Character of God Revealed in Christ
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heaven itself had to bestow has been poured out that God “might be
just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” By that gift men
are uplifted from the ruin and degradation of sin to become children
of God. Says Paul: “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry, Abba, Father.”
Brethren, with the beloved John I call upon you to “behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God.” What love, what matchless love, that, sinners
and aliens as we are, we may be brought back to God and adopted
into His family! We may address Him by the endearing name, “Our
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Father,” which is a sign of our affection for Him and a pledge of His
tender regard and relationship to us. And the Son of God, beholding
the heirs of grace, “is not ashamed to call them brethren.” They have
even a more sacred relationship to God than have the angels who have
never fallen.
All the paternal love which has come down from generation to
generation through the channel of human hearts, all the springs of
tenderness which have opened in the souls of men, are but as a tiny rill
to the boundless ocean when compared with the infinite, exhaustless
love of God. Tongue cannot utter it; pen cannot portray it. You may
meditate upon it every day of your life; you may search the Scriptures
diligently in order to understand it; you may summon every power
and capability that God has given you, in the endeavor to comprehend
the love and compassion of the heavenly Father; and yet there is an
infinity beyond. You may study that love for ages; yet you can never
fully comprehend the length and the breadth, the depth and the height,
of the love of God in giving His Son to die for the world. Eternity
itself can never fully reveal it. Yet as we study the Bible and meditate
upon the life of Christ and the plan of redemption, these great themes
will open to our understanding more and more. And it will be ours
to realize the blessing which Paul desired for the Ephesian church
when he prayed “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened,
that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding
greatness of His power to usward who believe.”