THE “great love” of God found in Christ both its expression and its measure.
At the cross we see man’s estimate of that love. “They rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love;” but, as another has remarked, “the blood met the spear,” for “where sin abounded” (and surely it abounded at Calvary), “grace did much more abound.”
It was at such a cost alone — yes, at such a sacrifice — that the supper of God’s eternal grace (Luke 14) could be spread. The cost was great indeed; but “God so LOVED the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If God therefore “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
“With Him!” Yes; God connects “the things He has prepared for them that love Him” with Christ. Hence we read in Ephesians 1:3,3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: (Ephesians 1:3) concerning all that “believe” (verse 13), that God “hath” (not “will,” but “hath”) “blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies IN CHRIST.”
It is now that the supper is spread, and such is the infinitude of that super-abounding grace that “all things are NOW ready” for whosoever will accept God’s invitation “COME”; and it is when seated at that blest repast the guests discover that they were “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,” and destined to be “Forever with the Lord.”
Oh, what a bright and happy prospect! What a vivid contrast to all the poor, wretched, Christ-rejecting world can give!
But if in all this Christ is the expression of God’s mighty love, what shall we say as to His being the measure of it? Every blessing that God has linked with Christ is eternal — eternal redemption, eternal salvation, eternal life, eternal inheritance, eternal glory, and the like; and His love, the source of all the blessings, is eternal too, a love so boundless and so vast that its length is front everlasting to everlasting; Its breadth extends to all the world; its depth reaches to and plucks even the vilest of sinners as brands from the buntings, and in its height bears them upwards to where no angel’s feet have ever trod, and seats them in the heavenlies “complete in Christ,” “accepted in the Beloved.”
Oh, blessed security glorious abode of everlasting rest! “Who shall separate us front the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?.. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate, us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” Reader, what do you think of Christ?
N. L. N.