Chapter 180—“Behold, What Manner of Love”
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that
we should be called the sons of God.
1 John 3:1
.
It is from the Father’s heart that the streams of divine compassion,
manifest in Christ, flow out to the children of men.... God permitted His
beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable
glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow
of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love,
the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and
death.... It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible enormity, of its
separation of the soul from God—it was this that broke the heart of the Son
of God....
God suffered with His Son. In the agony of Gethsemane, the death
of Calvary, the heart of Infinite Love paid the price of our redemption....
Nothing less than the infinite sacrifice made by Christ in behalf of fallen man
could express the Father’s love to lost humanity....
The price paid for our redemption, the infinite sacrifice of our heavenly
Father in giving His Son to die for us, should give us exalted conceptions of
what we may become through Christ. As the inspired apostle John beheld
the height, the depth, the breadth of the Father’s love toward the perishing
race, he was filled with adoration and reverence; and, failing to find suitable
language in which to express the greatness and tenderness of this love, he
called upon the world to behold it.... What a value this places upon man!
Through transgression, the sons of man become subjects of Satan. Through
faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the sons of Adam may become the
sons of God. By assuming human nature, Christ elevates humanity. Fallen
men are placed where, through connection with Christ, they may indeed
become worthy of the name, “sons of God.”
Such love is without a parallel. Children of the heavenly King! Precious
promise! Theme of the most profound meditation! The matchless love of
God for a world that did not love Him!
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