The Father’s Love to His Dying Son

The Father's Love to His Dying Son

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, DECEMBER 8, 1889,

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING,
NOVEMBER 17, 1889.

"Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I
might take it again." John 10:17

OUR Lord Jesus here speaks of Himself in His complex personality as God
and Man, the Mediator between God and men. As such, He comes to us
first at Bethlehem, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger." We behold Him a babe, a child, a man, a worker, a sufferer, a
witness for the Truth of God and a victim condemned to die upon the
tree. We behold Him dead in the grave and risen again as the Interposer
between God and man.

In that capacity we shall think of Him during this discourse. It is the
voice of the Man Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, which says,
"Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I
might take it again." The Father feels boundless love to Him who, for
us men, and for our redemption, came down from Heaven and took upon
Himself our nature, and being found in fashion as a man, became
obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. "Therefore God also
has highly exalted Him," or, to use His own words, "Therefore does My
Father love Me."

At this time we shall not keep strictly to the text but shall introduce
other truths related to it. The run of our discourse will be somewhat
as follows–First, consider the Father's love to Jesus because of His
death and resurrection. Secondly, consider the Father's complacency in
us on that account. Then, thirdly, consider our love to Jesus on this
account. And, fourthly, consider our consequent fellowship with the
Father.

I. First, CONSIDER THE FATHER'S LOVE TO CHRIST JESUS BECAUSE OF HIS
DEATH AND RESURRECTION. This love was exceedingly sweet to Jesus.
Persecuted by men and sometimes depressed in His own spirit, He
comforts Himself with this, "Therefore does My Father love Me, because
I lay down My life, that I might take it again." To be well-pleasing to
the Father was everything with our Lord Jesus Christ. In heaviest toll,
in dark slander, in deepest perplexity, if His Father only said, "This
is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased," Jesus was refreshed with
meat which others knew not of.

Beloved, let us be like our Lord Jesus in this–let the love of the
Father to us be our comfort, our joy, our strength, our hope, our
Heaven. What more can men or angels have than the love of God? Let that
love be shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit and even the
celestial city cannot afford me a more pure and substantial delight. O
my God, Your love is precious beyond all estimate! "Whom have I in
Heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside

You."

But to come back to our Lord. The Father took the greatest delight in
His Son as laying down His life, first, because of the delight of Jesus
in His Father's plans. Exceedingly high are the thoughts of God in
reference to His dealings with the sinful sons of men. Jehovah could,
with a word, make creatures that should be perpetually innocent of sin.
He could also make creatures which He foreknew would choose evil ways
and depart into rebellion. But a simple act of creation would not
produce the character of elect man. A weapon may be struck from the
anvil at a blow. But a Damascus blade needs special annealing to
produce the temper needed in a champion's sword.

The chosen were to be a race who had eaten the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil and so knew good and evil by actual
practice–especially knew the result of evil in their own persons–for
they would even die spiritually. But they would be restored from death,
and Hell, and sin, and would be made haters of transgression, lovers of
righteousness. Though left to their own free agency, yet when the work
of Divine Grace was complete in them, they would be of a character to
which sin would be impossible, since they would so deeply abhor it.

These persons would be raised to the peerage of the Divine kingdom and
bear the name and dignity of sons of God, being in very deed Brothers
in blood to Him who is One with God. They were to be Brothers of the
Son of God by birth, and yet never to be the subjects of pride. It will
be infinitely safe for the Lord to entrust us with all the privileges,
royalties, and liberties of His own household. For this end it was
necessary that the chosen from among men should undergo a marvelous
process, much more complex and intricate than that which follows the
fiat of power–we must in Jesus die– and be made alive again in Him.

Beloved, it was necessary, in order to the completion of the plan of
Divine Grace, that God Himself, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ,
should take manhood into eternal union with Godhead. The Son agreed to
do this and was born of the Virgin. But when He took manhood into union
with Himself, He took all that belonged to manhood. Now, sin having
attached itself to manhood, the Christ, in becoming Man, took our sin
upon Himself, as it is written, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity
of us all."

He could not be actually guilty–God forbid the thought! But He became
legally amenable to the penalty due for our transgression. He was
willing even to make this stoop of condescension. When the Divine Plan
was proposed to Him, this was His answer–"Lo, I come: in the volume of
the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O My God!" Do
you wonder that the Father loved Him, when He saw in Him such
sympathetic union with Himself?

It was the Son's highest pleasure to become subservient to the Sacred
Plan of glorious Grace, in which, for ages to come, Jehovah would show
forth the glory of His nature, the splendor of His eternal purpose. All
the plan was acceptable to Jesus. And He was eager to carry it out at
His own expense. Though He knew that the work involved His death upon
the shameful tree, yet He felt so one with the Father that He cried, "I
delight to do Your will. Yes, Your Law is within My heart."

When He actually appeared as a child, He went up to the temple and
amazed His human parents with the words, "Know you not that I must be
about My Father's business?" Such a Son as this, so intent upon His
Father's plan–is it any wonder that we read, "Therefore does My Father
love Me"?

But His Father also loved Him for the constancy and perseverance with
which He pursued His lifework, making it His meat and His drink to do
the will of Him that sent Him. He underwent many rehearsals of His
passion before it actually came. When He said, "Except a corn of wheat
falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it
brings forth much fruit"–He was passing through a Baptism of
soul-trouble. The shadow of His death fell on Him often, before He
actually carried the Cross.

But His face was steadfastly set to go to Jerusalem. The plaudits of
the people never made Him turn aside and aspire to be a king. Their
denunciations never made Him tremble and seek shelter in obscurity. His
was a spirit constant to its high intent. To the last He was firm as a
rock. The manhood in Him shuddered at death–it would not have been
true manhood if it had not. But, overcoming His natural horror, He took
the cup and drank it to its dregs, with, "Not as I will, but as You
will."

He did say, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me." And He
there warranted us in saying that there was no other way of
accomplishing the Divine purpose, except by His death. Redemption could
not be accomplished except by the Substitute bearing the penalty and
dying, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. The Lord Jesus,
from the beginning, knew what it all meant–He often told His disciples
what would surely happen to Him.

He did not go to a suffering of which He was not aware. He was not, as
one said, like a man who went in among machinery to set it right and
was caught in a great wheel which was too strong for Him and so was
dragged to death. My Brethren, our Lord knew all about the strength of
that great wheel–He foretasted all the woe which the accomplishment of
His Father's purpose would cost Him. But He went forward, resolvedly
laying down His life, that He might take it again. Therefore His Father
loved Him, as well He might. Victim by intent! Redeemer by resolve! Be
You glorified forever!

Let me put to you a little picture. No doubt our Queen has a strong
affection for her sons. She loves them as her children. But if it
should so befall that one of the princes was found upon the seacoast in
the hour of storm, endeavoring to save men from a wreck. And if the
prince, when others stood back, bravely ventured his life to rescue the
perishing, would not his royal mother love him for his humanity? If he
threw himself into the surf in his eagerness to

save. If, foreseeing the consequences, he persevered in giving his own
life that he might bring poor perishing men to shore–would not his
mother feel that she loved him anew for his heroism? I think so.

Would not any of us love with renewed affection a dear son who had
displayed a sacred self-denial for the good of men? Now turn your
thought, reverently, to the great Father of spirits, who loves His Son
as His Son but yet loves Him especially, because, out of pure,
unselfish love, He laid down His life without debate. Marvel not that
He said, "Therefore does My Father love Me."

The chief source of this peculiar love was His actual death as the
perfecting of His obedience. He had become a servant and He served to
the end. In all His life no single disobedience ever occurred–the
great Father's will was the rule absolute. Now comes in the last clause
of the obedience–He must lay down His life, for so has God appointed.
And even unto this last He fails not but willingly yields up the ghost.
Jesus went to the garden and the bloody sweat. He went to the high
priest's hall and the false accusing–to Pilate's hall and the
scourging. He went to Herod and the setting at nothing.

He endured the Cross with its nails, its scorn, its darkness, its
fever, its death-agony–He went to it all as a lamb goes willingly to
the slaughter. On the way to death He was careful to obey–He would not
die until every Scripture had been accomplished. His last words, "I
thirst," were spoken that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. He
carefully observed the Father's will in all things–in the detail as
well as in the gross. And to prove that He obeyed even to the end, He
said, "It is finished"–and He bowed His head and gave up the ghost.
The Father is infinitely delighted with the perfect obedience of the
Son. He is a holy God, and He sees in Jesus, holiness perfected by
patience. Therefore He calls Him, "My Elect, in whom My soul delights."

Remember, also, that the death of our Lord Jesus was not only the
perfection of obedience but the vindication of God's righteous Law.
Some would have a god without law, that he might be love alone. This
might suit anarchists and the like. Let them, like the heathen, have a
god of their own making. Is it not well spoken by the Psalmist, "They
that make them are like unto them"? A lawless man fashions for himself
a lawless god. But he who knows that society cannot exist unless there
is law and unless law is sanctioned with reward and punishment,
delights to see that this is, also, the mind of God.

God has the deepest concern for order and Law. There was no anger in
God against men, as men. For while they abode in purity, He communed
with them. But the thrice-holy God must hate evil in every form and He
must abhor it even in His most favored creatures. If the Lord should
forgive sinners without demanding a penalty, He would weaken the
foundations of moral government. In his magisterial capacity the Judge
of all the earth perceived that He could by no means spare the guilty.
It would not have been an act of mercy to the race of men if God had
winked at human sin in any case. It would have been in conflict with
the fundamental Law of the universe.

Every rank of angels and intelligent beings in all worlds would have
been affected–affected mischievously–had it been proved that Jehovah
had in any case set aside His own perfect Law and allowed the breach of
it to go unpunished. It is not a case of private offense against an
individual–it is rebellion against the highest authority. Sin must be
punished, therefore. And Jesus came to do honor to the broken Law. He
was innocent. But He voluntarily submitted Himself as the
Representative for men, to suffer so that God could righteously
forgive.

The Law must be magnified and made honorable, and when the Lawmaker,
Himself, died under the penalty of the Law, then a sufficient
vindication was given to the vital principle of moral government. The
Law became more illustrious in righteousness by the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ than if every guilty son of Adam had been cast into Hell
because of his transgressions. Christ's sufferings were unto the Law of
God a full justification for the free pardon of guilty men– and as the
Father looks at the Son and sees Him lay down His life that He might
take it again, He is well content in justice to forgive, and in
righteousness to justify, the sinner. Truly said the Lord Jesus,
"Therefore does My Father love

Me."

Beloved, my heart delights in the thought that He who is a consuming
fire against all sin, yet, when He looks on Christ, sees such a
vindication given to His Law, that He can justly sheathe His sword and
smile on those whom once He was bound to smite.

Once more, I think we may say that the Father loves the Son in His
death and resurrection, because He herein manifested His supreme love
to men. We may say of our Lord Jesus, "Yes, He loved the people. All
His saints are in His

hands." The love of Jesus to His chosen is no new thing–no idea that
sprang up yesterday, to perish tomorrow. Long ages ago, when the
mountains were not brought forth and the ancient hills had not lifted
their heads, the saints had a dwelling place in the heart of God. He
saw us in the glass of His foreknowledge and loved us according to the
predestination of His will.

From of old the Father loved us so as to give us His Son and the Son
loved us so as to give His life a ransom for us. And because of this
love to one chosen object there was a fresh display of love to each
other. I said, in the opening of my discourse, that the Father always
loved the Son as God, but in our text we have a love of Him as Man and
God in one wondrous Personality, in which are blended the two natures
of holy God and perfect Man. The Mediator loved us so that He died for
us, a sacrifice unto God, presented by infinite love in our place. And
He says, "Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay down My
life."

Only this word more–the resurrection is mentioned as ensuring the
result, and as therefore being another opportunity for love to break
forth. Jesus says, "I lay down My life, that I might take it again." If
that prince, of whom I spoke just now, had leaped from the side of a
vessel to save a drowning man, it would have been a grand action. But
if he sank never to rise again, his memory would have been enshrined in
the grief of the Queen's heart. But he would not have been able to say,
"Therefore does my mother love me." Jesus sinks into the dark wave but
He rises again. I see Him make the great plunge into the abyss. But He
cries, "You will not leave My soul in Hell; neither will You suffer
Your Holy One to see corruption."

He lifts His head above the black billows. He strikes out for the
shore. He lands in safety with those whom He has rescued. How the Lord
must delight in the risen Jesus and in all that follows upon His
victory over the grave! Now is death defeated by the death of the
Well-Beloved. Now is a new life ensured for dead sinners. Now is the
clearance of all the once condemned published both to Hell and Heaven.
Say, who is He that has passed the iron gate, descended into the abodes
of death and then returned triumphant to the upper air? Who is this,
you angel-watchers, at the gates of Glory? Who is this kingly
Conqueror? "Lift up your heads, O you gates. And be you lift up, you
everlasting doors. And the King of Glory shall come in."

The Lord of Hosts, the Lord mighty in battle, has laid down His life
and taken it again. He has done it as readily and effectually as once
He laid down His garments and shortly girt them about Him again, after
He had washed the feet of His disciples. Having redeemed and cleansed
us by His blood, He puts on again the human body, which for a while, He
had cast aside. Jesus is glorified in all whom He has saved by His
death and rising.

But His greatest glory is that the Father loves Him. Sweet are the
songs of the saved on earth and blessed are the anthems of the redeemed
in Heaven. But to Jesus, the best reward which is possible lies in this
word–"Therefore does My Father love Me." Before me, in this Divine
love, I see a great deep, which I may not attempt to explore–I have
but brushed the surface as with a swallow's wing.

II. Secondly, CONSIDER THE FATHER'S COMPLACENCY IN US ON ACCOUNT OF HIS
DELIGHT IN HIS

SON. Beloved, the Father loves His Son so much that His love overflows
its banks and covers all of us whom the Lord Jesus has taken to be His
own. The Father's love is like a great beacon kindled in honor of the
Well-Beloved but shedding its radiance far and wide to enlighten those
who sit in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death. Let us
contemplate this fact so fraught with blessing to all Believers.

First, as our Lord Jesus is a Man, the Father places His work to man's
account. The Lord had made man in His own image. He had created him a
remarkable being of united matter and spirit. But man made a revolt
from Him, so that, "it repented the Lord that He had made man on the
earth." When the Lord looks upon our race at this moment, He cannot
take satisfaction in creatures who have made themselves so vile. Our
nature is prone to evil, and it cannot but be abhorrent unto the
thrice-holy Jehovah.

Yet is man not blotted out from the list of beings, for there is one
Man, true Man, born of a woman, made under the Law–a partaker of flesh
and blood, who is in Himself so well-pleasing to the Lord–that He
makes up for all the displeasure felt towards the rest of our race.
This Man was so obedient, so self-sacrificing, so pure, so devout, so
gentle, so everything that is admirable, that when the Father considers
Him, the virtues of that one Man's life and death endear to Him the
race. For His sake He forgets the sins of men and is well-pleased to
accept all who are united to Him.

"By the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." The savor of
this one Man's sacrifice has sweetened all the offerings of His
fellows. It was a Man who, for the sake of the Divine Glory, sweat, as
it were, great drops of blood and died upon the Cross. And therefore is
the Lord well-pleased, even with guilty men for whom Jesus stood as the
second Adam, and for whom He has won acceptance before the Throne.

Next, remember that the Lord Jesus has so glorified the Father, that
His great achievements are made to redound to our benefit. All the
works of God's hands praise Him. All the deeds of His Providence extol
him. But redemption brings Him His highest honors. In the Person of the
Redeemer, Jehovah is best made known–

"God, in the Person of His Son, Has all His mightiest works outdone."

When the Father hears dishonor put upon the Divine name by blasphemers,
or false teachers. When He sees the drunkenness and lust, the pride and
cruelty of men, He is grieved at His heart–but on the other hand, all
the dishonor is covered and put away by the glory of the Character and
work of the Man, Christ Jesus.

I cannot utter my own thoughts on this point–much less can I think
adequately upon such a theme. It is as if the millions of the redeemed
were so many evil lamps all pouring forth darkness, and filling the
universe with blackness. And then, on the other side, this one blessed
lamp of God stood alone, pouring forth light. And the sacred light was
so powerful that it banished all the darkness of the myriad
night-makers and created eternal and unclouded day.

I will change the example and say that all of us were as the Dead Sea,
full of foul waters, reeking with deadly odors– and the life of Jesus,
poured out for us–has turned that lake of death into a pure and
sparkling sea of life. The purity of Jesus suffices to purify all the
multitudes of the human race who put their trust in Him. God loves His
Son because He gets a glory from Him which cancels the dishonor worked
by all the sins of men.

Note, again, that as God has great complacency in His Son, it runs over
to us, because we are one with Jesus. I say not this of you all. For
some of you have nothing to do with Christ at this time. But of as many
as believe in Jesus, I may say, "We are members of His body, of His
flesh and of His bones." The Father's love to His Son extends to all
the members of His Son's mystical body. What? Though we should be only
comparable to the soles of our Lord's feet, and are still in the mire,
yet, if we are in the body, we share with the Head in all its glories.

You know the old proverb, "Love me, love my dog." And certainly the
Lord Jesus Christ might well say, "Love Me, love the least of My
people." The Father, like David, loves every lame Mephibosheth of the
household, for the sake of His Jonathan. Brethren, as many of us as are
joined unto the Lord by a living faith–we are one with Jesus–we are
by eternal union one. When He died, we died. When He rose, we rose. We
were condemned and justified in Him. And now that the Father loves Him,
we also are beloved in Him. What a blessed thing it is that the Father
loves One who has such an intimate relation to us as to be our
Representative and Head!

Meditate upon this overflow of the Father's love to the elect whom He
has given to His Son. He so loved the Chief Beloved, that, for His
sake, we are accepted. We are perfected and at last will be glorified.
This is true of myriads of men–myriads! You speak of great
congregations–but all that ever assemble here are a mere handful. Look
at the countless congregation redeemed by our Lord's death–"a
multitude, which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues."

Remember the multitudes who have died in infancy, redeemed by precious
blood from all the consequences of the Fall. Consider the multitudes of
converts in the latter days, when the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of One, shall many be made righteous." How many, human
arithmetic fails to tell.

Now, call to mind the number and the variety of sins which have been
committed by the redeemed company. All those sins are washed away by
the blood of Christ. The love of God in Christ Jesus sees no iniquity
in Jacob, for the atonement has put away all manner of offenses. The
love of the Father to Jesus has made us comely in His comeliness,
despite the multitude of deformities which were found in us. O sea of
love, in which so vast a host of sins was swallowed up! How greatly
does the Father love the Son when, for His dear sake, He covers all the
myriad causes of displeasure, and makes us precious in His sight!

Then remember that while Jesus has redeemed so many and cleansed them
from so many sins, He has done more. For by the Father's love to Him
they are made partakers of very many most costly blessings. Could you
calculate the wealth

of benefits wherewith the Lord daily loads His redeemed? Covenant
mercies, who shall weigh them? Yet they all come through the Father's
love of Jesus.

Above all, reflect that we have eternal life through our Lord's death.
God so loves Jesus that, because of His temporary death, He has given
endless life to all the redeemed. Jesus died once, and therefore we
live forever. Because the Father's love to Him can never die and He
ever lives, we shall live also. His passing sorrow brings us eternal
glory. Because of Christ's death, millions and millions of years from
now, we shall still be the children of God and shall be with Jesus
where He is, beholding the glory which the Father has given Him. Admire
the measureless merit of the Lord Jesus!

Meditate with reverence upon the overflowing torrents of the Father's
love to His Son! Because of His death He is unspeakably beloved and we
are beloved in him. Here it were well to pause. No tongue can ever
express this matchless story. We are "accepted in the Beloved." How
greatly beloved must He have been to cover such base things as we are
with Divine acceptance! Think it over! Think it over! In Heaven you
will need no fuller or loftier subject of meditation than the love of
the Father to the Only-Begotten, enwrapping in its folds the whole
family of love. "Therefore does My Father love Me."

Oh, how He must love Jesus, since for His sake He loves multitudes of
sinners and loves them all the way from the door of Hell to the gate of
Heaven! By the bliss eternal, by the rivers of pleasure that are at
God's right hand, by the glory without bounds, we may form some idea of
the love of the Father to Him who laid down His life that He might take
it again.

III. In the third place, CONSIDER OUR LOVE TO THE LORD JESUS ON THIS
ACCOUNT. Beloved, His death is the great fact for which we love our
Lord Jesus. The individual love of each Believer wells up when he can
say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." This, also, is the crowning
evidence of God's love to Believers in general, for "God so loved the
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in
Him should not perish."

His laying down His life is the central display of His love and the
chief cause of our affection. We love Him for the holiness of His
Character, for the tenderness of His heart, for the excellence of His
teaching. And, indeed, we love Him for everything about His blessed
Person and work. But, if the secret must be told, our hearts were
chiefly won when our Beloved put on the crimson vesture and stood
before us decked with wounds and pale in death. Then did we sing of
Him– "White and ruddy is my Beloved."

Oh, the beauties of our King when He stands beneath the purple canopy
of sacrifice! Then is our heart won and held in joyful captivity when
we can say, "You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood."
That text often thrills my heart wherein we read, "Who His own Self
bore our sins in His own body on the tree." Calvary reveals the great
fountain of our love. The Cross is the pole whereon is uplifted the
banner of love, both His and ours. We love Him because He first loved
us and Golgotha is the window through which His love looks.

The connection of our text enhances our Lord's love. It stands
connected with the Good Shepherd. It is He that lays down His life. He
gives it for the sheep. Will a man die for sheep? Yes, that may be. But
could the Son of God die for such base creatures as we are? We were, of
ourselves, by no means so great a treasure to Christ as a sheep is to a
man. And yet He thought far more of us than shepherds do of their
flocks. We were, by nature, only as so many foxes, or serpents, or
creeping things. But yet the Lord Christ, having set His love upon us,
would not rest till He had laid down His life for us. Alas, we were as
ungrateful as we were unworthy.

We even opposed the efforts of our Savior. We acted more like goats
than sheep, for we butted with our horns against our Shepherd. We were
stray sheep and did not return at His call–we did not follow Him but
we went farther and farther away. We were lame as to returning. But
"when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly." We are sheep, too, that still go astray very grievously. Woe
is me, that this should be true of me! After having been brought back
on His shoulders, after having been pastured by His care, yet still I
go astray! We are sheep that were lost.

We are sheep that would lose themselves again, if we could–sheep that
make a very poor return to Him that shepherds us. "Is this your
kindness to your Friend?" is a question which might often awake sad
memories in our hearts. Beloved, let us love our Lord more! Surely, we
cannot help it, as we perceive our own vileness and the greatness of
His love whereby He laid down His life for us.

And remember that the Lord laid down His life of His own free will and
under no constraint whatever. If you or I were to die for other people,
we should be only doing a little sooner what we shall be obliged to do
one day–for death is the debt of nature which, sooner or later, all
must pay. If a man yields his life for another, he only anticipates by
a short season the time when he must lose it. But Jesus needed not to
die at all, so far as He, Himself, was concerned. "Messiah was cut off,
but not for Himself."

What love is this! He wills to die. He says of His life, "No man takes
it from Me but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and
I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My
Father." Herein is love indeed, free love, deliberate and resolute. I
see the bullocks going to the altar of the temple–poor, dumb, driven
cattle, they know not that they are to be a sacrifice–they cannot
throw into their deaths the merit of devout intent.

Behold our Lord going to the slaughter as a sheep in regard to
patience, but not like a sheep for knowledge and purpose–He knew what
that slaughter meant and why He must endure it. "Lama Sabacthani!" was
in its meaning known to Him before He uttered the cry. He foresaw the
death on the Cross–He was made a curse for us, knowing what the curse
meant and calmly resolving to bear it. For this deliberation of love He
has our inexpressible gratitude and love. Do we not each one love Him?
We should love Him, for Jesus laid down His life for each one of His
people.

This love in general is a delightful theme. But how tender and touching
it becomes when each one sees his own participation in it and cries,
"He loved me and gave Himself for me"! Love delights in personal
pronouns, "My Beloved is mine and I am His." Love is most of all
excited and called forth by a personal sense of gracious gifts
received. It is a heart-moving song when we can sing, "Unto me, who am
less than the least of all saints, is this Grace given." Remember, that
to save one single soul, our Lord

would have had to die and yet to save all men in the world He could
have done no more.

And if there had been as many worlds of sinners as there are grains of
sand upon the seashore, His one death would have been a sufficient
vindication of the Law on account of them all. We can imagine no limit
to the value of Christ's atoning sacrifice. Its object could not have
been attained by anything less than the laying down of His life. He
died for His flock and for each one of His sheep in particular–so that
we may each one say today, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." And
each one knows that for himself, with special intent, the Lord Jesus
bore the agony and bloody sweat, the Cross and passion. Therefore we
must, each one of us, love Him to our heart's utmost capacity.

Indulge yourself with a sight of His love as it hangs bleeding on the
tree. It may be, poor Soul, this morning you are bowed down with
trouble because of sin and yet you are a child of God–see, then, how
Jesus loves! Do what you did at first, when, in your soul's dark hour,
you did look to Jesus. Look to His Cross. Look wholly to the slain
Jesus. "His blood has made peace–

And brought us release, And now the old bondage Forever must cease. Who
trust in His might He leads into light– Nor can any enemy Break on His
right."

Blessed, forever blessed, be Your dear name, O Jesus! There is none
like it in Heaven, nor in the Heaven of heavens. How shall we praise
Him? Our tears of gratitude come to our rescue. If we cannot speak His
praises, we will weep them.

IV. I shall conclude by saying, CONSIDER WHAT A FELLOWSHIP IS OPENED UP
BETWEEN THE SAVED

ONES AND THE FATHER. The Father loves the Son and we love Him, also,
after our measure. Brethren, we are agreed with the great God with whom
once we were at enmity. Since we have seen our Lord lay down His life
for us, we love Him. How can we do otherwise? For the same reason the
Father loves Him–the very strongest love is confirmed when a common
object of affection becomes a rivet between the two parties. Two hearts
may be one in married love, but their union is intensified when a
baby's cry is heard in the house. Seldom are they parted by divorce who
have blended their love in watching over a company of little children.

Beloved, when the Father looks on Jesus, He sees One who is altogether
lovely to Him, and when we look on Jesus in our poor, half-blind
manner, we also are charmed by His beauties. No enmity can remain
between a soul and God when love to Jesus becomes the master passion of
life. By His Cross, our Lord has slain the enmity. His death has cast a
bond

around the divided ones and has reconciled us to God. The
thrice-glorious Jehovah agrees with the blood-washed Sinner in
glorifying His Son.

In the blood of Jesus we are made clean, and therefore we love Him–the
Father sees Jesus pouring out His heart's blood to make us clean and He
loves Him on that account–thus the two who were apart are agreed in
one. From now on we desire to honor Christ and we are grieved if He is
not magnified. Whenever you hear a sermon which praises the Lord Jesus,
does not your heart dance like David before the ark? But if your Lord
is dishonored, do you not feel indignant? Could you not bear anything
sooner than hear your Lord defamed?

In the congregation, when His atonement has been decried, have you not
found yourself on the move? And if you did not move, but kept your
seat, did you not bite your lip? You love Him and you cannot permit Him
to be thrust into second place. If it were in your power, you would set
Him upon a glorious high throne and make every knee bow before Him.
That is what the Father is doing and will yet do–thus the Father and
you are one towards Jesus.

You have also an intense desire to become like your Lord, have you not?
Ever since He bought you with His blood and you knew it, you have
longed to be conformed to His image. This, also, is the Father's
design, for He desires His Well-Beloved to be the "first-born among
many Brethren." He loves our Lord Jesus so much that He has
predestinated us to be conformed to His image. There cannot be another
Divine Son, but the Father would have many human sons who shall be like
the first-born.

If you have ever stood in the middle of a hall of mirrors, you have
seen yourself repeated on all sides. Even so shall Heaven be full of
lovely reflections of Him who is altogether lovely. For every
blood-washed one shall wear the likeness of the Lord from Heaven. The
Father can never have too much of His dear Son. He would have Him live
in ten thousand times ten thousand beloved ones–and as this, also,
would be your highest joy, you have in this desire a wonderful bond of
union between you and the Father.

I think I hear you say, "Now I perceive that the Father Himself, loved
men, for He gave the Son He loved so well to die for them and loved Him
for dying on their behalf." This is an instructive discovery. When
Abraham called Isaac to go up to Mount Moriah to be offered up as a
sacrifice, Isaac could have resisted his father's will. But he did not.
They went both of them together to the place of the offering. Abraham
loved Isaac when he bound him–yes, he loved him all the more for
consenting to be bound. Not only did Abraham, the father, offer his
son, but Isaac, the son, voluntarily surrendered himself. And his
father deeply loved him for that self-surrender.

Jesus, the greater Isaac, did actually give up His life in our place,
to achieve His Father's purpose, vindicate His Father's Law, and save
the people whom His Father had given Him. Therefore does the Father
love Him and we love Him–and we love the Father who freely delivered
Him up for us all. Thus

love completes its circle and God and man are made one by Christ's
work, even as they are one in His Person.

If anyone here has, by believing contemplation, found his way through
the process described in my sermon, he is no longer an enemy to God,
nor even a stranger to the Most High. For the death of Jesus has drawn
him near. If you have followed me in this track, not merely with an
attentive ear but with a willing heart, you are reconciled to God by
the death of His Son. You love Jesus because He died and God loves Him
for the same reason. You two have linked hands over the great
Sacrifice.

What a joy is this! I feel as if I could find no better conclusion than
the glowing verse of William Williams–

"To You, my God, my Savior, Praise be forever new. Let people come to
praise You In numbers like the dew. Oh, that in every meadow The grass
were harps of gold, To sing to Him for coming To ransom hosts untold!"