The Love of Gox

"For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish — but have everlasting life!" — John 3:16 Here is what Cyprian calls "an ocean of thought — in a drop of language!" Who can sound the depths of this "thought of God?" It will form the theme and the mystery of eternity. Manifold and glorious are His thoughts regarding His people. But this is the center and focus of all — around which all the others cluster. It is the jewel of which all the others are the setting — the thought of thoughts — the gift of gifts. We may well say, "How precious!" There is no measuring that love; it defies all human computation. Christ Himself, in speaking of it, can only intimate its indescribableness. He puts the plumbline into the hand — but He does not attempt to gauge or fathom — all He can say of the precious thought and the precious love is, "God SO loved!" And His redeemed Church in Heaven will forever stoop over the edge of the precipice and exclaim, in the contemplation of the profound abyss, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us!" "Your thoughts are very deep!" Think of that love in the past — a love so great as to put into the lips of the Eternal Father the mysterious summons, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man who is My Fellow — smite the Shepherd!" The same Almighty Being is represented elsewhere as looking around — scanning and surveying the needs of a doomed and dying world: "I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold — therefore My own arm brought salvation unto Me!" The alternative, "condemn — or not condemn," was before the Infinite mind. BUT "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it — but to save it." Think of that love when it culminated thus in its triumph on the cross. When God's "precious thoughts," had their solemn revealing and interpreter in "the precious blood of Christ." Think of that moment when Infinite paternal love laid His Isaac on the altar, and the unsheathed sword descended on the priceless Sacrifice! Think of it, too, as a love evoked by rebels — a love manifested towards the guilty and undeserving, and hell-deserving. History's noblest deed and record of love — is in the self devotion of one generous heathen, Pylades, who forfeited his life to save his friend — but "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!" "You have not yet seen," says a great writer and profound thinker, "the greatest gift of all — the HEART of God, the love of His heart — the heart of His love. And will He, in very deed, show us that? Yes, unveil that cross — and see! It was His only mode of showing us His heart! It is Infinite Love laboring to reveal itself — agonizing to utter the fullness of infinite love. Apart from that act — the boundless ocean of love would have remained forever shut up and concealed in the heart of God! But now it has found an ocean-channel. Beyond this He cannot go. Once and forever the proof has been given — God is love." "My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the Lord. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways — and My thoughts higher than your thoughts!J.R.Macduff