The Love of Our Redeemer

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Clothing His divinity with humanity, Christ came to this world to seek and save the lost. In every deed and word He was unselfish. His only motive was the love that He bore to the race, a love unsurpassed by any other love that has ever been shown. He came to show what human beings may become if they will unite their weakness with His strength.

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Satan has declared to His synagogue that man could not keep God’s commandments. One soul saved would prove this statement false. One soul saved would demonstrate the righteousness of God’s law. Christ came to this earth, and by a life of obedience showed that man could obey. He canceled the guilt resting on the sinner. That the sinner might stand before God clothed with the robe of righteousness. Jesus clothed Himself with the robe of sorrow.

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Satan in heaven had hated Christ for His position in the courts of God. He hated Him the more when he himself was dethroned. He hated Him who pledged Himself to redeem the race of sinners. From the manger to the cross he followed Him, striving constantly to gain the mastery over Him. He filled the hearts of the priests and rulers with hatred toward Him, till at last the Saviour stood in Pilate’s judgment hall in the hands of a lawless mob, whose hearts were filled with the violence that Satan only can inspire. His agents, disguised in the robes of priests and rulers, joined hands with the lowest and most degraded, in an effort to take the life of the Son of God. How could the beings He had created, the beings He loved so well that He left His heavenly home to come to this earth in their behalf, sink to such depths of wickedness that they would personate Satan in fighting against Him.

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Stand before the cross and learn from it the cost of redemption. With breaking heart, the Holy Sufferer looks up to God, and cries, «My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?» His heart was breaking under the thought of the woe that was to come upon the actors, under a sense of their gratitude, under the weight of the sin He Himself must carry for them. No heart save His own could approach unto such sin-bearing. Amidst His agony there came from heart and lips the wonderful prayer, «Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.»

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The angels of heaven sympathized with their loved commander. Gladly would they have broken their ranks and gone to His assistance, but this was not God’s plan. Our Saviour trod the winepress alone, and of the people there were none with Him.

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«Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we might be called the Sons of God.» «Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins;» «and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.»