In contemplating the love of Jesus, asset forth in the above passage, we can trace the four following characteristics, namely:—thinking of its object, visiting its object, suffering for its object, exalting its object.
1. He thought of us. Deep in His own eternal mind, He pondered His much loved Church, before the foundation of the world.
“His gracious eye surveyed us,
Ere stars were seen above.”
2. Did He rest satisfied with merely thinking about us? No; He laid aside all His glory, and came down into this cold, heartless world, as into a vast quarry from whence He would hew out stones for His heavenly temple. He made His way down into this “rough valley” of ours, which had “neither been eared nor sown.” “The day-spring from on high hath visited us.”
3. But He did not rest satisfied with coming down to look at us in our guilt and ruin, our misery and degradation. He suffered for us. He hath “washed us in His own blood.” He loved us, though in our sins; and He has washed us from our sins. He would not leave a single speck upon the objects of His eternal love.
4. What, then, was all this for? Why those unutterable sufferings of Jesus? Why those three hours of profound darkness? Why that bitter cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Simply that the love of Jesus might exalt its object. And, truly, He has exalted us; yea, to the very highest point of dignity. “He hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father.”
Thus we see how the love of Jesus has thought of, visited, suffered for, and exalted its object. This is for our exceeding comfort and joy.
But, we should bear in mind, that if we love Jesus, we, too, will often like to think of Him—often delight to contemplate His matchless grace—to ponder over His infinite perfections. Moreover, we will visit Him in the secret of His sanctuary, not to gain a name as persons of much prayer, but to gratify the affections of our hearts for Him who is “fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.”
Again, we shall be ready to suffer for Him, not in order to commend ourselves as persons of great energy, zeal, and personal devotedness, but to express the high estimation in which we hold His divine and adorable Person.
Finally, it will be our constant aim to exalt Him, in every place. Our language will be, “Ο magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.”
Let us earnestly pray for such a deep, full tide of divine love in our cold, narrow, selfish hearts, as will render our service, not the mere flash of imperfect zeal kindled by the unhallowed spark of human opinion, but the calm, steady, constant flow of unalterable affection for Jesus—that affection which has its chief joy in pondering over its object ere it comes forth as an actor or a sufferer in His cause.