THE love of Christ to His people is a vast circle, immeasurable, from everlasting to everlasting, from eternity to eternity. Yet it is a ceaseless and abiding present. It has reached out from the past, and stretches out to the future; but it is still, and ever will be a continuous present. The praise of Him celebrated in Rev. 1:55And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (Revelation 1:5), begins thus, “Unto Him who loves (not loved) us—” and continues, “Who washed us from our sins in His own blood,” this is past, an act once accomplished, and never to be repeated, a perfect work which admits of no repetition, a complete work which cannot be added to. But the first strain concerning His love celebrates that which is ever the same, He ever loves us. Many a dear child of God is looking to the past love of Christ, and doubting His present love. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, such an one is looking to his past enjoyment of the love, that is, to his own enjoyment of Christ’s love, and not to Christ’s love itself.
A happy child upon its mother’s bosom is in full enjoyment of the love; perhaps, in after years, the memory of the past enjoyment fills the unhappy child with anguish. But it is not the love, only the enjoyment of it that has changed. How shall that unhappy child be restored to the realization of the love once so consciously sweet? By once more leaning on the mother’s breast. So it is with the Lord. Our place of happiness is His bosom—His heart.
Resting upon the heart of Christ, we are in the center of the immeasurable circle of His love. And when there, it is our constant desire to know Himself. It is no paradox, but a truism, that he who knows most of Christ, wishes the most to know Him. “That I may know Him,” was the apostle’s earnest desire. And in eternity there will still be this longing of affection, for it is not a disappointed expectation that so speaks, but the heart of one who has found the center of all joy, and whose knowledge only calls for more knowledge of the infinite.