DIVINE LOVE
Peter S Barlow
John 3: 16
Genesis 22: 1, 2, 6-8
John 1: 29, 35, 36
Mark 10: 20-22
I had an impression, beloved hearers, to speak a little of divine love and its activity. It is a vast subject, a subject that will fill eternity, and I feel very measured in being able to say much about it, but I believe in the first passage read that we are shown the greatness of the love of God. “God so loved …”: such love, that love of a holy and righteous God which is extended towards you in the glad tidings this evening, such a love that spared not “his only-begotten Son”. It is all in view of your salvation and my salvation. You may have heard the gospel many times before, but the question I raise, which I raise with my own heart - because I am continually much tested by it - is how much I really appreciate the greatness of the love of God that is towards me. It is witnessed to us, as John writes here, in the Lord’s own words, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”.
There is life outside of this world; there is nothing in this world that can satisfy; I have proved it. I know what it was as a young man to try and find satisfaction, and sadly even as a little older you may still try to find satisfaction in the things of this world, but there is nothing to satisfy your soul except what God has provided, and that is in giving His only-begotten Son. Do you know that One? God’s love is so great towards you that He was prepared to give the best, the very best, the One who was most precious to Him. His love is so great, and it is towards you tonight, that He has provided the answer to meet His righteousness and to meet His holiness, and He has done that in sparing not “his only-begotten Son”.
You think how truly the scripture tells us: “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way”, Isa 53: 6. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3: 23) - no one can opt out of that. That man that we read of in our final scripture thought he had earned something, but every one of us has fallen far short of the glory of God. Sin came in at the beginning; we know the story well. Perhaps, speaking for myself, I may become a bit over-familiar with it, but what it meant to God when sin came in, when man turned to something else and listened to the voice of the enemy of God, one that is ever set against God! Satan is set against God and he is set against you because he wants to rob God of what is rightly His. Sin has come in and we are sinners; we are marked by sin. Not one of us can opt out. We sin because we are sinners; we are marked by sin. But God’s love is so great that He still desires to have us.
We see at the beginning of Genesis how He desires to have a relationship with man. He came in in the cool of the day to walk with man, but man had hidden himself. What that felt to God, beloved hearers! What it feels to God now as He sees a cold heart turned away from Him. Perhaps there is one in this room. I do not know; God knows, and He would appeal to you tonight to receive His love, love that is towards you, love that is towards all men, and His love was so great that He gave His only-begotten Son.
I think Genesis 22 is one of the most beautiful scriptures in the Bible because it brings out the divine feelings. We get God commanding Abraham here, and I believe we get, typically, the feelings of the Father as His Son was in this scene. It says here God tried Abraham. Think of what it cost God - and I speak very carefully - as a father sparing not his only son: “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest”. We speak often about the faith of Abraham in that he was obedient to God’s will, but I think it brings out beautifully the divine feelings in type of when Jesus was here, the only-begotten One, His only-begotten Son, the One whom we see in the Scriptures, whom He could declare His delight in at His baptism by John and upon the holy mount. That is what the Son meant to the Father; that is what Isaac meant to Abraham here: “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest”. God has sent His only-begotten Son, sent the One whom He loves, loves beyond all measure, and He has not spared that One for me and He has not spared that One for us all who trust in Him, Rom 8: 32.
It says here, “and there offer him up for a burnt-offering”: the perfection of the walk of Christ here, the perfection before the Father! It says here, “and they went both of them together”. The Lord came in His subject pathway here as a lowly Babe, “the holy thing also which shall be born” (Luke 1: 35); God has come so near to man. God’s only-begotten Son was sent of God into the world, John 3: 17. God might have started again when sin came in; but His love was so great and He already had in His divine counsels and purposes a plan for bringing man again to Himself; and it involved the sparing not of His only-begotten Son, Jesus. The One who moved here in absolute perfection, spotless, holy, blameless One, moved here only knowing what it was to do good, only knowing what it was to heal, only knowing what it was to cast out demons, feeling in every step of His pathway here the bondage and burden of sin that lay upon men. We read of that glorious One groaning; we read of that glorious One weeping, weeping at the tomb of a friend, John 11. Beloved hearer, the Lord looks upon you tonight; those feelings that were towards those near Him then are the feelings that are towards you now, in that perfect One who went on here in perfect subjection to the will of the Father even though He knew what was ahead of Him, and that was death.
Isaac did not know what was ahead of him here but still we read of the feelings. I think God has given us this scripture so that we can get His feelings. Abraham knew what was ahead of him, but Abraham believed that if he was to fulfil what God had told him to do, that God would raise Isaac from amongst the dead. You wonder at that, the faith of Abraham. Is your faith like that? Do you trust God? Do you believe God can do anything? I am telling you of a God who gave His only-begotten Son because His love for you is so great that He wants you for Himself. That was the length to which He was prepared to go. In the perfect pathway of the Lord here I believe you get a sense of the Father and the Son going on together, and the Father’s feelings entering in, in the walk of the Lord Jesus here. The Lord knew what was ahead of Him, and the Father knew what was ahead of the Lord Jesus in His pathway here, and that was that He was to go to Calvary’s cross and lay down His life there.
Men would have you believe that it was one Gentile nation and the Jews that rid this world of the Saviour. No, beloved hearer, the Lord Jesus Himself could say about laying down His life, “I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again”, John 10: 18. It was glorious love that took the Lord there to the cross; the wretchedness of man meted out upon Him mockery, scorning, and the violation of that glorious One, the only One in whom God could declare His delight, the only One ever perfect before God. Man cast Him out as worthless, cast Him out of this scene and they desired in doing that: “When will he die, and his name perish?”, Ps 41: 5. It is the only Name that has lived on and on and on.
The enemy sought to get rid of the Scriptures and it is still the most produced book ever in the world. Think of that, all man has done to put aside the way God has worked, and yet God in wondrous love and grace is extending mercy towards each and every one of you tonight. He has extended mercy to me. I have come to know that glorious One as my Saviour. Have you come to know Him as your Saviour? Have you come to know the love of God that was fully expressed in that glorious One?
The Lord Jesus was here and went to the cross in absolute perfection. We get in John’s gospel, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”; that spoke of the sacrifice of that glorious One who laid down His life at Calvary’s cross. Abraham could say, “God will provide himself with the sheep”, and God has provided Himself with an answer to all your needs. You might say, ‘Well, He has provided it for me’. Ah, beloved hearer, the wonder of the glad tidings is not simply that you should be set free from your sins; the wonder of the glad tidings is that God desires to have you for Himself. You wonder at these things. Man in his philanthropy, in his good deeds, may come in and meet your need in this scene, but God has come in to meet your need because He has a desire for you for Himself, not just now, but eternally.
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”: John could consider that glorious One! God has provided Himself with a Lamb, and that Lamb was the Lord Jesus Christ. That Lamb gave Himself up into the hands of sinners. That One who “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form” (Phil 2: 6) in coming into this scene was delivered into the hands of sinners to be judged and nailed to a cross of wood. Why? Beloved hearer, I often say that it was not those nails that kept that glorious One on that cross of wood: it was His love for you and for me, and His love for God, that kept Him there, that One that was scorned and spat upon by man. Yet how much greater were the sufferings that He entered into when He “bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet 2: 24), which He bore there for me in these awful three hours of darkness. God brought darkness over the whole land so that none should enter in nor understand in their fulness what Christ suffered at the hands of a holy and righteous God. In those three hours of darkness the sins of every believer were met to the full satisfaction of God. He bore them for me. Beloved, can you say that, knowing in the depths of your heart that Christ has borne your “sins in his body on the tree”. Do you know that or is the gospel merely a wonderful story to you? Have you heard it so many times before that it has become too familiar, or can you say that perfect, spotless Lamb of God went that way for you, and was nailed to the cross of wood for you? He bore my sins there. It says, “Jesus cried out with a loud voice, … My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt 27: 46. Think of the depths of that cry, when the Lord Jesus was entirely alone, beloved hearer! You can never be alone as He was alone; there is always a God of love looking towards you, always offering blessing, always with arms outstretched in blessing towards you.
There will come a day when this wonderful dispensation of grace will end, but it is the glad tidings we preach today. There is the warning in the gospel: beloved hearer, if you have not committed yourself to the Lord Jesus and taken Him as your own personal Saviour, if you have not laid claim to what God so freely offers, then awful judgment will come upon you. The gospel is not really a choice; God offers you Jesus: are you going to take Him as your Saviour? Are you going to claim Him for yourself? This dispensation will soon end when its overtures of grace will no more be available to men. Where will you be? Beloved hearer, where will you be? I thank God that through the precious work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I shall be caught up to be with Him in glory when this dispensation ends. Is that your portion? I would that every one in this room could say that is their portion. I would that every one in this city could say that. God would desire that, beloved hearer. That is God’s heart; it is not me being charitable; that is what God desires. God “desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Tim 2: 4.
He reaches out to you tonight, with those depths of love, such feelings, and what He wants is that the Lord Jesus should become the distinctive Object of your heart. This was not the scripture on my mind before this occasion but it came to me in the few moments before and seemed to ring in my heart from when we mentioned it in the reading, “Behold the Lamb of God”. What God wants is for you to have Christ fully fixed in your heart. Yes, to consider the greatness of all that He has done because it brings out the wealth and greatness of the love of God towards you, but He wants you to have Christ as the Object of your heart! He is the Object of the Father’s heart. On the holy mount when the Lord went up there, taking Peter, John and James, and was transfigured before them; Peter who is well-known, I suppose, for his great love for the Lord Jesus, saying the things that others might be more reluctant to say. He wanted to build three tabernacles but God said, ‘No, there is only one Man and that is Christ’. He says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight: hear him”, Matt 17: 5. He is the Object of the Father’s love, the Object of the Father’s heart. Is He the Object of your heart? He is the One that died, the One who shed His precious blood, and that blood is witness that every need, every sin, has been entirely met, and it is witnessed that the Lord has died, but the tomb is empty. Christ is no longer in the tomb; even the Jews themselves have to admit the tomb is empty. They blamed others for having come and stolen His body. Beloved hearer, no! Christ came out triumphant! There was no disturbance in that tomb; the derision in which the stone was rolled away is witness to a power far beyond anything man can do. It speaks of “the handkerchief … folded up in a distinct place by itself” (John 20: 7); there was no struggle for Christ coming out of death! He came out of it as its Conqueror! He entered it as its Conqueror, and He has come forth triumphant, and He has established something that is entirely new, and He wants to bring you into that, the enjoyment of eternal life.
You might say, that is another day; but it must mean that it is something God would have you to enjoy now, as having Christ dwelling in your heart and having the precious gift of the Holy Spirit; another gift that God has so freely poured out from above. He has held nothing back. We have turned our backs on Him in sin, but He has held nothing back. He has given His only-begotten Son. He has given His Holy Spirit to indwell believers. The wonder of these things is far beyond the comprehension of man, and they alone are what will satisfy. Is Christ having His place in your heart and the Holy Spirit glorifying Him to you and drawing you to where He now is, drawing you to where He is in glory?
This last passage brings out the feelings of the Lord Jesus as He looks upon each and every one of us today. It says, “Jesus looking upon him loved him”. The Lord Jesus loves you, beloved hearer. He is looking upon you now. God has His arms outstretched in grace and love and mercy and blessing towards you tonight. The Lord Jesus is in glory, looking and longing for an answer in your heart to Him, that He may find that lodging-place in your heart forever, and your acknowledgement of what you are, and to come to know Him as the alone answer, the alone answer for a holy and righteous God. There is no other way into blessing; there are no short-cuts. There is nothing you can do to earn your own salvation, but, as the apostle Paul said to the jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”, Acts 16: 31. That is all it is; the gospel is simple; the gospel is wonderfully simple; and it is all coming from God’s side. All He is looking for now is an answer in faith to believe on that glorious One, One who is most precious to Him, One whom He loved beyond measure; yet He was prepared to give Him up One for you. Are you prepared to give up everything for Him? This young man was not: “he had large possessions”. I do not know what your possessions are, what it is that may hinder you coming into this blessing. I know what mine are, but what I know too is that the Lord has looked on me, and He loves me and He has brought me into the sphere of blessing. It is open to all. Is it your portion, having Jesus dwelling in your heart? Have you this precious gift of the Holy Spirit? Do you know the great and glorious depths of love divine that are towards you this evening? It is for you to claim for yourself.
May it be so for each heart tonight for His Name’s sake.
Edinburgh
31st December 2017