THE gospel of God (Rom. 1:1) not only flows from God as its source — it can have no other source — but it must be according to the very nature of Him from whom it flows, expressing His infinite dignity, majesty, and holiness, but at the same time answering fully to the heart of Him who is love. And while its source is thus the very highest, its objects are the very lowest, even sinners hopelessly defiled and lost (Rom. 1:18-32, 3:9-19), and its aim to raise such to the highest point of blessing; and this according to the claims of a perfect righteousness, without which a love that would save sinners, would not be the love of a God of holiness, nor could its results be abiding. Had this gospel sprung from a lower source, or its objects been in the least degree above the lowest, or the contemplated blessing less than the most exalted, the gospel would not have been according to a God who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.
Who, save God Himself, could either devise or carry out such a gospel? None; or it would fall short of the gospel of God. Man has conceived plans of salvation, and has even modified God’s plan, corrupting it to suit his own thoughts, but even his highest thoughts are not only folly, but finite. And poor man himself, when tested by God in many ways, has uniformly failed completely. But God in mercy to man has revealed a gospel worthy of Himself, and sent into the world His only-begotten Son, who answered to His whole nature and heart in all their infiniteness. He came from the highest, having been written of in the volume of the book of God’s eternal counsels, was announced as soon as sin entered into the world, foretold in the Law, Psalms, and Prophets, and manifested in the fullness of time, coming to do God’s will (Heb. 10:7).
The Eternal Word, who was in the beginning with God, who was God, was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-14) in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3). He thus stooped from the highest glory in heaven to the very lowest place on earth, that He might seek and save the lost, and not only deliver them from hell, but give present peace with God, the relationship of children, communion with the Father, and might bring them to that glory from which He Himself came, and for which His atoning death would fit them. And all this for the glory of God in His whole nature, and for the satisfaction of His heart of love. For this end He became man, taking up the whole circumstances of man, from the beginning of his life, even becoming a babe, and in the humblest condition, laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn (Luke 2:7). He then pursued his life amid the temptations of the devil, and the scorn and persecution of the world — weary, though He might have gone back to the glory from whence He came; hungry, though the cattle on a thousand hills were His.
But even this was not the lowest depth to which He had to stoop, for it was not miserable man, but sinful man He came to save — man subject to death, the wages of sin; and so He humbled Himself to death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:6-8), where He was made sin who knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and where He was forsaken of His God (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46, &c.). There He was numbered with transgressors, and amid the jeers and taunts of priests and people He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. Still there was a lower step He had to take, entering The grave, thus going under the earth His own hands had made, and so descending from the highest place, which, as the Eternal Son of God He filled, to the very lowest He could reach. He thus accomplished an atonement infinite in its character, suited to God, and by which the very chief of sinners might be saved, and a message of free salvation go out to the whole world, telling all — even the most degraded men sunk in sin — that God in the person of His Son had gone down lower than the death their sins deserved, and that none are too low to be the subjects of this infinite, eternal, redeeming grace.
But there is yet more. From the lowest depths on earth He has returned as Son of man to the highest place in heaven, where He has prepared a place for those who receive Him, and that in the Father’s house (John 14:2, 3). His will is to have them with Him where He is (John 17:24). While they are on earth, they are children of God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16, 17), and have the Holy Ghost given as the earnest of their inheritance (Eph. 1:13, 14). They have the assured hope of eternal glory with Christ, and shall not only sit with Him on His throne (Rev. 3:21), but shall enjoy as sons in the Father’s house to all eternity, the most intimate communion with God’s own Son who presents them there undefiled and undefilable. They share with Him the glory He earned as Son of man, and they behold the glory He had with the Father before the world was. God and the Lamb are there the one undivided object filling and satisfying every heart.