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Contents
STEPS TO CHRIST
God's Love
for Man
Chapter 1
(9)
Nature and revelation alike testify of
God's love. Our Father in heaven is the source of life, of wisdom, and of joy.
Look at the wonderful and beautiful things of nature. Think of their marvelous
adaptation to the needs and happiness, not only of man, but of all living
creatures. The sunshine and the rain, that gladden and refresh the earth, the
hills and seas and plains, all speak to us of the Creator's love. It is God who
supplies the daily needs of all His creatures. In the beautiful words of the
psalmist--
"The eyes of all wait upon Thee;
And Thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest Thine hand, And
satisfiest the desire of every living thing." Psalm 145:15, 16.
God made man perfectly holy and happy;
and the fair earth, as it came from the Creator's hand, bore no blight of decay
or shadow of the curse. It is transgression of God's law--the law of love--that
has brought woe and death. Yet even amid the suffering that results from sin,
God's love is revealed. It is written that God cursed the ground for man's sake.
Genesis 3:17. The thorn and the thistle--the difficulties and trials that make
his life one of toil and care--were appointed for his good as a part of the
training needful in God's plan for his uplifting from the ruin and degradation
that sin has wrought. The
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world, though fallen, is not all sorrow
and misery. In nature itself are messages of hope and comfort. There are flowers
upon the thistles, and the thorns are covered with roses.
"God is love" is written upon
every opening bud, upon every spire of springing grass. The lovely birds making
the air vocal with their happy songs, the delicately tinted flowers in their
perfection perfuming the air, the lofty trees of the forest with their rich
foliage of living green -- all testify to the tender, fatherly care of our God
and to His desire to make His children happy.
The word of God reveals His character.
He Himself has declared His infinite love and pity. When Moses prayed,
"Show me Thy glory," the Lord answered, "I will make all My
goodness pass before thee." Exodus 33:18, 19. This is His glory. The Lord
passed before Moses, and proclaimed, "The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." Exodus 34:6, 7.
He is "slow to anger, and of great kindness," "because He
delighteth in mercy." Jonah 4:2; Micah 7:18.
God has bound our hearts to Him by
unnumbered tokens in heaven and in earth. Through the things of nature, and the
deepest and tenderest earthly ties that human hearts can know, He has sought to
reveal Himself to us. Yet these but imperfectly represent His love. Though all
these evidences have been given, the enemy of good blinded the minds of men, so
that they looked upon God with fear; they thought of
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Him as severe and unforgiving. Satan
led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern
justice,--one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor. He pictured the
Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and
mistakes of men, that He may visit judgments upon them. It was to remove this
dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came
to live among men.
The Son of God came from heaven to make
manifest the Father. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." John 1:18.
"Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son will reveal Him." Matthew 11:27. When one of the disciples made the
request, "Show us the Father," Jesus answered, "Have I been so
long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" John
14:8, 9.
In describing His earthly mission,
Jesus said, The Lord "hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He
hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised." Luke 4:18. This was His work. He went about doing good and
healing all that were oppressed by Satan. There were whole villages where there
was not a moan of sickness in any house, for He had passed through them and
healed all their sick. His work gave evidence of His divine anointing. Love,
mercy, and compassion were revealed in every act of
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His life; His heart went out in tender
sympathy to the children of men. He took man's nature, that He might reach man's
wants. The poorest and humblest were not afraid to approach Him. Even little
children were attracted to Him. They loved to climb upon His knees and gaze into
the pensive face, benignant with love.
Jesus did not suppress one word of
truth, but He uttered it always in love. He exercised the greatest tact and
thoughtful, kind attention in His intercourse with the people. He was never
rude, never needlessly spoke a severe word, never gave needless pain to a
sensitive soul. He did not censure human weakness. He spoke the truth, but
always in love. He denounced hypocrisy, unbelief, and iniquity; but tears were
in His voice as He uttered His scathing rebukes. He wept over Jerusalem, the
city He loved, which refused to receive Him, the way, the truth, and the life.
They had rejected Him, the Saviour, but He regarded them with pitying
tenderness. His life was one of self-denial and thoughtful care for others.
Every soul was precious in His eyes. While He ever bore Himself with divine
dignity, He bowed with the tenderest regard to every member of the family of
God. In all men He saw fallen souls whom it was His mission to save.
Such is the character of Christ as
revealed in His life. This is the character of God. It is from the Father's
heart that the streams of divine compassion, manifest in Christ, flow out to the
children of men. Jesus, the tender, pitying Saviour, was God "manifest in
the flesh." 1 Timothy 3:16.
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It was to redeem us that Jesus lived
and suffered and died. He became "a Man of Sorrows," that we might be
made partakers of everlasting joy. God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace
and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and
blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted
Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer
shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death. "The chastisement of our
peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5.
Behold Him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane, upon the cross! The spotless Son of
God took upon Himself the burden of sin. He who had been one with God, felt in
His soul the awful separation that sin makes between God and man. This wrung
from His lips the anguished cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me?" Matthew 27:46. It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible
enormity, of its separation of the soul from God--it was this that broke the
heart of the Son of God.
But this great sacrifice was not made
in order to create in the Father's heart a love for man, not to make Him willing
to save. No, no! "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten
Son." John 3:16. The Father loves us, not because of the great
propitiation, but He provided the propitiation because He loves us. Christ was
the medium through which He could pour out His infinite love upon a fallen
world. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 2
Corinthians 5:19. God suffered with His Son. In the agony of Gethsemane, the
death of
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Calvary, the heart of Infinite Love
paid the price of our redemption.
Jesus said, "Therefore doth My
Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again."
John 10:17. That is, "My Father has so loved you that He even loves Me more
for giving My life to redeem you. In becoming your Substitute and Surety, by
surrendering My life, by taking your liabilities, your transgressions, I am
endeared to My Father; for by My sacrifice, God can be just, and yet the
Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus."
None but the Son of God could
accomplish our redemption; for only He who was in the bosom of the Father could
declare Him. Only He who knew the height and depth of the love of God could make
it manifest. Nothing less than the infinite sacrifice made by Christ in behalf
of fallen man could express the Father's love to lost humanity.
"God so loved the world, that He
gave His only-begotten Son." He gave Him not only to live among men, to
bear their sins, and die their sacrifice. He gave Him to the fallen race. Christ
was to identify Himself with the interests and needs of humanity. He who was one
with God has linked Himself with the children of men by ties that are never to
be broken. Jesus is "not ashamed to call them brethren" (Hebrews
2:11); He is our Sacrifice, our Advocate, our Brother, bearing our human form
before the Father's throne, and through eternal ages one with the race He has
redeemed--the Son of man. And all this that man might be uplifted from the ruin
and degradation of sin that he might reflect the love of God and share the joy
of holiness.
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The price paid for our redemption, the
infinite sacrifice of our heavenly Father in giving His Son to die for us,
should give us exalted conceptions of what we may become through Christ. As the
inspired apostle John beheld the height, the depth, the breadth of the Father's
love toward the perishing race, he was filled with adoration and reverence; and,
failing to find suitable language in which to express the greatness and
tenderness of this love, he called upon the world to behold it. "Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God." 1 John 3:1. What a value this places upon man! Through
transgression the sons of man become subjects of Satan. Through faith in the
atoning sacrifice of Christ the sons of Adam may become the sons of God. By
assuming human nature, Christ elevates humanity. Fallen men are placed where,
through connection with Christ, they may indeed become worthy of the name
"sons of God."
Such love is without a parallel.
Children of the heavenly King! Precious promise! Theme for the most profound
meditation! The matchless love of God for a world that did not love Him! The
thought has a subduing power upon the soul and brings the mind into captivity to
the will of God. The more we study the divine character in the light of the
cross, the more we see mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity
and justice, and the more clearly we discern innumerable evidences of a love
that is infinite and a tender pity surpassing a mother's yearning sympathy for
her wayward child.
Contents
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