Chapter XXVI.
Five Kinds Of Works Of Love, In Which The Grace And Goodness Of God Are Especially Revealed.
The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.—Ps. 87:2.
There are chiefly five arguments of the love of God. 1. Christ's incarnation. 2. His suffering. 3. God's indwelling in us. 4. God's love shining forth out of the creatures. 5. His amiableness in his own Being, therein surpassing all created things.
2. I. Where love is, there is union; for it is the nature of love that it unites itself with the beloved. Now, as God loved man so mightily, it could not be otherwise but that he must unite himself again unto man after his fall, and out of pure love and mercy become a man. Ah! “What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him!” Psalm 8:4. The soul of man is so beloved of God, that as Christ is God and man, having united himself with human nature, with our body and soul: so also God loves our soul so much that he desires to pour himself wholly into the same, if it were perfectly purified, and man did not resist him. For there is infinite love in God, which is unutterable. This is, then, one of the greatest demonstrations of the love of God, that God is made man, and has showed himself a true lover of men, having taken upon him what is human that he might give us what is divine. He is become a Son of man, that he may make us children of God. He came down to us upon earth, that he might lift us up into heaven. O what a noble exchange! and all for this end, that we in him might be loved of God. It is as if God did call from heaven, saying: “O ye men, behold my beloved Son! Him I have suffered to become man, that he might be a living example and witness of my deep love to you; that he might bring you all with himself to me, and ye all might be made my children and heirs!” Therefore the Lord always calls himself in the Gospel the Son of Man, out of an intimate love to us. We seldom read that he calls himself the Son of God, but always the Son of Man, from an affectionate humility and love.
3. II. Although his holy incarnation is a very great argument of his love to us, yet his holy suffering and dying for our sins are a still greater one. For “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. “In this was manifested the love of God towards us (saith St. John), that God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9, 10. This is the highest love. Our God, according to his incomprehensible omnipotence, could have found out other means by which to redeem us; as the Lord Jesus Christ himself prayed for it in his agony, saying: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.” Mark 14:36. But then it would not have been the highest love shown to us. In order that God might bestow the highest love upon us, and that we might not be able to say, “God has something [pg 252] which he loves too dearly to give it to us;” he has given us his dear Son, and not only given him, but given him also to be the propitiation for our sins. Therefore he could not have showed us greater love. Therein God commandeth his love towards us. Rom. 5:8. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Rom. 8:32. Hath he given us that which is the greatest, he will surely give us that also which is less. In the eternal life all that is God's shall be ours. “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” Rev. 21:7.
4. III. Further, God shows his love to us, by his dwelling among us, and in us. O what a great comfort is this, that God has sanctified our heart, and dedicated it to be his dwelling-place. Formerly, in the Old Testament, when the tabernacle and sanctuary were finished, Moses was commanded to consecrate, to sanctify, and to sprinkle it with the blood of the sacrifice; for “almost all things were by the law purged with blood.” Heb. 9:22. And thereupon the glory of God came from heaven, and filled the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34); so also, after Christ died for our sins, and after we are sanctified through his blood, God comes to us and makes his abode with us.
5. Whom we love, with him we delight to be. God loves mankind tenderly; therefore he delights to be with them, and to have his habitation among them. “I the Lord dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Isa. 57:15. And again, with whom we delight to be, him we tenderly love. God delights to be with men; therefore he loves men tenderly, according to the Psalm: “In the saints on earth, and in the excellent, is all my delight.” Ps. 16:3. This assurance that God loves us and is with us, ought to comfort us in all our calamities, in poverty, in sickness, in persecution, and in contempt. What (sayest thou), doth he love them whom he suffers to come under so many crosses? I answer, Yes, that he may through the cross make them glorious. As their sufferings here abound, so also shall their consolations abound there. 2 Cor. 1:5. The greater afflictions are on earth, the greater joy and glory are in heaven. 2 Cor. 4:17.