There is no love like the love of Christ. The association of contrast will aid us here. God, Who is love (1Jo 4:8), is the author of all human affection. Love is the creation of deity, the descendant of heaven, the reflection of God; and he whose soul is the most replete with divine love is the most like God. Paralyzed though our humanity is by the fall, tainted20 as it is by sin, the human heart is still the home of love in some of its loftiest and purest forms. It is impossible to behold its creations without the profoundest reverence. Who can stand, for instance, in the presence of a mother’s love and not be awed by its dignity, won by its power, and melted by its tenderness?
But there is a love that equals, a love that excels, a love that surpasses it—the love of Christ! Institute your contrast. Select from among the different relations of life the nearest and dearest; choose from those relations the deepest, purest, truest love that ever warmed the human breast, prompting to generous and noble deeds, to tender and touching expressions, to costly and precious sacrifices. Place it side by side with the divine love that chose you, the love that ransomed you, the love that called you, the love that soothes you, the love whose eyelid never closes, whose accents never change, whose warmth never chills, whose hand is never withdrawn—“the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19); and it is the very antithesis21 of selfishness. The love of Christ stands out in the “history of the love” as the divinest, the holiest, the strongest of all love—unequaled, unparalleled, unsurpassed. Oh! There is no love like Christ’s love! Trace its features:
1. The love of Christ is a revealing love. It uplifts the veil from the heart of God and shows how that heart loves me. I would have known nothing of the love of my Father in heaven, but for the love of my Savior on earth. And that penitent, believing soul that feels the softest, gentlest pulse of Christ’s love throbbing in his breast, knows more of the heart of God, sees more of the glory of God, and understands more of the character of God, than were earth and sky and sea to collect all their wonders and lay them at his feet.
2. The love of Christ is a condescending22 love. No other love ever stooped like Christ’s love. Go to Bethlehem and behold its lowliness; and as you return, pause awhile at Gethsemane and gaze upon its sorrow, then pursue your way to Calvary and learn in the ignominy,23 in the curse, in the gloom, in the desertion, in the tortures, in the crimson tide of that cross, how low Christ’s love has stooped. And still it stoops! It bends to all your circumstances. You can be conscious of the becloudings24 of no guilt that it will not cancel, of the pressure of no sin that it will not lighten, of the chafings of no cross that it will not heal, of the depths of no sorrow that it will not reach, of the dreary loneliness of no path it will not illumine and cheer. Oh! Is there a home on earth where the love of Christ most loves to dwell, where you will oftener find, yes, always meet it? It is the heart—broken, contrite,25 and humbled for sin!
3. The love of Christ is a self-sacrificing love. “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph 5:2). What a laborious life, what a suffering death was His, and all was but the out-paying, outpouring of His love. He obeyed every precept of the broken Law, He endured every penalty of an exacting justice. The path that conducted Him from Bethlehem to Calvary wound its lonesome way through scenes of humiliation and insult, of trial and privation,26 the storm growing darker and darker, the thunder waxing louder and louder, and the lightning gleaming brighter and brighter until its central horrors gathered round the cross and crushed the Son of God! O marvelous love of Christ! What more could you do than you have done? To what lower depth of ignominy could you stoop? What darker sorrow could you endure? Where did another cross ever impale such a victim or illustrate such love?
4. Nor is there any love so forgiving as Christ’s love. Forgiveness of injury is an essential element of true affection. We cannot see how love can exist at the same moment and in the same breast with an unbending, unrelenting, unforgiving spirit. Real love is so unique and lofty a passion, so Godlike and divine in its nature and properties, we cannot conceive of it but in alliance with every ennobling, elevating, and worthy sentiment. Selfishness, malignity, revenge, uncharitableness, and all evil speaking are passions of our fallen and depraved humanity, so hateful and degrading, it would seem impossible that they should exist for an instant in the same atmosphere with true affection.
But a yet loftier form, a more sublime embodiment27 of love is presented to us in the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. God cannot love—we speak reverently—and not forgive. Those whom God loves, God pardons. That God regards every individual of the fallen race with a feeling of benevolence is unquestionable: “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Mat 5:45); but those to whom the love of God extends, His everlasting, His special, and His redeeming love—the gracious, the full, the eternal forgiveness of all sin—likewise extends. God could not love a being and give that being over into the hands of a stern, avenging justice. Divine love will never lose the lowest and unworthiest object of its affections.
If, my reader, you feel conscious that you love God, though your affection be but as a smoldering ember, as a glimmering spark, be sure of this: God first loved you (1Jo 4:19); and loving, He has pardoned you; and pardoning, He will preserve you to His heavenly kingdom that you may behold His glory and enjoy His presence forever.
We repeat the remark: there is no love so forgiving as Christ’s love. A human love may for an instant hesitate and falter; it may dwell upon the wrong inflicted, the injury done, the wound still bleeding; may, in its very muteness, speak in tones of inexpressible sadness, of confidence betrayed, of feelings lacerated,28 of friendship sported with,29 and the heart may find it difficult to take back the wrong-doer—the offender forgiven and the offense forgotten—to its embrace. But not so Jesus! He has canceled, obliterated,30 erased every shadow of a shade of His people’s sins, and they shall come no more into remembrance. “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Mat 18:21-22).
Contrast this love, my reader—the forgiving disciple, the forgiving Savior—and then exclaim, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy” (Mic 7:18).
There is no love, too, so gentle, so patient, so enduring, as Christ’s love. Again and again you have questioned it, wounded it, forsaken it; again and again you have returned to it with tears, confession, and humiliation and have found it as unchilled and unchanged as His nature. It has borne with your doubts, has been silent beneath your murmurings, has veiled your infirmities, and has planted itself a thousand times over between you and your unseen and implacable31 foe. It has never declined with your fickleness,32 nor frozen with your coldness, nor upbraided33 you for your backslidings, but all day long, tracking your wandering, winding way, it has hovered around you with a presence that has encircled you within its divine, all-enshrouding, and invincible shield.
Truly, there is no love like Christ’s!
From None Like Christ (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1868),
28-40, in the public domain.
28-40, in the public domain.
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Octavius Winslow (1808-1878): Prominent evangelical pastor and author; born in Pentonville, England, UK.
As every knee must bow to the dominion of Christ, so every tongue must confess that Jesus is the Lord. (1) The devils and wicked men shall be forced at the last to acknowledge the power of Christ, Whose authority they have always rebelled against. And as Pharaoh and the Egyptians cried out, “Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth against us” (Exo 14:25), so shall the stoutest-hearted sinners one day flee from the presence of Christ and call to the mountains to shelter them “from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev 6:16). And all the implacable enemies of Christ shall be forced through spite and rage to gnaw their tongues, gnash their teeth, and say, as that cursed apostate Julian, “Thou hast overcome me, O Galilean.” (2) All the saints and angels shall with one consent own, acknowledge, and praise Jesus Christ as the Lord and as their Lord. They shall acknowledge Him to be the Lord their Maker and their Savior; and so they shall cry “Hosanna” to Him! And they shall acknowledge Him to be their Lord and Sovereign; and they shall cast down their crowns at His feet and with everlasting hallelujahs sing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Rev 5:12-13).—William Taylor
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