THE more deeply we know the love of Jesus the more unknowable we find it to be: the more we consider the way of it the more amazed we stand at its wisdom and its warmth. It is not a blind love that may awaken to find flaws and faults in its objects that it knew not of, for it knew from the beginning with omniscient certainty all about the loved ones. It knew, also, with the unerring knowledge of God, the whole way of sorrow that must needs be trodden in order to obtain its desire. It is a love that cannot be disappointed or alarmed, and when the great tests came it neither faltered nor fled. We need not fear that it will break down or change now: it has been fully proved
“His love to the utmost was tried,
Yet firmly endured as a rock.”
Consider that great crisis in the life of the Lord when Judas came with “a band of men and officers... with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18). How hideous, how hellish did the treachery and hatred of the human heart appear in that torchlight glare! Yet that band was but an advance guard, a flying column sent out to reconnoitre: behind them lay the hosts of darkness, waiting to crush and overwhelm Him. They were but as the spray of a stormy ocean cast up upon the strand: behind them surged the seas of sorrow, frightful and unfathomed. But how did He meet the crisis? He met it by saying, “Let these go their way.” He might have escaped what lay before, from one point of view, for two words of His were enough to paralyze His foes. But He would not use His divine might to save Himself, for had He done so He must have lost His loved ones. In their fervid devotion His disciples might well have put that band to flight, but He would not let them fight. Of what use would their feeble arms have been against all that lay behind that band of men who came to take Him with Judas as their leader? He saw what lay behind them — the awful sorrow, the malignity of Satan, the judgment of God, and He said, “Let these go their way.” He saw the wolf preparing to devour the sheep. He saw the righteous sword, also, that had awakened against His people’s sins, and He said, “Let these go their way: that the saying might be fulfilled which He spake, Of them which Thou gavest Me, I have lost none.”
He would bear all the sorrow alone. Not one pang must they feel of all those pangs that He would endure for them: not one stroke of all that judgment that He would bear must fall upon them. Not one drop of that bitter cup must gall their lips: He would drink it to the dregs and drink it alone for them. He would shield them from the suffering: stand between them and the threatening foe: become their Substitute under the judgment, and sacrifice Himself for them. That was the only way, and His love led Him that way, with steadfastness and deliberation, that He might keep Forever for Himself those that the Father had given Him. And we were represented there in those of whom He said, “Let these go their way.” And we can say, each for himself, “He loved me and gave Himself for me.”
“Guilt’s bitter cup,
He drank it up,
Left but the love for me.”
He bore it all for me.