It
is an eternal love.
From before the foundation of the world,
God’s word teaches us, the purpose had been formed that Christ should be the
Head of his Church, that he should have a body in which his glory could be set
forth. In that eternity he loved and longed for those who had been given him by
the Father; and when he came and told his disciples that he loved them, it was,
indeed, not with a love of earth and time, but with the love of eternity. And
it is with that same infinite love that his eye still rests upon each of us
here seeking to abide in him, and in each breathing of that love there is
indeed, the power of eternity. “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
It is a perfect love.
It gives all, and holds nothing back. “The
Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand,” and in just the
same way Jesus loves his own: all he has is theirs. When it was needed, he
sacrificed his throne and crown for you: he did not count his own life and
blood too dear to give for you. His
righteousness, his Spirit, his glory, even his throne, all are yours. This love
holds nothing, nothing back, but, in a manner which no human mind can fathom,
makes you one with itself. O wondrous love, to love us even as the Father loved
him, and to offer us this love as our everyday dwelling!
It is a gentle and most tender love.
As we think of the love of the Father to
the Son, we see in the Son everything so infinitely worthy of that love. When
we think of Christ’s love to us, there is nothing but sin and unworthiness to
meet the eye. And the question comes, ‘How can that love within the heart of
the Divine life and its perfections be compared to the love that rests on
sinners?’ Can it indeed be the same love? Blessed be God, we know it is so. The
nature of love is always the same, however different the objects. Christ knows
of no law of love but that with which his Father loved him. Our wretchedness
only serves to call out more distinctly the beauty of love, such as could not
be seen even in Heaven. With the most tender compassion he bows to our weakness,
with patience inconceivable he bears with our slowness, with the gentlest
loving-kindness he meets our fears and our follies. It is the love of the
Father to the Son, beautified, glorified, in its condescension, in its
exquisite adaptation to our needs.
And it is an unchangeable love.
“Having loved his own which were in the world,
he loved them to the end.” “The
mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not
depart from you.” The promise with which it begins its work in the soul is
this: “I shall not leave you until I
have done that which I have spoken to you of.” And just as our wretchedness was
what first drew it to us, so the sin, with which it is so often grieved, and
which may well cause us to fear and doubt, is but a new motive for it to hold
to us all the more. And why? We can give no reason but this: “As the Father has
loved me, so have I loved you.”
And now, does not this love suggest the motive, and the measure and the means of that surrender by
which we yield ourselves wholly to abide in him? This love surely supplies a
motive. Only look and see how this Love stands and pleads and prays. Gaze, O
gaze on the Divine form, the eternal glory, the heavenly beauty, the tenderly
pleading gentleness of the crucified Love, as he stretches out his pierced
hands and says, “Oh, will you not abide with me? Will you not come and abide in
me?” He points you up to the eternity of love from where he came to seek you.
He points you to the cross and all he has borne to prove the reality of his
affection, and to win you for himself. He reminds you of all he has promised to
do for you, if you will but throw yourself unreservedly into his arms. He asks
you whether, so far as you have come to dwell with him and taste his blessedness,
has he not done well by you? And with a Divine authority, mingled with such an
inexpressible tenderness, he says, “Soul, as the Father has loved me, so I have
loved you: abide in my love.” Surely there can be but one answer to such
pleading: “Lord Jesus Christ, here I am.
Henceforth your love shall be the only
home of my soul: in your love alone will I abide.”
That
love is not only the motive, but also the measure, of our surrender to abide in
it. Love gives all, but asks all. He does so, not because he begrudges us
anything, but because without this he cannot get possession of us to fill us
with himself. In the love of the Father and the Son it was so. In the love of
Jesus to us it was so. In our entering into his love to abide there it must be
so too: our surrender to him must have no measure other than the measure of his
surrender to us.
O that we understood how the love that
calls us has infinite riches and fullness of joy for us, and that what we give
up for his sake will be rewarded a hundredfold in this life! Or rather, would
that we understood that it is a LOVE with a height and a depth and a length and
a breadth that passes knowledge! How all
thought of sacrifice or surrender would pass away, and our souls be filled with
wonder at the unspeakable privilege of being loved with such a love, of being
allowed to come and abide in it forever!
And
if doubt again suggests the question: ‘But is it possible - can I always abide
in his love?’ Hear how that love itself supplies the only means for abiding in
him: It is faith in that love which will enable us to abide in it. If
this love be, indeed, so Divine, such an intense and burning passion, then
surely I can depend on it to keep me and to hold me fast. Then surely all my
unworthiness and feebleness can be no hindrance. If this love be, indeed, so Divine, with
infinite power at its command, I surely have a right to trust that it is
stronger than my weakness; and that with his almighty arm he will clasp me to his
heart, and cause me not to leave him.
I
see how this is the one thing my God requires of me. He treats me as a
reasonable being endowed with the wondrous power of willing and choosing. He
cannot force all this blessedness on me, but waits until I give the willing
consent of my heart. And the token of this consent he has in his great kindness
ordered faith to be – that faith by which utter sinfulness casts itself into
the arms of love to be saved, and by which utter weakness depends upon it to be
kept and made strong.
“O Infinite Love! Love
with which the Father loved the Son! Love with which the Son loves us! I can trust you, I do trust you. O Lord, keep
me abiding in you.”
