed for sin. True, He could have set aside His law and said that it was

of no consequence; but had He done so, He would have jeopardized the

foundation on which the government of His whole vast universe depends.

The penalty for disobedience is death, and this penalty had to be paid either

by the offender or by the Lawgiver in His own person.

Because God is love, He chose the latter course, though He knew it must

lead to Calvary.

So in His own appointed time He came to this earth to dwell among His

human creatures in the ever-mysterious, ever-glorious Incarnation. “God

was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

It was a brief sojourn, yet replete with love. All the way from Nazareth to

Olivet He sought to convince mankind of His undying affection. From His

tender heart love poured forth in a ceaseless stream of gentle words and

kindly deeds.

Like the good Samaritan of His own parable He bound up the wounds of

His enemies. Graciously He befriended the poor, the sick, the outcast. He

loved the children, the young people, the old folks.

Calling a little child to Him, He said to His disciples, “It is not the will of

your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish”

(Matthew 18:14).

“Suffer little children to come unto me,” he added, “and forbid them not; for

of such is the kingdom of God.” Only someone with a love-filled heart could

have used such words.

When He met the rich young ruler, your Bible says, “Jesus beholding him

loved him” (Mark 10:21).

“Behold how he loved him!” exclaimed the bystanders as they saw Jesus weeping

in sympathy with Mary and Martha over the death of their brother.

Love was the central theme of His teaching. His disciples, He said, were to

love not only their friends but also their enemies. They were to do good to

those who hated them and pray for those who did them harm (Matthew 5:44).

They were to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and

their neighbors as themselves (Matthew 22:37-39).

“He that loveth me,” He said, “shall be loved of my Father, and I will love

him” (John 14:21).

“The Father himself loveth you,” He assured His followers, “because ye have

loved me” (John 16:27).

He taught men to call God “Father,” which was a new idea to most of them.

They had wandered so far away from God that they pictured Him as stern,

cruel, and inaccessible. God wasn’t like that at all, Jesus said. Instead He was

tender, kind, thoughtful, and understanding. “When you pray,” He told them,

“say, Our Father which art in heaven” (Luke 11:2).

Many people, He suggested, are like prodigal sons who leave home proudly

and self-confidently to enjoy the pleasures of sin. In consequence, they get

into much trouble and sorrow. But if they repent and return to God, they

will find a loving heavenly Father waiting with outstretched arms to welcome

them.

Completing His revelation of the love of God, Jesus went at last to the cross.

There, as the Son of God and at the same time as the one sinless representative

of the race, with His divine and human natures inseparably blended, He

offered up a complete, perfect, and all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of men.

Thus was the penalty paid. And “as by one man’s disobedience many

were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous”

(Romans 5:19).

This sacrifice was in no sense intended to appease an angry deity. Rather it

was God offering Himself. As we read above, “God so loved… that he gave”;

and the sharing in this sublime transaction of all three Persons of the blessed

Trinity is revealed in the beautiful words: “Christ… through the eternal

Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14).

Moreover, Christ’s sacrifice was altogether voluntary. “The Son of man came

not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for

many” (Matthew 20:28).

“No man taketh it from me,” He said concerning His life “but I lay it down

of myself” (John 10:18).

“Our Saviour Jesus Christ,” said Paul, “gave himself for us, that he might

redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus 2:13, 14).

“He offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27).

He “gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6).

“He gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil

world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Galatians 1:4).

Here indeed was perfect love, made manifest by an act of utter self-surrender

and submission, the willing yielding up of life that others might live.

What the Incarnation cost God the Father we shall never know. How much

it meant for God the Son to die for the human race must also remain a

mystery. Even the angels do not understand it; and it will be the theme of

endless discussion and wonderment through all eternity (1 Peter 1:11, 12).

Nevertheless, the results are clear.

God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be

made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for

us” (Galatians 3:13, RSV).

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;

the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are

healed… The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5, 6). “He

was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many” (verse 12).

What awfulness of suffering this bearing of sin brought upon the Son of God

we shall never know, but it reached the ultimate limit because of the utter

perfection of His character. As Bishop B. F. Westcott says: “Man as he is cannot

feel the fall significance of death… but Christ in His sinlessness perfectly realized

its awfulness. In this fact lies the immeasurable difference between the

death of Christ, simply as death, and that of the holiest martyr.”

Upon Him who came from God, with mind attuned to that of His holy

Father, and with all the delicate sensitiveness of a perfect character, fell the

terrible impact of the penalty of sin. No wonder we read in the Scriptures

that we have been bought “with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). What a price!

Only perfect love, in the heart of the Eternal Lover, could have devised a

plan of salvation such as this and endured so much to carry it through to

its consummation.

Trying to bring home to the people of Philippi the stupendous nature of the

divine sacrifice, the apostle Paul wrote this sublimely beautiful description:

“Though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God

a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being

born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled

himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore

God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above

every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and

on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11, RSV).

Thus did God seek to bridge the gulf that sin had made. As Peter wrote:

“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might

bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Because of the wonder and glory of the divine sacrifice and the intensity of

love that it revealed, look again at Jesus hanging on the cross. Behold Him

in whom all truth is centered dying for those in error! Behold Him who is

the author of light dying for those in darkness! Behold Him who is wisdom

personified dying for the foolish and the ignorant! Behold Him from whom

all life springs giving Himself for the dead in sin! Behold Him who is Himself

holiness, purity, and righteousness dying for the unholy, the impure, and the

depraved! Behold Him in whom all power is centered submitting to every

indignity, dying for the wayward and the weak! Behold Him who is all Love

yielding His poor, marred body as a sacrifice on this despised and accursed

altar-Love suffering, Love nailed to the cross, Love dying, that the unlovely,

the vicious, the hateful, might be saved!

“O God, help us to realize it!” cries A. C. Dixon as he ponders the glories

of the cross. “Put all into one… all Truth, all Light, all Life, all Wisdom, all

Power, all Holiness, all Love incarnate in one Man, Who gives Himself for

the untruthful, for the darkened, for the dead, for the weak, for the unholy,

for the unlovely-and you have some conception of what the Cross of Jesus

Christ is in its deepest meaning” (The Glories of the Cross, pp. 12, 13).

No wonder Charles Wesley exclaimed, as he contemplated this stupendous

spectacle:

“O love divine, what hast Thou done!

The incarnate God hath died for me!

The Father’s well-beloved Son

Bore all my sins upon the tree!

The Son of God for me hath died-

My Lord, my Love, is crucified.”

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