Jun 25
3
Infinite, boundless,
fathomless, endless love!
>From Spurgeon’s, “CONSTRAINING LOVE”
We sometimes guess at Christ’s love to us, but, ah, it is
so far beyond our thoughts, our reasonings, our praises,
and our apprehension too, in the sweetest moments of
our most spiritual ecstasy– who can tell it?
There was nothing in you to make him love you,
but he left heaven’s throne for you!
As he came down the celestial hills, methinks the angels said,
“Oh, how he loved them.” When he lay in the manger an infant,
they gathered round and said, “Oh how he loves.” But when
they saw him sweating in the garden, when he was put into the
crucible, and began to be melted in the furnace, then indeed,
the spirits above began to know how much he loved us.
Oh Jesus! when I see you mocked and spit upon– when I see your
dear cheeks become a reservoir for all the filth and spittle
of unholy mouths– when I see your back rent with knotted
whips– when I behold your honour and your life both trailing
in the dust– when I behold your hands and your feet pierced,
your body stripped naked and exposed– when I see you hanging
on the cross between earth and heaven, in torments dire and
excruciating– when I hear you cry “I thirst,” and see the
vinegar thrust to your lips– when I hear your direful cry,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,”
my spirit is compelled to say, “Oh how he loves!”
He could die, but he could not cease to love.
He could be torn in pieces, but he could not
be torn away from his people.
He bled for you.
He gave his whole self for you.
There was not a single nerve in his body
which did not thrill with love to you.
There was not a drop his of blood which
had not in its red fluid your name.
Oh how he loved you, when he received you all
black and filthy to his bosom, gave you the kiss of
his lips, and welcomed you as his own fair spouse.
May we have a consciousness of his infinite,
boundless, fathomless, endless love to us.
“Oh love the Lord all ye his saints.” -Psalm 31:23.
“He shall be called a Nazarene”
When God gave his law to Israel by the hand of Moses, one of the most thoroughly expanded laws given was “the law of the Nazarite” in Numbers 6. There are many things in the law of the Nazarite that cannot be applied to our Saviour. He both touched dead bodies and drank wine, though he was never made unclean by doing so. Yet, strictly speaking, as that one who was wholly devoted and separated to the Lord God, our Saviour is the Nazarene typically referred to in this Old Testament law. He is the one and the only one man who perfectly fulfilled it. This is evident from the fact that the law is never mentioned again until we see it mentioned in connection with Samson (another type of our Redeemer) in Judges 13.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was set apart and sanctified to the Father to do his will from eternity. “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:19). Our Saviour fulfils the type gloriously. The church is described as having hair like a flock of goats (Song of Solomon 4:1). Like the hairs of his head, a vast multitude grow up in Christ and upon him. No razor shall ever separate us from our Lord. Like the hair on our heads, we live upon Christ, depend on him, and draw life and strength from him, because we are a part of him and can never be separated from him. As Samson’s strength and glory was his hair, so we are Christ’s glory. But our mighty Samson shall never lose his glory. The hair is the last part of the body to die; and we shall never perish, because Christ our Saviour lives forever! Therefore it may be said of every member of Christ’s Church, as we read in Lamentations 4:7, “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire”.
We must not overlook the fact that in all these offerings for sin shadowed forth the one great, all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ, our great Nazarite, by which our sins were put away. Waving the offering before the Lord was both an acknowledgment of sin before the holy Lord God and a celebration of sin’s pardon and removal by the blood of Christ. In Mark 14:24, 25 our Saviour spoke of his work as the Nazarene being fulfilled when he said, “This is the blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. Truly I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God”.
We have the clearest possible evidence that all that is seen in this Nazarite law refers to Christ and his great work of redemption in the last verses of Numbers 6. In verses 22-27, upon the basis of the Nazarite’s obedience and sacrifice, God commands his blessing upon his people. Then Nazarite is mentioned is in Judges 13:5. Here it is used to describe Samson as a Nazarite (Judges 13:5), another great type of our Saviour in his consecration to God from his mother’s womb. Isaiah also used this very word when he prophesied of Christ coming to save us by the sacrifice of himself. “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch (netzar-Nazarite) shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1).
The fact that our Saviour was born at Bethlehem in fulfilment of Micah 5:2 tells us that he was, at the time of his conception in the virgin’s womb, “a Nazarene” (Luke 1:26-33). “That Holy thing”, Christ our Mediator, was the Nazarite from the womb, brought forth in the city of Nazareth by the power of the Holy Spirit, just as Isaiah told us he would be (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6). In all these things, we see that Christ the Nazarene is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes”, having fulfilled it entirely as our Substitute and Saviour.
Don Fortner
Excerpt from The Surety’s Thirst
By Horatius Bonar, 1867
“I thirst.” John 19:28
It was a true thirst, and as deep and sore as it was true. It was a thirst corresponding with the character of him who felt it. He was human, and He was divine. It was, of course, humanity which thirsted; but it was humanity in union with divinity, and therefore made more susceptible of suffering, more capable of enduring what alone it would not have been capable of undergoing. Christ’s humanity was perfect; but that only made it more sensitive, more acutely alive to suffering, so that his hunger, his thirst, his weariness, instead of being mitigated or made unreal—became more real and intense, more unmodified and harder to bear, than they are or can be in our imperfect humanity. The perfection of humanity implies the perfection of suffering, whenever that perfect humanity comes into contact with suffering at all. Pre-eminence in sorrow, and pre-eminence in joy, must be the portion and prerogative of such exalted perfection. It is only perfection such as this, which can sound the depths of creature-sadness, or reach the heights of human joy. Had there been one taint of imperfection, about either the body or the soul of Jesus, he could not have tasted the whole bitterness of our anguish; he could not have drained our cup; he could not have paid our penalty; he could not have felt that extremity of thirst, regarding which he uttered the bitter outcry in the hour of his conflict with death, and with the powers of darkness, upon the cross.
PAID IN FULL!
from Spurgeon, “IT IS FINISHED!” (No. 421)
The satisfaction which Jesus rendered
to the JUSTICE OF GOD was finished!
The debt was now, to the last farthing, all discharged.
The atonement and propitiation were made once for all, and
forever, by the one offering made in Jesus’ body on the tree.
There was the cup, hell was in it, the Saviour drank it — not a
sip and then a pause; not a draught and then a ceasing, but he
drained it till there is not a dreg left for any of his people.
The great ten-thonged whip of the law was worn
out upon his back, there is no lash left with
which to smite one for whom Jesus died.
The great cannonade of God’s justice has exhausted
all its ammunition, there is nothing left to be
hurled against a child of God.
Sheathed is your sword, O Justice!
Silenced is your thunder, O Law!
There remains nothing now of all the griefs, and
pains, and agonies which chosen sinners ought to have
suffered for their sins, for Christ has endured all
for his own beloved, and “it is finished.”
Christ has done what all the flames of the pit could
not do in all eternity– Christ has paid the debt which
all the torments of eternity could not have paid!
“It is Finished!”
John 19:30
The Son of God has taken upon himself human flesh. He has lived a life of perfect righteousness as the Representative of his covenant people. He has been all his life long despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His enemies have been many. His friends have been few, and those few faithless. At last he is delivered over into the hands of them that hate him. He is cruelly arrested in the garden and arraigned before the courts of law. They robe him in mockery, strip him in shame, and hold him up as a spectacle of ridicule and scorn.
He is declared to be perfectly innocent. Yet, the cowardly judge delivers him into the hands of his persecutors. It is written, “Pilate delivered Jesus to their will!” He is dragged through the streets of Jerusalem. Those who had killed the prophets would now bring upon themselves the blood of the prophets’ Master.
The God-man is brought to the hill called Calvary and brutally nailed to the cross. The sun burns upon him. His wounds infect his body with scorching fever. God, his Father, whose will he came to perform, whose purpose he now fulfils, whose people he came to redeem, whose glory he came to uphold, his God and Father forsakes him. Suffering all the concentrated anguish of hell, he cries out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” While he hangs there upon the cursed tree, in mortal conflict with sin and Satan, his heart is broken. His limbs are dislocated. His Father forsakes him. The heavens forsake him. The earth forsakes him. His disciples all forsake him and flee from him. He looks everywhere, but there is none to help. His eye looks all around, but there are none to share his toil. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God alone; and of the people there are none with him.
Yet, on he goes, steadily determined to drink the last bitter dregs of that cup which could not pass from his lips if his Father’s will is to be done. He says, “The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:5-7). For the glory of God, for the honour of his holy law, for the redemption of his people, and in order to complete the work for which he came into the world, the Lord Jesus Christ perseveres in his agony, until at last he cries, “It is finished!” Then he gives up the ghost.
Do you hear this mighty shout of triumph? It is the word of the conquering King. It rings today with all the freshness and force with which it rang two thousand years ago! — “It is finished!” Hear it from the sacred Word. Hear from the Saviour’s lips. I pray that you will hear these three words, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, ringing in your very soul. — “It is finished!” Oh, may these blessed words ring out in your heart today. I pray that you may be enabled to enter into the experience of this blessed conquest. As he looks up to God his Father, as he looks around to the wondering angels of light, as he looks down upon Satan and the demons of hell, and as he looks out over the perishing multitudes of men, the Lamb of God declares, “It Is Finished,” testifying to heaven and earth and hell that redemption’s work is done!
Don Fortner
Ah, here it is that I am
most at fault!
(“Every Day!” Author unknown, 1872)
“What do you think of Christ?” Matthew 22:42
I am ashamed of my thoughts of Him – they are so poor, and so unworthy of Him.
He is so great, and so glorious, and so good,
and so gracious – that I cannot think of Him as I desire to.
Do you inquire what I think of His person? He is the chief
among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely One! He unites in Himself, Deity
and Manhood –
“All human beauties – all Divine,
In my Beloved meet and shine!”
Do you ask what I think of His work? It is perfect! His
obedience is spotless! His atonement is complete! His work of redemption is
accomplished, “It is Finished!”
Do you ask what I think of His love? Ah, here it is that I am most
at fault – and no wonder, for His love surpasses knowledge! Its height
and depth, its length and its breadth – are immeasurable! His love is free,
unchanging, and eternal. It is unparalleled – it is Dying love!
He loved me – and gave Himself for me! Greater love has no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends – but Jesus laid down His life for His
enemies! “Christ died for the ungodly!” Romans 5:6
May you “know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge!” Ephesians 3:19
Utter beggary and
complete bankruptcy
(Joseph Philpot)
“O visit me with Thy salvation.” Psalm 106:4
Salvation only suits the condemned, the lost.
A man must be lost; utterly lost; before he
can prize God’s salvation.
And how is he lost? By . . .
losing all his religion,
losing all his righteousness,
losing all his strength,
losing all his confidence,
losing all his hopes,
losing all that is of the flesh;
losing it by its being taken from him,
and stripped away by the hand of God.
A man who is brought into this state of
utter beggary and complete bankruptcy . . .
to be nothing,
to have nothing,
to know nothing;
he is the man, who is . . .
crying,
groaning,
begging,
suing,
seeking,
and praying
for God’s salvation to his soul.
“O visit me with Thy salvation.” Psalm 106:4