The Love of Christ, as
Manifested in His Sufferings and Death
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends." John 15:13
"Religion! you are the soul of happiness;
And groaning Calvary, of you! There shine
The noblest truths; there strongest motives sting;
There sacred violence assaults the soul;
There nothing but compulsion is forborne.
You my all!
My theme! my inspiration, and my crown!
My strength in age! my rise in low estate!
My soul's ambition, pleasure, wealth; my world
My light in darkness, and my life in death!
My boast through time! bliss through eternity!
Eternity is too short to speak your praise,
Or fathom your profound of love to man!
To man of men the lowest, even to me!
My sacrifice! my God! What things are these!
They talk of morals! O bleeding Love!
You maker of new morals to mankind!
The grand morality is love to You!"
In the death of Christ, we behold the most astonishing exhibition of divine
love that has ever been manifested to a lost world. Such love as is here
displayed without a precedent; without a parallel in the annals of time or
in the records of eternity. To behold the Son of God, the Maker of worlds,
bowing his head on the cross, and yielding up his immaculate soul amid the
agonies of death, is the most wonderful, the most affecting, the most
melting sight that mortals ever witnessed! Around the Cross of Christ there
shine the most resplendent rays of divine love that ever beamed from the Sun
of Righteousness- that ever emanated from the Deity!
Here then is the brightest display of love, that Christ has manifested to a
world of perishing sinners. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay
down his life for his friends." But, oh! amazing love! that Christ breathed
out his precious life, poured out his holy soul unto death, for his enemies,
for the ungodly, for sinners. "You see, at just the right time, when we were
still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die
for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to
die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us." Christ died to save sinners! without his
death, their salvation could not have been accomplished. Without the
shedding of blood, there is no remission; and without the shedding of
Christ's precious blood, not a single sinner could have been saved. The
salvation of countless millions was suspended on the death of Christ; but,
in love, he died to save them!
Here we may behold a little of the vastness of that love which cannot be
measured, and which cannot be told. The Savior's love met death itself to
the face, and triumphed over the grave. O, my soul, look and wonder! Behold
your Savior bleeding on the cross; bleeding from every pore, that your sins
might be washed away in the flowing stream! See him pouring out his soul
unto death, for your salvation; and ask, Is not this a manifestation of
unparalleled love to you?
O, blessed Jesus! we come far short of comprehending the greatness of your
dying love. It is a great deep. It is a fathomless ocean. May we contemplate
more and more this mystery of divine love!
Christ's suffering and dying for us is a great mystery, a mystery of
unfathomable love. How vehement was the love of Christ, that led him to
endure death in its most terrible form, even the death of the cross! "Love
is strong as death; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which has a most
vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown
it." Such is the love of Christ. All the waters of affliction and suffering;
all the billows of divine wrath that rolled over our blessed Redeemer, were
not sufficient to quench the ardency of that love which he felt for a dying
world of sinners. It will endure through time. It will shine with
undiminished splendor, and glow brighter and brighter through eternity.
Oh! the infinite love of the Son of God, to shed his precious blood for
sinners. The love of Christ, in dying for sinners, passes all knowledge. It
is immeasurable. It is as incomprehensible as the duration of eternity. It
is as illimitable as boundless space. "Such knowledge is higher than the
heavens—but who are you? It is deeper than the underworld—what can you know
in comparison to him? It is broader than the earth and wider than the sea."
O love divine! where are your limits? Great God! beyond the sight of
mortals, and of angels? The stupendous sun, the brilliant moon, the blazing
stars, the extended earth– these have their bounds, but his love has none!
Lift up your eyes, and behold this vast world, the product of his power! See
its continents, and its oceans extending for thousands of miles: these
continents may be measured; but not his love; who, though God, became man,
to die for man. Sooner would those unfathomable oceans be fathomed, than the
depths of his compassion!
Lift up your eyes to the heavens! Survey the countless glories of the starry
firmament; all its fixed or moving worlds of light! Let your thoughts rove
from star to star. How great is he who formed them all! How glorious he who
bids them shine with undiminished splendor through six thousand years, and
to whom they are inconsequential as a speck of flying dust! Yet he who hung
out those brilliant fires stooped from his amazing height of bliss and
majesty, to assume mortal flesh, and appear a feeble infant and a suffering
man. Far sooner could you measure their immeasurable distances, and count
their countless numbers, than tell all the vastness of his love, and the
blessings it bestows. The sun is darkness compared with his superior glory
who hung it in the heavens! And yet he humbled himself to the dark abodes of
misery and death for guilty man.
O! when you gaze upon the blue expanse, or when the solemn stillness of
night banishes from your mind the thoughts of a vain, departing world; when
you behold the midnight sky and mark the thousands of its glowing fires;
then think that he who fixed them there once hung on Calvary for you, that
you might shine a star, a sun, in heaven, when all those stars shall shine
no more. Think that he was once humbled and dishonored, stained with blood,
and blue with blows, that you might have a treasure greater than a thousand
united worlds, and infinitely more lasting than the countless lights which
illuminate the skies. Amazing love!
Here we must pause, and wonder, and praise, and adore; and in the midst of
our adoration, exclaim, Lord! what is man, that you are mindful of him; and
the son of man, that you should thus visit him? O blessed Jesus! you visited
us in love- in great mercy. You bled your life's blood, that we might be
washed from our sins in that blood of infinite virtue. You died, that we
might live. You wore a crown of thorns, that we might wear a crown of glory,
and shine as stars in heaven forever.
Oh! to know more and more about the dying love of the Lord Jesus! The heart
of Jesus is nothing but a heart of love: love to sinners, even the chief. It
has been well remarked by Maclaurin, that "were all the love of all the men
that ever were or shall be on the earth, and all the love of all the angels
in heaven, united in one heart, it would be a cold heart compared to that
which was pierced with the soldier's spear." Oh, loving, bleeding Lamb of
God! come, wash us in that blood which flowed from your wounded heart, from
your pierced side; which streamed from Calvary, a fountain of overflowing,
inexhaustible depths of redeeming blood! "On that day a fountain will be
opened for the dynasty of David and for the people of Jerusalem, a fountain
to cleanse them from all their sins and defilement." Blessed be God! that
fountain has been opened these eighteen hundred years, and is as
inexhaustible as ever.
Ho! every one that thirsts, come to the waters; and he that has no money,
come, buy and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk– without money and without
price." What stupendous love has Christ here manifested, in washing away the
sins of a lost multitude in his own most precious blood. Well may redeemed
sinners shout in songs of praise to their adorable Redeemer, "Unto him that
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us
kings and priests unto God and his Father; unto him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen." "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and
blessing!"
Oh! the infinite efficacy of the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin–
"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." Through the blood of
Christ, pardon and peace flow to guilty sinners. "In whom we have redemption
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his
grace." "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." "Through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." "He made peace
through the blood of his cross." Precious blood that redeems us from eternal
misery, and brings us to God! "But now you belong to Christ Jesus. Though
you once were far away from God, now you have been brought near to him
because of the blood of Christ."
Oh! costly price of man's redemption- the precious blood of Christ. "For you
know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited
from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He
paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless
Lamb of God." O, my soul! look with astonishment at the price paid for your
redemption- the infinitely precious blood of Christ!
Dear reader, look and live! Look at the blessed Jesus, bleeding and dying on
the cross for your sins. "And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole
in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole, so
that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life."
"Upon the cross I see him bleed,
And by the sight from guilt am freed:
This sight destroys the life of sin,
And quickens heavenly life within."
A bleeding Savior, seen by faith, is the sight that gives peace to the
guilty, heavy-laden soul. It is the blood of Christ sprinkled upon the
conscience, that makes peace between God and the sinner.
But what intense sufferings our divine Redeemer endured, when he "bore our
sins in his own body;" when he was made to be sin for us; when he suffered,
the just for the unjust. As our substitute, he endured the wrath of God, and
suffered for our sins. It was infinite love that led the blessed Son of God
to endure all these sufferings, and, at last to submit to the painful death
of the cross.
How brightly did that love shine in the last hours of his life, when he was
about to bleed on Calvary! What but infinite love led him to the garden of
Gethsemane, to endure that bitter agony; when he said, "My soul is exceeding
sorrowful unto death," and where "his sweat was as it were great drops of
blood falling down to the ground!"
What but infinite love led him to the judgment hall, there to be derided,
condemned to death, and crowned with thorns; where "his visage was so marred
more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men!'' What but
infinite love brought him to Calvary's mount, there to hang a suffering,
bleeding victim on the cross, for our sins!
There is nothing that slows the love of Christ like Calvary. It is there
that all the rays of divine love are blended together. In that dark hour in
which our Savior hung on the cross, he showed to the world that his love was
stronger dean death: these he exhibited more human love; he manifested the
infinite love of God. Amid all his sufferings, divine love shone with the
greatest luster. Who can tell what love Christ felt for a lost world when he
suffered on the cross? Then he was about to accomplish our salvation; and
his love became stronger and stronger. Though he grappled with the powers of
darkness, yet his arm brought salvation. He endured the hidings of his
Father's countenance, until he was led to exclaim, in the bitterness of his
soul, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
But he made an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness; and
amid the last struggles of his holy soul, there fell from his lips in dying
accents, these most blessed words- the most joyful ever conveyed to a
sinner's ear, "It is finished!" Yes, your salvation, sinner, is accomplished
by this wondrous death by that divine personage who endured it.
O, look at this exhibition of love! Was there ever such love manifested to a
lost world, as is here displayed before your eyes? Reader, contemplate
Christ crucified. How intently was the mind of the great apostle fixed on
this prolific theme! His language to the Corinthians is, "I determined not
to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified." You also
may look towards Calvary, and with the same apostle, exclaim, "God forbid
that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Blessed Jesus! we
cannot comprehend the vastness of your dying love!
"The propitiatory death of Christ," says Thornton, "viewed by faith, fills
and absorbs the mind, touches and melts the heart, raises and refines the
affections, and completely transforms the whole character." "This is real
love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as
a sacrifice to take away our sins." "For Christ's love compels us, because
we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died
for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for
him who died for them and was raised again."
Is it surprising, then, that Christ should be precious to believers? Can we
see his matchless condescension, in stooping from a throne of glory, to a
cross of suffering and shame; can we understand the great end of his amazing
humiliation and vicarious death; can we feel the sprinkling of his
peace-speaking blood upon the conscience, and not love, adore, and magnify
him? "O you cold-hearted, frozen formalists! on such a theme it is impious
to be calm. Passion is reason, transport is temperance, here."
What can elevate and rejoice the soul, if it remains unaffected with the
highest manifestations of eternal love? In the death of Christ, the power,
wisdom, justice, and mercy of God, shine forth in full unclouded splendor.
What language can, with due force, express the tender and lively emotions
which spring up in the Christian's breast as he silently muses on the
delightful subject of redeeming love?
O God! what is man, that you are mindful of him? You did not even spare your
own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all. Who am I, that such a price
should be paid for my ransom? It was not with silver and gold, and
corruptible things, that my soul was redeemed, but by the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Why, blessed and
adorable Savior, did you look in compassion on me, a worthless worm, a vile
apostate, a hell deserving rebel? O how is my soul lost in admiration and
delight, when I contemplate this mystery! May your love ever glow in my
heart, and your praise on my tongue! May I wholly live to you, who has died
for me.
"Oh, wondrous love! to bleed and die
To bear the cross and shame;
That guilty sinners, such as I,
Might plead your gracious name."
The death of Christ delivers us from condemnation. When a sinner, by faith,
obtains a sight of the crucified One, he boldly exclaims in the face of all
his enemies, "Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the
one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the
place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us." By his death he has
satisfied divine justice, and reconciled us to God; and "there is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." "Being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;" and being now
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. "When we
were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son." O, to have
an interest in that atonement which Christ made for our sins! "By whom we
have now received the atonement."
Reader, I would not lead you to Sinai, but to Calvary- to the Savior's
bleeding side. I would point you to the cross of Christ; to him, who, in his
great love, once suffered, and bled, and died for sinners. I would direct
you to the bleeding Lamb of God, "who takes away the sin of the world." May
you behold him with the eye of faith; even Him who so loved you, that he
laid down his own life for you. Then shall the peace of God, which passes
all understanding, fill your heart. Then shall heavenly joys possess your
renewed spirit; and one unbroken strain of praise shall, through time and
eternity, arise from your purified, exalted, and enraptured soul, to Him who
loved you, and washed you from your sins in his own blood. Look at Jesus
now. Have faith in his atoning blood. Endeavor to obtain a glimpse of the
bleeding Savior.
"A bleeding Savior, seen by faith,
A sense of pardoning love;
A hope that triumphs over death,
Give joys like those above,
To take a glimpse within the veil;
To know that God is mine;
Are springs of joy that never fail,
Unspeakable! divine!"
The sufferings and death of the Son of God afford the most illustrious
exhibition of divine love that has ever been displayed on this terrestrial
globe. Here is exhibited love, such as never before shone on earth; love,
surpassing human thought and comprehension. Truly, here the love of Christ
passes knowledge! What wonderful love and condescension are here manifested!
Christ dying for sinners! The Son of God nailed to the cross for sinners!
The blood of Emmanuel flowing from Calvary for sinners! Our blessed Savior,
"Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He
made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in
human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by
dying a criminal's death on a cross." O, wonderful love that made the only
begotten Son of God lay down his life for sinners!
"That such a person as Christ," says Vincent, "so excellent, so innocent;
should undergo death, and such a death as that of the cross, so disgraceful,
so painful; that he should submit to such ignominy, and endure such agony,
such tearing of his flesh, such pressure in his spirit, with such submission
and patience, for strangers and enemies! Here was love, stronger than death.
Oh! the sleight, oh! the depth of this love! There are such dimensions in
this love of Christ, as the longest line of our most extended thoughts and
imaginations can never be able to reach and measure."
What amazing love did Christ manifest, when he, who was the brightness of
his Father's glory, exchanged that crown of glory which he wore in heaven,
for a crown of thorns on earth, and bled, and died on the cross for guilty
man! Sinner, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Contemplate your divine Redeemer, who
has shed his precious blood to save your soul from eternal misery. In love
he died to save you. O, then, contemplate this loving Savior in his
sufferings and death!
"Think how on the cross he hung,
Pierced with a thousand wounds!
Hark, from each, as with a tongue,
The voice of pardon sounds!
See, from all his bursting veins,
Blood of wondrous virtue flow!
Shed to wash away your stains,
And ransom you from woe."
Sinner, flee to Christ. He will receive you joyfully, and save you with an
everlasting salvation. He will rejoice over you with great joy. He is a
loving Savior, and he loves to save sinners. "He was willing to die a
shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his
afterward (the joy of saving sinners). Now he is seated in the place of
highest honor beside God's throne in heaven." "Therefore he is able, once
and forever, to save everyone who comes to God through him. He lives forever
to plead with God on their behalf."
Come, now, and put your trust in this Savior. Leave with him your immortal
concerns. Entrust fearlessly your whole salvation to him. Do not think that
he will reject you, if you attempt to cast your sin-burdened soul into his
compassionate arms. His atonement is all-sufficient. He saves to the very
uttermost. Despair not– only come and commit your soul to Christ, and
salvation is yours.
There is an infinite efficacy in the precious blood of Christ, to cleanse
you from all sin. Blessed be God! that blood which washes away the deepest
stains, has been shed; and that atonement which expiates the greatest guilt,
has been made. God now says to us, in language the most strong and
encouraging, "I have swept away your sins like the morning mists. I have
scattered your offenses like the clouds. Oh, return to me, for I have
redeemed you."
In the contemplation of our salvation, well may we exclaim with the prophet,
"Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done this wondrous thing. Shout, O earth!
Break forth into song, O mountains and forests and every tree! For the Lord
has redeemed Jacob and is glorified in Israel."
Blessed Jesus! It is from your death that we derive eternal life and
blessedness. How should our hearts glow with love to you, and sound with the
high praises of our God! "I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God! For
he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of
righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with
her jewels."
Reader, are you deeply interested in the atonement and righteousness of
Christ? Then go forward in your pilgrimage journey with joy; leaning upon
Jesus, the beloved of your soul. "Live a life filled with love, following
the example of Christ, who loved you and gave himself as a sacrifice to take
away your sins. And God was pleased, because that sacrifice was like sweet
perfume to him." "....Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to
make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and
to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or
any other blemish, but holy and blameless."
With their robes washed white in the blood of the Emmanuel, invested with
his spotless, perfect righteousness, the saints shall at last be presented
before God, a faultless church; and the redeeming love of Christ
constituting their unending theme, shall engage their enlarged and exalted
faculties, and employ their ransomed souls in holy meditations through the
everlasting sabbath of eternity.
Sinner, resort immediately to the fountain of the Redeemer's blood, while it
is yet open. Come, without delay: "Wash, and be clean." "The Spirit and the
bride say, "Come." Let each one who hears them say, "Come." Let the thirsty
ones come—anyone who wants to. Let them come and drink the water of life
without charge." If you thus come to the fountain of living water, you will
be able to adopt the language of Cowper, and say–
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
'Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father's ears no other name but Thine.