Love bound him to the cross and
held him there. By John Eady. Ephesians chapter
5 verse 25. Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her. Thoughts of love nestled in his
heart. Words of love lingered on his lips. Deeds of love flew
from his hands. And his steps left behind them
the impress of love. Love threw its soft halo over
his cradle at Bethlehem, and it fringed with its mellow splendors
the gloom of the cloud under which he expired on Calvary.
Love gave bounds to his reproofs and pathos to his invitations.
Love was the magnet that guided him in all his wanderings. Love
bound him to the cross and held him there, and not the iron nails
which pierced his hands and his feet. Love thrilled in his bosom
and glistened in his eye. Love prompted him to impart miraculous
aid on every opportunity. His meekness was but one of its
features. It clothed itself in forgiveness
toward his enemies, and its last pulsation was in a prayer for
his murderers. Love was the spiritual atmosphere
in which he lived, moved, and had his being. And all this love
had his own redeemed people for its central object, around whom
it ever hovered with sleepless tenderness and assiduity. Christ
loved the Church and gave himself up for her. But those exhibitions
of love during his life are eclipsed by the displays of it in his
death. Love shines out with wondrous
charms amidst the gloom of death, for it did not shrink from the
shame and woe of the cross. His severest anguish was that
of his soul. Oh, it was not shame, persecution,
or crucifixion, for these terrible sufferings could have been easily
borne. It was not the rage and malice
of Satan. These also could have been trampled
on. but it was the endurance in himself of the punishment
due to that sin which he had taken upon himself, which drank
up his spirit, prompted the moan in Gethsemane, and the mysterious
complaint on Calvary. The travail of his soul was induced
by vicarious pangs. In the Scriptures, redemption
is not ascribed to the birth of Christ with its mysteries.
nor to the miracles of Christ with their splendor, nor to the
life of Christ with its holy beauty, but only to His death. Who can estimate the depth and
fervor of a love, which gave itself to such agonies, laid
itself on the altar as a perfect sin-atoning sacrifice, suffered
that we should not eternally suffer, and died that we might
live forever? For in His love He gave Himself. It was no inferior gift He selected. For no inferior gift could be
the adequate expression of His love. It would be content with
nothing else and nothing less. The Divine Lover gave Himself.
Surely the voice of the Redeemer's love speaks in thrilling accents
from the cross. Oh then, what an amazing gift! You members of His blood-bought
church, as you look to His cross, when you see Him groaning, bleeding,
and dying in agony and shame, under the deepest, most mysterious
and terrible of sufferings, will you not be always reassured of
His love? Will it not glow in your bosoms
and thrill in your praises? Unto Him who loves us and has
freed us from our sins by His blood. To Him be glory and power
forever and ever. Amen. Revelation chapter 1 verse
5.