00A.05 CHAPTER II.—Christ the Gift of God’s Love
CHAPTER II.
CHRIST, THE GIFT OF GOD’S LOVE The subject for our sermon tonight nas been announced as “Christ, The Gift of God’s Love.” Of course any one of you could now name the text. The text for this sermon is perhaps the besit known passage in all the Bible. It has been called the “Golden Text” of the Bible. It is one passage that the people remember—remember the wording and also the reference. When you say John three sixteen everybody knows what that verse is. When you say “God so loved the world,” everybody says John three sixteen.
Many years ago I was walking through a cinder- paved side street of the industrial district of the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, having been sent by the church to carry relief in the name of the Lord to a suffering family, when I was arrested by the voice of a singer in a smoky hut beside the way. That voice would have told any Southern ear that the singer was a Negress, but the voice was mellow and full of melody-—there was a soul in the song. Perhaps the music was not classic, but the song was a spiritual and the refrain ran like this:
Jesus loves me, How do I know it?
John three sixteen Will show it. As I went on my way I repeated over and over again, John three sixteen, and I thought of the comfort and joy that that passage has brought to the millions of earth’s toilers. Here it has gone into the hut of poverty and caused a poor slave girl to sing, as she toils, with a note divine. But in order to fully appreciate the text we must read also the context. It is a gem in rare setting. Let us read now John 3:14-17. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder derness. even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believest may in him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he grave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.
There may be other passages in the Bible that are more beautiful than this from a standpoint of rhetoric— passages more poetic and ornate—hut there is no passage more sublime in its import. No passage could possibly be more comprehensive. The whole gospel story is told in these few words. In fact in is all included in one word and that a word of one syllable. A word spelled with four letters—I-o-v-e. God loved the world. God so loved the world—loved the world to the extent that he gave his Son—his only begotten Son—to redeem the world. What was wrong with the world that God had to pay such a price for its redemption? It was perishing —and in order that it might not perish God gave his Son that whosoever”—not that the whole world, unconditionally, might be saved—“believeth on him should not perish.” In this text then we see on the one side, God, a loving God, a giving God; and on the other side a world, a perishing world, a receiving world.
Satan has made man believe that God hates man and wants to damn him. In fact, sinful man sees God as a monster who lurks behind the shadows and looks out upon man like a beast of prey and longs for an opportunity to pounce upon him and rend him limb from limb. Or to seize man by the neck and sling him off into an eternal hell and then forever gloat like a fiend over man’s miseries. A more distorted view of God than that would not be possible. And Satan never perpetrated a greater deception on the human family than when he succeeded in painting that picture of God on the hearts of men. The Bible pictures God to us as a kind, compassionate, loving Father, who is not willing that any should perish, but who desires that all should come to repentance. In order to induce men to come to repentance he has manifested his love to men. The Old Testament is full of assurances to man that God loves him and wants to save him from sin and its consequent suffering. He appeared to Moses thus: And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty.(Exodus 34:6-7.) And David said:
He made known his ways unto Moses. His doings unto the children of Israel.
Jehovah is merciful and gracious.
Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness.
He will not always chide;
Neither will he keep his anger for ever.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins, Nor rewarded us after our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is his lovingkindness toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, So fir hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children, So Jehovah pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.
Again: For thou Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. And abundant in lovingkindness unto all them that call upon thee. (Psalms 86:5.) And again:
O Israel, hope in Jehovah; For with Jehovah there is lovingkindness, And with him is plenteous redemption.
(Psalms 130:1-8; Psalms 7:1-17) But it is in the New Testament that God’s redeeming love is fully revealed. It is there that we have the concrete example of his love. It is there that the Gift of His Love is Given. And we can not over-emphasize his love. We need to tell of it more in our preaching. We need to stress it—to make it the central point around which all other points revolve. The doctrine of God’s redeeming grace and infinite love is the basic truth upon which all other doctrine must rest. All other doctrine without this fundamental and vital truth is but chaff. And to preach doctrine to men without basing it upon this primal principle is to feed the hungry souls of men upon husks. And if men should be convinced of the truth of your doctrine and led to espouse it without being moved by the love of God, they would not be converted to Christ; they would not be Christians. They would be ranting dogmatists, bitter partisans, zealous propagandists, ready to contend for their doctrine, to quibble over a trifle and two-fold more the children of hell than the preacher who preached “the truth” but left out the one essential element of the gospel that makes it gospel. A preacher once preached two or three sermons on the love of God and of his gracious provisions for man’s salvation when a brother approached him and asked: “When are you going ito begin to preach the gospel?”
He meant, of course, when was the preacher going to preach on the things man must do to be saved—faith, repentance and baptism. He wanted the preacher to prove that he—the brother—was right in his claims, and that his neighbors were all wrong. Simply a partisan desire to establish his creed. May the Lord have mercy on such brethren.
Paul declares that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. (Romans 1:16.) The Greek word for power in that passage is dunhnis. The word from which we get dynamic, dynamo, dynamite, etc. The gospel is the power—the dynamite of God unto salvation. It is that which moves men. It is the mighty magnet that draws men to Christ. Will a credal statement draw men unto God? Will the preaching of duties move men? Will the preaching of laws or commandments as the arbitrary enactments of a tyrannical Master make men love God? No, neither will it make men love each other. But are not commandments and laws included in the gospel? Does not the gospel have conditions with which men must comply in order to be saved ? Yes, but this obedience must come as a result of hearing and believing the sweet old story of Jesus and his love. The word gospel means ‘‘good news” or “glad tidings.” In what does the good news consist? Is it not, beloved, in the fact that man was lost, perishing, without God and without hope, and that God saw him “plunged in deep distress” and loved him to the extent that he sent Jesus to the earth and to the cross to redeem man? That is the gospel—the power that attracts men. Jesus said: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said signifying by what manner of death he should die.
Therefore we must preach Christ lifted up on the cross—dying, the innocent for the guilty—dying that we might live—if we would preach the gospel. The Apostle Paul said: Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance an longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? And the Apostle John said:
Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.......We love, because he first loved us.(1 John 4:9-10; 1 John 4:19.)
You have seen a little blade of grass crushed down beneath the rubbish or debris of a fallen building, and you noticed that it was pale, colorless and feeble. But if you watch that little blade you will see it creep along on the ground for some inches until it reaches a crevice and then it will lift its head from the ground, turn upward and creep out through that crevice. Then once outside it takes on life and color—it becomes verdant and vigorous. What was it that caused that grass blade to creep toward that crevice? What enabled it to lift itself up from the ground and come out through that small opening? Of course you will say it was the light. The sun ray attracted that little grass blade and drew it through the crevice. Responding to the kiss of the genial sun ray it lifted itself up from the earth, came out in the open and took on life and color and beauty.
Just so does God draw the sinner unto himself. When the souls of men are crushed down beneath the weight of sin and the fear of death and the genial ray of the Sun of Righteousness falls in tender kisses upon them they leap up in response and are filled with the health and life divine. In order to make men love him God manifested his love toward men. That is the gospel—the power of God to move men. But when we speak of the love of God, how shall we adequately declare it? By what shall we illustrate it, or to what shall we compare it? We may think of the love of Damon and Pythias—the man who gave his life for his friend. But Christ gave ’his life for his enemies. We may think of mother love—and surely there is no tie, no sentiment known to man that is sweeter than mother love. Nothing among the experiences of men has the appeal to the nobler side of man’s nature than stories of mother love have. We like to think of the swan mother that plucks the feathers from her own breast to line the nest for her young. We like to think of the eagle mother that builds her nest aloft in the crags of the mountain peaks, and when the forest fires begin to sweep up the side of the mountain -and the smoke forming garlands of purple in the golden sunlight announces that danger is near, she soars away and franticly endeavors to induce her young ones to follow her. But when the young can not follow and when smoke has enveloped the nest and the greedy blazes are leaping nearer, the mother comes hack and, spreads her wings over her nest and burns to death with her birdlings. But mother love reaches its climax in the human mother’s bosom. We have heard often of the toil and sorrow, the sacrifice and suffering that the mothers of men must endure for their young. They frequently give their lives that a new life may exist. But where they give only of their strength for the new being they care for that being through the helpless days of babyhood and they follow him on through the ungrateful days of youth and often they follow him through crime and shame to a disgraceful death. Still loving him, owning him and desiring to shield and protect and to suffer for him. All of us can recall stories of such mother love— all of us are the beneficiaries of such self-denial, of such sacrifice and suffering. But could we concentrate all mother love into one mammoth mother love it would not be comparable to the infinite love of our heavenly Father. Isaiah says, speaking for God: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget, yet I will not forget thee. Where then shall we find an illustration of God’s love? How shall we express it? Poets have sung of the Father’s love and goodness, but when we analyze their poetry we find that they have simply said they were unable to tell of this wonderful love. They have not expressed it; Lhey have just expressed their inability to express it. Whittier said:
Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good! And so beside the Silent Sea I wait with muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore.
I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I can not drift Beyond his love and care.
Some other poet has said: Could I with ink the ocean fill— Were the earth of parchment made, And every blade of grass a quill And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry, And the scroll would not contain the whole, Though it stretch from sky to sky. The only way we can find God’s love adequately expressed is to lake God’s own expression of it. There are two things at least that man can not measure or fix with metes and bounds. These are God’s love and man’s sin. But we get an idea of both when we see what God did to save man from sin. We can not know the demerit of one sin and who shall presume to say what is the just desert of a life of sin. If sin was not terrible, and its consequences beyond all reckoning, God would not have paid the price he did pay to save man from sin, the gospel would not be good news and Christ as a gift from God to die for men would be an absurdity. Yea, it would be a crime. The gospel is painted on a black background—-a background of despair—and unless that background is seen the gospel loses its beauty and meaning. When we see man lost and ruined, hopeless and helpless, groping in darkness and groveling in iniquity; held in the slimy coils of the serpent of sin, and utterly unable to extricate himself, then are we able to appreciate the divine interposition. In all matters pertaining to the spirit or the spirit world man was but— A babe crying in the night, A babe crying for the light And with no language but a cry.
God heard man’s wailing cry and resolved to redeem him. But as God looked out over his vast dominions to select a sacrifice for man’s sin, where did he find one that was sufficient? Not all the lambs that had died upon Israel’s altars—not all the bleeding sacrifices that had been offered upon the hills of Zion—could expiate one sin or save one sinner! Not all the wealth of all the world could purchase the salvation of one soul. Then what sacrifice was made? God robbed heaven of its richest jewel. He plucked the fairest flower that blossomed in the paradise of God. He sent Jesus, his well beloved Son--the darling of his bosom—from the land of light and life and love to the world of darkness and death and hate to be born of a woman, to live in the flesh and to die on the cross. He was born in poverty, lived in suffering and died in shame, all for us!
We do not see the full test and strength of God’s love until we come to the dark hour of the cross. The night that Jesus was betrayed we follow him from the upper room^ across the brook Kidron and unto the garden of Gethsemane. The shadow of the cross was upon him and his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. He knew his hour had come and that soon the mob would be coming out to take him and lift him up on the cross in a horrible death. His spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. It felt the agony that awaited it and was almost ready to succumb beneath its burden. Jesus stationed his disciples as sentinels on the way. Eight were left in one place and a little further on the three faithful and trusted companions of the Savior were set to watch for the coming mob. With these two companies of men on guard duty the Savior went on to where he was alone and threw himself upon the ground and prayed earnestly to the Father that he might, if possible, be spared this ordeal—that the cup might be re-moved. But always said “not my will but thy will be done.” Then he arose and went back to, his three disciples, nervous and agitated, and found them sleeping. He was no doubt sorely distressed and disappointed to find even Peter sleeping. He rebuked them and commanded them to watch. He then ran back to his place of prayer and falling upon his face in the dust of the earth he again prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Three times Jesus prayed this prayer and his agony was so great that not only the sweat poured from his face, but the blood exuded through the skin and dripped to the ground. Why did not God hear that cry of his Son and remove the cup?
I once had a discussion with a man who said that all men will be saved. He said God would nqt allow men to suffer after death. He became excited over the thought of hell and challenged me to say if any earthly father would for any conceivable crime permit his child to suffer such punishment. In answer to this challenge I drew before that audience the picture we have before us hereof Christ in Gethsemane and asked my opponent if any earthly father could have refused to come to his child in such a situation. I said: “Suppose we see a great general standing here erect and in uniform, with the insignia of his rank upon his shoulders. His little child is playing at his feet. Back of him and stretching away to the right and the left are great columns of his soldiers—thousands of men armed and standing at attention, ready ’to move at the word from the general. And we see a fiend sieze this child with the purpose of rending it limb from limb. We see the little child as it looks to its father with trembling lips and tearful eyes and appeals for help. We see the ’little white, dimpled outstretched arms appealing to the father. But the father does not move. He does not utter a word. He witnesses the murder of his child, he hears its death cry, he sees its body dismembered and mangled and never moves. Could any human being do it?
Then what shall we say for God? Why did he not hear the bitter death cries of his Son—His Holy Child Jesus? Has his heart petrified into stone or ossified into bone ?
Ah, no, God heard that cry and his heart was moved. If I may be permitted to describe God with the parts and emotions of a human being—if you will pardon the anthropomorphisms—I will give you the picture of this part of the scene. That wailing cry from Gethsemane went up to heaven and the angels ceased their singing and stood at attention I see them looking to the Father and expecting his command. I see the Father seated on the throne of the universe and surrounded by angels and archangels. He hears the cry and looks down upon the prostrate form of his Holy Child in the dust of his foot stool. I see the great Father’s bosom as it begins to rise and fall with emotion. I see the great chin quivering and the tears as they begin to course down the cheek. Surely the Father will remove that cup! He looks again and sees that infuriated and senseless mob creeping stealthily up the hill like a hungry beast, stalking its prey. That cry of anguish again pierces the heavens and the angels weep. Will the Father now save the Son? The Father looks again and there arises before him another scene. He looks down over the ages and sees the teeming and toiling millions of men as they stagger across the stage of life neath their burdens of sin. He hears them crying for mercy. He sees them standing by the open tomb with broken and bleeding hearts, yearn ing for light. He saw me and he saw you with our eyes swollen with weeping and souls stained with • sin. He saw us all traveling toward the brink of eternal woe, and he loved us, blessed be his name; he loved us so that he redeemed us. I see him dispatch an angel to the earth with this message:
“My Son, it is not possible. If you do not drink this cup then all my poor children of earth are lost forever.” Then the angel ministered unto him, gave ’him strength and removed his fear. “He was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7-9).
Then the Son arose and went back to his disciples, no longer nervous and agitated, but calm and resigned. He did not rebuke his disciples now, but told them to sleep on and take their rest, But immediately he saw the mob coming and he said: “Arise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that betrayeth me.”
Jesus met the mob fearlessly and meekly surrendered to them without resistance, fully knowing what awaited him, but resigned to drink the cup to its bitterest dregs. They dragged him through the streets of Jerusalem in the night hours and brought him before Annas and then before Caiaphas. At early dawn they brought him before the Sanhedrin. There they falsely accused him and bribed witnesses to swear against him. But even then they could find nothing on which they could convict him, until they forced him to say that he was the Son of God, and then they sentenced him to death for blasphemy.
They rushed away to the Roman governor to get him to sign the death warrant. Pilate tried Christ and found him innocent, hut fearing to release him, he sent him to Herod. Herod mocked him and sent him back to Pilate. Pilate finally yielded to the clamor for his blood and delivered him up to be crucified.
They nailed him to the cross and there he hung by the bruised and bleeding tendons of the quivering flesh, dying for you and me. The sun was veiled in darkness and the earth, shrouded in gloom, quaked and trembled upon her axis. Finally Jesus chied with a loud voice and ’bowed his weary head upon his guiless bosom and gave the spirit into the hands of the Father. By the grace of God he tasted death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9.) But they took his body from the cross limp and lifeless and laid it in the rock-hewn sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, where he slumbered in the solemn silence of death for three days, hut early upon the first day of the week, as the sun was breaking over the horizon, the Sun of Righteousness burst through the gloom of the grave and came forth with healing in his beams to flood and fill the earth with light divine. He had abolished death and dispelled the shadows that surround the tomb and given us a view of the “land of pure delight” over beyond death’s turbid floods.
He was now prepared to be the Savior of men and he sent salvation unto every creature in all the earth upon simple and easy terms. My friend, if you have never accepted this salvation thus provided for you upon the terms on which our Savior offered it to you, you are still lost and perishing —exposed to eternal danger. If the whole world was perishing without Christ, then those of the world who are still without Christ are, of course, still perishing. If you could ’be saved without him, then Christ died in vain—and surely God should have removed the cup. The choice is now yours. Will you be one of the whosoever will or one of the whosoever will not come unto the Cord ? Have you no place in your heart’s affection for a Savior like this? Can you look with indifference on the suffering Son of God, as he hangs bleeding and dying on the cross for you? God loves you. Jesus died for you. Angels are concerned for you. Can you, the one most interested, be indifferent and unconcerned? The sun refused to shine upon the crucifixion of Jesus, can you look upon it without a blush? The earth trembled when the Savior died, and can you contemplate it without a tremor? The solid rocks were shivered, can your heart remain unbroken?
See from His head. His hands. His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down; Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Amen and Amen.