Love bound him to the cross and
held him there. John Edey, The Ultimate Purpose
of Christ's Love and Death, 1865. Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her. Ephesians 5, 25. 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 splendours
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 promoted him to impart miraculous
aid on every opportunity. His meekness was but one of its
features. It clothed itself in forgiveness
towards 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 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 novel 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
fervour of a love, which gave itself to such agonies, laid
itself on the altar as a perfect atoning sacrifice, suffered that
we should not eternally suffer, and died that we might live for
ever? 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-Boiled
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 always be 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
for ever and ever. Amen.