Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Redeeming grace and dying love

Cromarty Firth

Brethren, if you would think for awhile upon the whole work of God, taking in it the Fall as being foreseen and foreknown, until the day when all the chosen seed shall meet around the throne, I think you will be struck with its glory as a whole. It was within the compass of the power of God to make creatures that would love him, to make beings that would be attached to him by the very closest ties; but - I speak with reverence - I do not see how omnipotence itself, apart from the fall and the redemption by the sacrifice of Christ, when he gave himself to die for us; could have made such creatures as the redeemed will be in heaven. Brethren, if we had never fallen and never been redeemed, we could never have sung of redeeming grace and dying love. We could not, and the angels could not; we could not have known the heights and depths, and lengths and breadths of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.

Feasted with heavenly food, we might have admired his bounty, but not as we now do when we eat the flesh of Christ; made to drink the wine pressed from heaven’s own clusters, we might have blessed the giver of the feast, but not as we now can do, when we drink the blood of Jesus as our sweet wine; pure and holy, we could have praised him, and we should have done so, but not as we now can, when we have “washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” There is a nearer relationship now than there could have been in any other way, if God had not taken humanity into alliance with himself, if the Word had not been made flesh and dwelt among us.

From a sermon entitled "Another And A Nobler Exhibition," delivered May 4, 1862. Flickr photo by Calum Davidson; some rights reserved.

No comments: