In the work of the cross, this lets us see the transcendent and inexpressible love of Christ to poor sinners. Let those who entertain hard thoughts of Christ look upon him as nailed to the cross and shedding his blood, and then tell me if they do not think him earnest about the business of saving souls. Oh how his heart was set upon sinners, to the degree that he would shed his heart blood for sinners! The Rabbis have a saying, that upon every apex or tittle of the Law there hangs a mountain of sense and doctrine. In the same way, in every drop of Christ’s blood there is an ocean of love. Gal. 2:20, “Who loved me and gave himself for me.” The death of Christ was such a demonstration of love as the world had never before seen and would never see again. When God made the world, he intended the evidence of his power; he ordained hell, dug Tophet and filled it with fire and brimstone, and thereby manifested the severity of his justice. Christ humbled himself to death to demonstrate the transcendency of his love. This made the love of Christ of such efficacy and constraining influence upon the Apostle Paul, “Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead,” (2 Cor. 5:14). When Christ once wept at Lazarus’ grave, bystanders made this inference upon it, “Behold how he loved him,” (John 11:36). But if weeping at the grave for his death argued such love, what love was it then to die, and go down into the grave for Lazarus? It is easy to lose ourselves in this delightful maze and labyrinth of love: the righteous Judge of all the world wrongly accused and condemned, the Lord of life dying, the eternal and blessed Son of God struggling with his Father’s wrath, he that said, “I and my Father are one,” crying out in bitter agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He that has the keys of hell and death was sealed up in another’s grave. Well might the Apostle in a holy rapture and ecstasy express himself in an elegant contradiction when he desired that the Ephesians might know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge (Eph. 3:19).
[See his work, Essential Truths of the Christian Religion, published by Puritan Publications.]
