WHO would have thought that our salvation would come from heaven? Naturally that would have been the last place from which we should have expected it, for it was against heaven that we had sinned. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight,” cried the penitent prodigal, and that is true of us all. Our sins were a slur upon God’s majesty, a challenge to His supremacy, and a proof that we hated Him. We might have expected judgment from heaven, and wrath, and fire, and brimstone, but not love and salvation. But the unexpected has happened, and the truth must be told to all the world, that God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son. It is more than wonderful, and it cannot be explained by any standard of human conduct; it is what God is; it is the revelation of His very heart.
And yet, to whom could we have looked for salvation if not to God? Certainly no man could give a ransom for his brother; and all have sinned, hence all were under condemnation, and no one could save another. There could have been no hope for any man apart from God. If He had not intervened for our salvation, we must all have perished. He has intervened, and we who believe, wonder and worship. He “gave His only begotten Son.” This was the greatest and the best He could do, and nothing less than this would have availed.
It is by words that things are explained and understood by us, yet we feel that even the richest and fullest human words that we can command are altogether feeble and cold when this great love has to be told out. Even the Holy Spirit of God, who with divine wisdom selected and gave the best words that could be given to convey to us great truths, declared the inadequacy of all human language to express the greatness of this love gift, when He inspired Paul to exclaim, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!”
Paul knew how to use acceptable words, wise preacher that he was, and when occasion demanded, he could pile superlative upon superlative, as when he wrote of “the exceeding greatness of God’s power,” and “the exceeding riches of His grace,” and His ability “to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,” and of “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” But when he wrote of this gift of God, there were no words that could describe it. If there had been any in human language that could have conveyed to human intelligence the fullness and immensity of it, the Holy Spirit would have known them and given them to him, but there were none. We try to encompass this great gift with words, and we call it “great,” “ineffable,” “wonderful,” “incomparable,” “boundless,” and “perfect,” but they all fail. All these, or their equivalents in the languages of Paul’s day were duly considered and found wanting by the divinely-inspired writer. Overwhelmed by the character of the gift, he tells us in one brief sentence that it defies definition and baffles all description, that it is inexpressible, unspeakable. “Thanks be unto God,” he says, “for HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT.”
The gift is the proof and measure of God’s love. We may consider it, but never fully comprehend it; we may know it, yet it surpasses knowledge; we may speak of it, yet it is unspeakable; we may search the breadth, length, depth, and height of it; yet it is unsearchable; its dimensions and magnitude are forever beyond the creature’s range! The incarnation and the Cross, the rough way that Jesus trod, His sighs and sorrows, His suffering in Gethsemane, and the shame of Golgotha, the darkness, the woe, His death and blood-shedding, were all God’s voice to men, speaking with a growing intensity; they were God’s utterance of unutterable love; His love declared by His unspeakable gift. Whether we think of the love that gave the gift, or the gift that the love gave, or the flood of blessing that flows to men, and will yet flow to them as a result of it, there is only one thing we can do, unless we are hardened and blinded by the devil, and that is to give thanks unto God for His unspeakable gift.
“Unto me, the vile, the guilty,
Flows the living flood;
I, an enemy, am ransomed
By the precious blood.
Prostrate at Thy feet I lie,
Lost in Love’s immensity.”
Who can tell what it cost God to give this great gift? Mark well how language labors and strains to express the preciousness of God’s Son to Him. He is spoken of as “His only begotten Son.” His only one, the object of His full and undivided love, and He was this eternally. “Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world” are the words of JESUS to His Father. There never was, and never shall be a moment in Eternity or in Time when He did not dwell in the bosom of His Father, “the only begotten Son that is in (or exists in) the bosom of the Father,” is the way He is described. The Father’s bosom was, and is, His dwelling place. It is by such language that we are told how dear, infinitely dear He is to the Father, and worthy of that Father’s love. But He came forth from the Father to be the Saviour of sinners! And again, I ask, who can tell what it cost the Father to send Him forth? And having come into the world, how inexpressible is the love that flowed between the Father and the Son. The Father loveth the Son so well that He holds back nothing from Him, He gives Him all things (John 3:3535The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. (John 3:35)), and He shares all His thoughts with Him; the flow of communion was not diminished or interrupted when He came, a Man to earth (chap. 5:20). And as He lived His life, fresh causes were continually emerging that called forth fresh expressions of that love, and most of all when He laid down His life, for the Lord Himself said, “Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down My life” (chap. 10:17). And on the part of “the Son of His love,” there ever rose up a perfect responsive love to His Father. “He that sent Me is with Me: the Father hath not left Me alone; I do always the things that please Him”, He said. And again, “That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father hath given Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.” “God is angry with the wicked every day,” but in Jesus He found unceasing, never-failing delight, and Him He has given to save us and have us for Himself; so great is His love!
If there had been any other way by which sinners could have been saved, would He have done this? We are sure that He would not. If they could have saved themselves, would God have given His Son to save them? If they could have done it, He being the just God that He is, would have encouraged them to do it, and when they had accomplished the great feat, He would have put the crown upon their heads and said, “Well done”; but it was because we were without strength that Christ died for us; and “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” There was no other way by which we could be rescued from darkness and destruction. Only the only begotten Son could save us, the work was too great for man, angel, or archangel; and God gave Him that that work might be done, and that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.
This unspeakable gift produces an unspeakable joy in all those that believe. Appreciate the gift and let it be kept by the Spirit’s power before the heart, and an answering joy will be there; a joy that the heart knows for itself, deep, silent and unspeakable. It is the joy of faith, the joy of love, the joy of eternal life, the joy of the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ, His sent One.