July 21

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. - 1 John 4:10.

THIS fact and incident is mentioned by the Apostle in order to set forth and illustrate the doctrine that “God is love.” Let us notice, first, the grandeur and the dearness of the gift. He sent not an angel, but the Lord of angels; not a servant, but a Son. His “own Son,” his “only begotten Son,” the “brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.” “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” This gift insures and includes every other. “With him he will freely give us all things.”

Observe, secondly, the condition he entered. It was not the angelic state; this would have been a mighty condescension, but he became lower; “the Word was made flesh.” Then our Saviour appeared in the most inferior forms of our nature. He lived a life of penury, of reproach, and of persecution. Peter had a home of his own. John had a home. “The foxes have holes,” says he, “the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” There are few who are destitute of all sympathy and compassion; but, says he, “I looked for some to take pity, and there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.” There are none who are strangers to sorrow of some kind; but he was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief .” But who can imagine or describe his inward sufferings, when he was in the garden and was “‘sore amazed,” and “very heavy,” when he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death;” when his sweat was “as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground;” when he exclaimed on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And yet “it pleased the Father to bruise him,” and for our sakes, and for our recovery. “God is love.”

Observe, thirdly, the unworthiness of the persons for whom he was sent to suffer and to die. Paul has been beforehand with us here. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We were all criminals, we lay entirely at his mercy, and he could both righteously and easily have destroyed us, but he did not. Herein is love.

Behold, fourthly, the beneficial consequences of the dispensations. “In this was manifested,” says the Apostle, “the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” God, says the Saviour himself, “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” What is it to perish? Not the loss of worldly substance, but the loss of the soul -not the physical loss of the soul-not the loss of its being, but the loss of its well-being, the loss of its happiness, the loss of it for ever.

And what is everlasting life? “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” And is it a light thing for my soul to be like his soul; my body to be like his body; my condition to be like his condition? Is it a light thing that when he who is my life shall appear I shall appear with him in glory, and walk with him in white, and sit with him at his table in his kingdom, and “inherit all things?” And even now this everlasting life is begun, even now our emancipated Spirits feel a freedom already, and “do enter into rest,” and “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

Fifthly, the number of the partakers. It is a multitude which no man can number, compared in the Scriptures to drops of morning dew, to the stars of heaven, and to the sand of the seashore. Half mankind die in a state of infancy; and surely if “of such is the kingdom of heaven,” here is half of the human race mercifully disposed of already. Oh how many would appear if we knew all! for the Lord has his “hidden ones.” How many have been saved since the foundation of the world! How many are the subjects of Divine grace, now passing through this vale of tears!

And we are looking forward to better times, when “a nation shall be born in a day,” when “he shall sprinkle many nations, when all nations shall fall down before him, and all flesh shall see the salvation of our God together.”