(Good Friday, 1832.)
TEXT: ROM. v. 7, 8.
IN the whole passage from which these words are taken the apostle is trying to convince his readers that it is only through Christ that we come into right relations with God. He begins by saying, Let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; and so let us rejoice in the glory that God is to give; nay, more, let us rejoice in tribulation also. He goes on to say that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit; and then he continues with the words of our text, “for God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” He thus represents the death of Christ as the most glorious manifestation of the love of God to us. Let us then take this thought as the subject of our meditation to-day. There are two points in it, which Paul goes on to explain in the following verses; first, that God appointed Christ to death as the uttermost proof of obedience; and secondly, that now, through this obedience, as he says, many are made righteous. Taking these two ideas together, we recognise the completeness of the divine love in the death of the Saviour.
I. In considering together how God appointed our Lord and Saviour to suffering and death as the most perfect proof of obedience, it seems necessary to begin by removing a difficulty, which will certainly occur to every one. That is, that the death of the Saviour seems by no means so obvious an evidence of the love of God, His and our heavenly Father, as of the Saviour’s own love to His brethren; and that it is only, as it were, on the ground of this love of His to us that we have any right to see in His death the love of God to wards us. And. yet the case stands as I have stated it. It is indeed difficult to separate things that are in the very closest connection; and who could wish to make a division between the Saviour’s love to us and His obedience to His and our heavenly Father? And yet the two are so related, that His love to us is shown most directly in His life, and His obedience to the Father in His sufferings and death. His love to men is seen in His labouring to seek and to save that which was lost, to show Himself as the ever-ready Physician of the sick, to communicate His own life to men, and instil it into them through His words and His works, to offer Himself to them, that in Him they might find rest and refreshing to their souls. On the other hand, when He speaks of His death, representing Himself under the figure of the good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep, He contrasts Himself with the hireling, who flees when he sees the wolf coming. The hireling flees because the sheep are not his property; therefore the reason of the good Shepherd’s giving His life for them must be that they are His own. But which of us is able to distinguish between love of his property and love of himself? Everything that is our property, in the strictest sense of the word, is also a portion of our power and our life; and love to it is connected essentially and inseparably with love to ourselves. The Saviour says in another place to His disciples, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends; ye are My friends, if ye do the things which I command you. But it was not for them as His friends, not for them in a special and exclusive and distinctive sense, that He laid down His life; for He gave His life for the salvation of the world, and the world was not His friend. And when we remember the Saviour’s one command which He gave to His disciples, “that ye love one another even as I have loved you,” we rejoice indeed that, in so far as this love consisted in striving to bring salvation to all around Him by sustaining and filling them with His divine strength, we can love each other with a similar love; for that finds expression in the beautiful interchange of loving service, which is the very essence of Christian fellowship; but how could we love each other with such a love as that of the alone holy and pure One when He gave His life for the world of sinners? Therefore if He Himself regarded His death as the necessary and direct result of His love, as its highest and most essential expression, this command of His would be futile; we should have to set aside just the best and highest part of His example before we thought of beginning to follow it. But He always spoke of His death as the will of the Father. “If it be possible,” He says, “let this cup pass from Me;” which He could not have said if it had been the work of His love—the choice of His love—to drain it; “but,” He continues, “not My will, but Thine be done.” It is true He speaks always of His obedience to the Father through His whole life, and therefore we cannot separate it from His love; His love was, in fact, the very work which the Father gave Him to do, and which He did continually. But if we wish to speak separately of His giving Himself up to suffering and death, we must say that in this, above all, is shown forth His obedience to the will of the Father. And we shall see this the more plainly if we consider what is so clearly implied in the words I have just quoted, that His obedience was (to speak after the manner of men) in conflict with His love. Not for Himself could He pray, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” but only for the sake of those whom the Father had already given Him. Love would have liked to live still longer with them and for them, love would have liked to impart still more to them out of the fulness of His divine nature; but He left it to the decision of the Father, when the time and the hour should be come. He first said, “If it be possible, let this cup pass”; that was the expression of His heartfelt, unalterable love to His people; “yet, not as I will, but as Thou wilt”; that was the expression of His perfect obedience, and of His utter submission to the will of His Father.