Love's Great Reason
(No. 3398)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 27, 1868.
"We love Him because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19.
This is the point where all genuine Christians meet. They can all say,
without exception, "We love Him." They do not agree in doctrine–it is
a pity, but I suppose that as long as we are in this body, we shall,
none of us, see all the Truths of God at once, and each man, seeing
only a portion of the Truth, is most likely to think that what he does
not see is not true–whereas it may be just as important as that which
he is able to perceive. Well, well, amidst a thousand controversies
between Calvinism and Arminianism, and all the forms that various
systems have taken with regard to this, and that, and the other, still,
all the elect of God, being quickened by Divine Grace, unite in this
one declaration, "Whatever we do not believe, we do love Him." There
are great diversities of experience, as well as of doctrine. Some are
down in the gloom and some never seem to leave the cellars of the
Lord's house–they have deep spiritual exercises, they doubt, they
fear, they tremble and are afraid. Others climb up to the very roof of
the Palace Beautiful and look abroad upon the fair scene around. Their
feet are used to dancing with spiritual delight and their hearts sing
sweetly before the Lord. Theirs is an experience of communion rather
than of corruption. They have been with Jesus and their faces are made
to shine with His company. Perhaps if I told my experience, it might
differ from yours from an experimental point of view–in that we might
stand wide as the poles asunder–but if we are in Christ, we can, each
of us, say with equal truth and intensity, "We love Him." There we join
hands! Whatever we have not felt, tasted, or known, we do love Him!
And you will notice, too, in this short expression that there is a
force, a power in it, principally derived from the fact of the
Personality of this love. "We love Hm." You know, to love an, "it," is
hard work. It seems contrary to the nature and all the instincts of
love. Love always seeks a living person to grasp. But when it is put,
"we love Him," it reads so naturally that we feel that we can love,
through the force of the Divine Nature within us, with all the vitality
and intensity of our godliness!
We can love Him–that blessed Son of God, that condescending One, that
sacrificing, dying Lamb–that ascended, reigning, coming Savior,
towards whom our hearts are drawn out. "We love Him." Depend upon it,
we must have more preaching about the Person of Christ and our hearts
must assume more and more a trustfulness and affection towards Him. A
merely doctrinal religion is pretty sure to degenerate into bigotry. An
experimental religion will sooner or later sink into gloom. Understand
what I mean. I am not speaking either against doctrine or experience.
On the contrary, I would say all I could in favor of both–and they do
enter into all men's lives who live near to Christ–but still make
either the one or the other the great master-thought, brood over either
of them, contend for them, live for them, throw your whole force into
them and you may degenerate! But when you live as unto Him. When He is
the Truth that you believe in. When He is the Way that you tread. When
He is the Life that you experience and when the doctrine and practice
and experience all meet in Him as lines in a center–then you shall not
be degraded, you shall not degenerate–but you shall rise! You shall go
from glory to glory, being changed by the Presence of the Lord. "We
love Him," then.
But I must make one observation before I plunge into the text, namely,
that in order to love this blessed Person, being a Person, it is clear
to everyone who thinks, that there must, first of all, have been some
acquaintance with Him and then some deep conviction concerning His
excellency. We cannot love whom we do not know or esteem. If we know
nothing about Christ, have no understanding of Him, have not in any
degree occupied our minds with Him, we may talk about love to Him, but
it will be mere talk. And after we have known Christ, by the reading or
hearing of the Word, blessed to us by His Holy Spirit, it will be
necessary for us to be brought into an admiring confidence in Him,
believingthat He is the altogether lovely, the chief among ten
thousand, worthy of all our reliance, worthy of all our adoration and
service! Then it is, when knowledge has produced faith, that faith
gives birth to love!
I make this remark because I have sometimes noticed that in addressing
Sunday school children, it is not uncommon to tell them that the way to
be saved is to love Jesus, which is not true. The way to be saved for
man, woman, or child is to trust Jesus for the pardon of sin–and then,
trusting Jesus, love comes as a fruit! Love is by no means the root.
Faith, alone, occupies that place. And I think I have heard young
persons, too, talking always about the question, "Do I love the Lord or
no?"–a very proper question, but it is not the first, but the second!
The question that should always come first is, "Do I trust the Lord or
no? Do I rest entirely in what He has done for me? Am I depending upon
Him for eternal life and salvation?" If that first question is
answered, the second will not long remain a matter of doubt! But if you
begin with the second, and neglect the first, you may involve
yourselves in very serious consequences. The great Gospel precept is
not, "Love Christ," but, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
shall be saved"–not that love is less than faith, but that love,
though, perhaps, first in point of excellence in some respects, comes
second in point of order–and that faith is first to be looked to in
the soul and then love will inevitably and necessarily follow.
But now to come to the text. I shall treat the first part of the
sentence as the great general confession of the whole Church–"We love
Him." And the second first part of the sentence as the most glorious
reason for that love–"because He first loved us." I am not going to
preach this evening, but only to stir you up about these points.
I. THE GREAT GENERAL CONFESSION, "WE LOVE HIM."
Now, if you are a child of God, you will say, or if you do not say it,
it will be true, "We love Him." As sure as ever you have passed from
darkness to light, whether you are an Episcopalian, or a Presbyterian,
or a Baptist, or whatever you may be, you will agree with this
utterance of the one mouth of the one Church! We all, without
exception, who have believed in Him, love Him.
But how do we love Him? We love Him, first, not at all as we ought to
love Him. We confess that much with shame–and not at all as we wish to
love Him. Our conception of what is due to Christ is, no doubt, very
short of what is due to Him, but we fall short even of our own
conception! I am afraid that many of us are like the children at school
who have a good, fair copy set them at the top of the page, and the
next line is written to imitate the copy, and the next imitates the
imitation of the copy and as it gets to the bottom of the page–alas,
poor writing–how unlike it is to the perfect copy at the top! So what
is due to Christ stands at the top–what I believe about Christ in my
best moments stands next. What I actually give to Christ comes next to
that–and then far down the page, how badly do I write and how far do I
fall short of what my love knows I ought to give Him!–
"Yes, I love You and adore, Oh, for Grace to love You more!"
Now, remember, we never make ourselves love Christ more by flogging
ourselves for not loving Him more. We come to love those better whom we
love by knowingthem better, not by talking to ourselves about the duty
of loving them, for love and duty, somehow or other, do not work well
together. I mean that to talk of love being squeezed and pressed out by
duty is not at all congruous. Love is like the generous first drops of
the honeycomb–the virgin honey which drips spontaneously because the
comb is full to bursting. Such is true, genuine love. If you want to
love Christ more, think more of Him, think more of what you have
received from Him. Study His Character more in the Word of God. Draw
more often near to Him in prayer. Live more in holy fellowship with
Him. These are the logs that shall make that oven blaze. This is the
secret fuel that shall make our soul on fire with love to Jesus! We do
not love Him as we ought, nor as we wish.
But for all that, in the next place, we do really love Him. The devil
tells us we do not, but when it comes to close quarters, we can turn to
One who knows better than the devil, and we can say, "Lord, You know
all things, You know that I love You." What a mercy it is that Jesus
Christ does not believe our actions, for they very often say, "Jesus,
we do not love You." But He reads our hearts, and our hearts still beat
with this, "Oh, my God! In my very soul I do love Christ, and if it
were possible I would never sin against Him! Oh, wretched man that I
am, that I should live so contrary to my true life and that the thing
that I would, I do not, and what I would not, that I do, for I find
this law in my members, bringing me into captivity. For I have tasted
of freedom and am, indeed, free, and will not be the servant of any,
but will be the espoused one, the free espoused one of Christ Jesus my
Lord." Yes, we do really love Him!
And we also, if we are saints at all, love Him practically. We delight
and that is the true standard and gauge of the man–in that in which he
delights. We delight in His service, in His company, in His friends.
There is nothing–I feelsure some of us can say this without
egotism–there is nothing that makes our soul feel so full of bliss as
when we have opportunities of glorifying the name of Jesus Christ! And
if we had the offer of all the kingdoms of the world, and but a grain
of glory put into our hand that we might give to Christ–we would
sooner have it than all the wealth of the Indies and all the royalties
of all the empires! To glorify Christ is a lasting treasure which shall
abide with us when the world is on a-blaze. To teach one little child
the name of Jesus. To bring the tear into its little eyes about the
dying Lord is better and sweeter work to us than statesmanship, itself,
could be if it were dissociated from Him–
"Is there a lamb among Your flock,
I would disdain to feed?
Is there a foe before whose face,
I'd fear Your cause to plead?" Some of you are very busy preaching for
my Lord and I know that when you are preaching, your main desire is
that He may be extolled in your hearers' hearts. Do you not pine and
sigh after this? Would you not give up all the graces of oratory, and
talk in the most vulgar style, if necessary, if you could win one soul
for Him? I know you would, my Brothers, for this is every true
minister's desire! And you, too, who have been standing in the streets
today, preaching at the corners, I hope–no, I feel it must be so with
you if you are His at all–that you spoke out of love to His dear name
and when you would have preferred to have been silent, it was love that
unloosened that tongue of yours! Do you not wish you could speak
better? Do you not wish you could command attention better? And it is
all for Him, for His dear sake that you might paint Him better before
the eyes of men! And you, dear teachers in the classes, you who have
been engaged in the Sunday school, if you are right at all, and I trust
you are, you have been teaching because you wanted to make Him famous
and to let Him see of the travail of His soul. And you who cannot come
to the school, but have been praying for your children and talking with
them, you who have been dropping your pence into the box and have each
been trying to do your share of something for the Master–well, if His
life is in your hearts and His blood is sprinkled on you, you can say
that you desire to do all this as a practical evidence that you so love
Him! All the works that you have done today, done in His Spirit, have
been a repetition of this verse, "We love Him."
Now, will you do the same in your ordinary lives, for in this I fear we
sometimes fail? As a servant, live as one who loves Jesus! As a master,
as a workman, as a merchant, as a man of retirement and property, still
let this be the guide of your steps, the order of your life, the model
by which you shape your conversation, "We love Him." Let every breath
prove it! Let every heaving of the lungs, every motion of the tongue
and of the hand, prove the great and blessed reality of the fact that
we love Him!
Brothers and Sisters, we can go a step further. I trust we love Jesus
Christ not only really and practically, but we love Him supremely. That
point has often vexed good hearts. They have said, "I cannot say that I
love Jesus Christ better than father, or mother, or husband, or wife,
or child." No, you cannot say it, and there are a great many things we
cannot say, which it were better not for us to say, which would be
immodest for us to say, but they may be true for all that! They who are
beautiful, talk not of their beauty, and those who love most are
usually the most diffident about their love. Now, you cannot contrast
loves, the one to another, as you can contrast five to eight and say
which may be the greater. It is not an arithmetical problem, but I will
put it to the proof with you in this way–if you had to lose that dear
husband, or else lose Jesus Christ, what would you do? Why, it does not
take two minutes to consider! You would not put them in the scale
together for a single second! He stands out of sight, above all
husbands and dearest wives! We cannot consider Him in such a relation
as that. Or, put it thus–if you had to give up your hope of Heaven and
your interest in Christ tonight, or to lose all that you have–what
would you do? Why, I think you would not need to go into that little
chamber to calculate. "No," you say, "all that I have, why it is so
little! It is a thing of care to me, and if it were not, if I had more,
as I would be very glad to have that I might give up more, I would put
it all away and say, 'Lord, I have left all that I might follow You.
But in leaving it, I did but gain a greater consciousness of Your love
to me and a far greater and deeper enjoyment of that love.'"
Sometimes, however, some of you young people get an opportunity of
showing which you love best–whether you do love Jesus better than all
things else, or not. In the case of marriage, that test often comes.
And ah, how lamentable is the fact that many a young Sister, and many a
Brother, too, will break through Christ's law, "Be you not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers." I know this is a perplexing and
solemn point, mark you. You do, in fact, give Christ up when you take
that ungodly man! And you, young man, when you seek after that
Christless woman, you deny your
Lord and Master–as far as you can do it, you deny Him and give Him up
for the sake of earthly pleasures! For such an act as that, your
conscience may well prick you, and if you are, indeed, the Lord's
servant, the rod will follow you, and in your household the Lord's hand
will go out against you as long as you live. You there came to the test
and could not stand it! But I hope there are many, many here who could
say, "Yes, with everything that beauty could present to attract my
heart, and all that wealth could lay at my feet to win my regard. With
all that honor could put before me to dazzle my desires, I feel that I
must obey my Lord and Master. I must be a chaste virgin unto Him, and
give myself to Christ and to Him alone." We love Christ, Brothers and
Sisters–I trust we do supremely!
"We love Him," also, always. The love of a Believer to Christ is not a
thing of Sundays, nor of public meetings and Prayer Meetings. "We love
Him"–it is the utterance of the man sitting at the desk penning a
letter, or standing in the market selling his corn, or on the exchange,
dealing in his shares and stocks. "We love Him." Our love is not a
spasm. It is not a mere emotion, a thing of excitement. It does not,
like the Salamander, live in the fire, but then die when the fire dies
out. "We love Him," soberly, steadily, constantly, persistently, after
a real and serious, and business-like spirit. "We love Him"–it is
intertwisted with our daily life! It is part of our inmost being! It
flows in the blood, it breathes in the lungs, it is everywhere about us
and we could as soon cease to exist as to cease to be lovers of Christ.
I mean, of course, if we are, indeed, the saved sons of God. We love
Him, then, constantly.
And yet another thing, dearly Beloved–we love Him increasingly. We do
not always think so, but it is true, if we are right with God. We love
Him more than ever. When we are first converted we think we shall love
Jesus Christ a great deal more than we really prove to do, and much of
that love, afterwards, departs, but it is only the superficial and
half-fictitious love that vanishes.
Look! Mary is lighting the fire and as the straw or paper takes light
at the bottom, what a great blaze there is! No sooner is the match put
to it than the flames rush up the chimney. But come again in half an
hour–why, there is not half the blaze, nor any crackling, nor noise!
But is there less heat? Why, see, the coals have caught and the whole
grate has become one glowing mass of fire! There is not half the blaze
and the crackling, but there is more real, solid heat. And so is it
with the growing Believer! At the first, there is much of excitement,
much of novelty, but afterwards there is the steady, calm warmth of a
glowing soul! I can only say, Brothers and Sisters, that if we do not
love Christ, growingly, we ought to do so. He is One that grows upon
Believers. The more they know Him, the better they must love Him. The
longer is their experience of His faithfulness, His fullness, His
freeness, His goodness and greatness, the deeper, and firmer, and
broader, and higher ought to be their love of Him! And I trust that it
is so.
And another thing–we love Him and we are not ashamed to love Him–and
we are not ashamed to confess it and we do not blush to bear the shame
which may come to us after the avowal. Ah, perhaps I am addressing some
here–I do not know where they are–who love my Lord, but they have
never said so. Oh, you that are on the rock, in the secret places of
the stair, come forth and let Him hear your voice, for that voice is
sweet to Him, and your face is comely in His eyes. Oh, be not ashamed
to confess that you love Him! There is nothing in it of which to be
ashamed. It might make an angel proud to be permitted to love Christ
and to declare His love. Ashamed of saying that I love Him? No! Let the
earth hear it and let it rage! Let Hell hear it and let it boil over
with fury! Yet is He such an One that as I cry, "I love Him," I feel it
to be the grandest, greatest statement that Divine Grace can enable us
to make! Yes, never, in any circumstances make this a thing to be shy
about, but avow it in your actions and declare it by your public
profession, "We love Him!"
Brothers and Sisters, we bless God that the day is coming when we shall
love Him best of all This tenement of our body is falling away by
degrees. These fetters of the flesh are rusting off. We shall soon be
free and when the emancipated spirit shall see Him without a veil to
hide Him, then shall our love to Him be perfected! Or if He comes
before our death arrives, we shall see Him as He is and shall be like
He–and then, too, shall our love rise to its transcendent maturity! It
is a mercy that while other loves die like lilies, broken at the stalk,
or fall like rosebuds when they burst and are fullblown, our love to
Christ shall go on forever and forever increasing! And when Heaven and
earth shall pass away, immortal love, eternal love, shall still abide!
As long as God exists, the love of God shall be shed abroad in us and
our hearts shall continually love Him in return.
I might pause here to say–if it is true that you love Him, dear
Brothers and Sisters–love His people better, love His poor better,
love His cause better, love His Truth better, love poor blood-bought
sinners better, love the assemblies of His saints better, love His Word
better, keep His commandments better, draw nearer to Him, aim to be
more like He! May these practical Truths, though unspoken by me, yet be
lived out in your conversation. But now for the second head. We can
only afford a few minutes upon it, but it is a subject which might well
occupy eternity in our meditation–
II. THE GLORIOUS REASON FOR OUR LOVE.
"We love Him–because He first loved us." It is personal, again, you
see, personal again. "We"–"Him"–two persons–and here is the reason
for it–"because He first loved us"–persons again! We do not love
Christ because the minister preached, or we received his doctrines, or
because we can understand that such-and-such things are in our Lord's
teachings. The reason for the love springs from Himself, as it goes out
after Himself. It is because of something that He did and something
that He said, prior to anything that He did. "We love Him because He
first l oved us." Love is the cause of love! He loves–we love. We love
second and after Him because He loves first and before us. He first.
Now, that is an experimental Truth of God. We know that He loved us
before we loved Him. Just look back on your life before conversion. He
loved you then. What made you love Him at all? It was because you were
told that He loved you and you believed it. Law and terrors never made
you love Him–they hardened you. It was a sense of blood-bought pardon
that dissolved you and you saw the love of Christ in that pardon! And
so, you could not help loving Him in return. This is no novelty–this
is no mere theory–it is a great Truth of God! I pray you turn it over.
Jesus loved you when you lived carelessly, when you neglected His Word,
when the knee was unbent in prayer. Ah, He loved some of you when you
were in the dancing saloon, when you were in the playhouse–yes, even
when you were in the brothel! He loved you when you stood at Hell's
gate and drank damnation at every draught! He loved you when you could
not have been worse or further from Him than you were! Marvelous, O
Christ, is Your strange love! What love is this that shone on us when
we were the serfs and slaves of Satan, the dishwashers in the kitchen
of iniquity? When nothing was too hard for some of us to do if we might
but sin–and yet He loved us! And others there were of us who were as
bad as this–proud, hypocritical, rotten-hearted professors who were
boasting of our own self-righteousness, as proud as Lucifer, when there
was not even a good thing in us–and yet we were loved with His great
love, wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in trespass and in
sins! Blessed be His name!
Now, that is a matter of experience, and it is also a matter of our
firm belief and joyous confidence that Jesus loved us beforethat–in
that tremendous day, the center of the two eternities, the end of one
dispensation and the beginning of the next–that day in which the sun
was darkened and yet for the first time began to shine, that day in
which the earth did shake and Heaven was established–that day in which
the dead arose and the thoughts of men were discovered–in that day
when He, the appointed Substitute, went up to Calvary with all the sins
of all His people upon Him, piled like a tremendous world–when, like
another Atlas, He bore that overwhelming load upon His shoulders and
afterwards heaved the whole infinite weight into forgetfulness! In that
day He gave the supreme proof of His love to us. Look at those eyes red
with weeping–see how He loves! Look at those cheeks defiled with the
filthy spit and bruised where the fists of the scoffers struck Him! See
how He loved! Look to that dear head still scarred with the jagged
wounds of the crown of thorns! Look to that matchless mouth and that
tongue so parched. Look to the whole face, so marred as to be sorrow's
dwelling place. Look to the whole body so utterly agonized, tortured
and languishing. Look to the tender gracious hands–those crimson
fountains tell the tale! Look at the feet–those scarlet rivulets
declare how deep is His love! Yes, look to His side, sliced open by the
soldier's spear–that precious stream of blood and water declares with
double and indisputable force that Jesus loves! And we were not born
then–we were not here! He loved us first.
But this grand old Book bids us go farther back than that day! He loved
us when, in the Garden, our first parents spoiled us all and a promise
was given that He should come to bruise the serpent's head. Yes, when
yonder mountains were infants, when the gray old world and its ruins
that speak of ages were as yet but newly formed, yes, and before
that–before the sun's great flame was lit by the Divine torch, before
stars began to whirl in their all but boundless revo-lutions–when time
was not, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days and He dwelt
alone, the Infinite Jehovah– even then, Jesus loved His people! His
prescient eyes had seen them. His Sovereign choice had separated them.
His distinguishing Grace had discriminated them and His eternal purpose
had decreed them to be His forever and ever! He loved us first.
Well, if this is not a good reason for loving Him, where could such
reason be found? He first loved us. Oh, cold hearts! Oh, slabs of
marble! Oh, blocks of granite! Oh, icebergs! If we melt not now, when
will we melt? He loved us first! That glorious thought like fire rushes
through and through and through our very deepest nature and refines it,
and sets us all on a glow. We must love Him because He first loved us!
Words fail me to speak about that love of His. It was a love so
condescending that He stooped from Heaven to reach us, laid aside the
royalties of Glory and took upon Himself the infirmities of earth! It
was a love so lasting that the ageshave never dimmed it, nor lessened
it by so much as a single atom. It was a love so enduring that the ten
thousand provocations of our unbelief and of our sin have never
quenched it! Many waters could not quench it, neither could the floods
drown it. It was a love so generous that Jesus gave us all! He gave us
even His Father and His God, for did He not say, "My Father and your
Father, My God and your God"? He gave us and He gives us this day
Himself! He gives us communion with Himself. He gives us His blood to
wash us. He gives us His righteousness to clothe us. He gives us His
life for our example, His Throne for our rest at the last. Oh, generous
Love, nothing do You withhold! You reserve nothing for Yourself! You
give all to the beloved object. It was a love that was quite
disinterested. Jesus had nothing to gain. The gain was ours. It was a
love most self-sacrificing. His sufferings, how intense! His griefs,
how terrible! And all for His sweet love of us who were His enemies!
I would I had a seraph's tongue but for one moment–a tongue of flame
with which to speak of my Master! As I cannot have this, I must be
content to say that this ocean of Christ's love is one that is not to
be measured. Plunge into it! Ask that you may be swallowed up in it!
Pray that it may baptize you, that you may be lost in its overwhelming
floods and that henceforth for you to live may be Christ and to die may
be gain! Brothers and Sisters, the Lord's love is over you, and in you,
and in the power of His quickening Spirit may you live through another
week! And when we come together again, may our hearts retain some of
the glow of the affection which I trust we have felt burning within our
hearts tonight. To His name be praise! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS8:26-39.
Verse 26. Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities. Our
weaknesses, our insufficiencies, our inabilities–the Spirit of God
comes to be a Helper to the children of God!
26. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought We do not know
our own infirmities. Perhaps we think that we are strong while we are
exceedingly weak. The Spirit of God spies out the infirmities and puts
the help where the strength is required. "We know not what we should
pray for as we ought."
26. But the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groans which
cannot be uttered Those great things in prayer that we cannot ask for,
which can never be expressed in human language, the Holy Spirit
translates into groans. And so we are made to groan when we cannot
speak–and those groans bring us blessings which words cannot compass.
Have you been into your prayer chamber lately, pleading with God, and
have you felt as if you could not pray? We often pray best when we
think that we are praying worst! When there is the most anguish,
sighing and crying in prayer, there is most of the very essence of
prayer.
27. And He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the
Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the
will of God The Spirit knows what we need. God knows what the Spirit is
asking for–and so our prayer makes the complete round and God sends us
the blessing!
28. And we know–We know–we are sure of it.
28. That all things work together for good to those who love God, to
those who are the called according to His purpose. We know this for we
have proved it in our own experience. "All things work." There is
nothing inactive in the Providence of God. "All things work together."
There is a unity in Providence. God sets one thing over against
another. Blessed be the name of God, all things work together for good!
The purpose of God to His people is good and only good–and though this
or that might be injurious–yet, all put together, they work for good
to those who love God. Come, my Soul, do you love God? Can you say
tonight, "You know all things. You know that I love You"? All things
work together for your good! Not only shall they work, but they are
working–they work for your good now! And learn another sweet lesson.
You are one of those whom God calls according to the sweet purpose of
His electing love, for so it stands–they that love God are the same as
those who are called according to His purpose! If you love God, God
loves you. Your love to God, poor and faint though it is, is the
assured token that He loves you with an everlasting love and,
therefore, with bands of loving kindness has He drawn you.
29. For whom He did foreknow. That is, look upon with pleasure and
delight from before all worlds. Whom He did love and call to be His
own. Christ is the Man, the archetype. He is not to be a lone Man. It
is not good for man to be alone, not even for the Man! And there are to
be other men called by God's Grace who are to be made like He, who are
tobe His Brothers and Sisters. These, whom God foreknew, with fore-love
He has ordained, determined and predestinated to be made like His Son.
29-30. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son, that He might be the First-Born among many brethren. Moreover whom
He did predestinate, them He also called. Not with the common call with
which He calls other men, but with the special call! The hen, when she
is about in the yard, keeps on calling, but when she wants her own
little ones to come and run beneath her wings, then she has a special
cluck for them and they know it–and they come and run and hide beneath
her.
30. And whom He called, them He also justified. He regarded them as
just. He made them just through the blood and righteousness of Jesus
Christ.
30. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. There is no break in
this chain. The foreknown are predestinated, the predestinated are
called, the called are justified, the justified are glorified. It is a
wondrous chain! He that gets a hold of it anywhere has a hold of the
whole of it, for this Scripture cannot be broken! If you are called by
Grace into the fellowship of eternal life, you shall be justified and
glorified!
31. What shall we then say to these things?! do not know what we can
say. Wonders of Grace, mountains of mercy, mercy without limit–what
shall we say to these things? This, at least we, can say–
31. If God is for us, who can be against us? A great many can be
against us, but we reckon them as nothing at all if God is for us!
32. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?There can be
no end to the bounty of God after He has given His Son. He that has
given the jewel of the universe, the very eye of Heaven–will He not
give to us all else really needed–and give freely, too?
33-35. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God
that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes,
rather who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who
also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Dear children of God, feed on these words! They are like wafers
made with honey, like cold waters from the Rock! Eat, drink and be
filled. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
35. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?Well, these things have been tried. As it
is written, "For Your sake we are killed all the day long. We are
accounted as sheep for the slaughter." In Paul's day they were being
hunted to the death by the thousands and tens of thousands. Were they
separated from Christ's love? The enemy grew tired of persecution
before the saints were wearied by it! You remember how, in the days of
the Roman Empire, the Christians came to the judgment seat and
confessed Christ even when they were not sought after–as if tempting
their enemies to throw them to the lions, or put them to death! They
were destitute of all fear and though Emperors were worse than brutes,
these Christians defied them, outbraved them, vanquished them! They
could not put down the Christians.
36-39. As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long,
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter No, 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.