Jun 13
15
Crown. –Earthly sovereigns display a crown, as emblem of their people’s homage. On Jesus’ head are “many crowns.” (Rev. 19:13) The Father crowns Him, as co-equal ruler of the universe, as fellow-worker in the wonders of creation. All voices cry aloud, “You have created all things, and for Your pleasure they are and were created.” (Rev. 4:11) He is crowned with a bridal diadem. “Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown with which His mother crowned Him in the day of His espousals, and in the day of the gladness of His heart.” (Song 3:11) Believers delight to place on His brow the crown of their redemption. This work is wholly managed by His might. To Him the glory must be wholly given. He wears, also, the crown of victory. He ransomed His people on the battle-field. He won them in garments dipped in blood. His brow is entitled to the emblem of hard-won conquest. All His ransomed possess crowns, as made kings and priests unto God by Him. These crowns they cast at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all. Henry Law (extract from KING.)
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The JOY of Christ…
From Spurgeon’s, “The Parable of the Lost Sheep”
“Who for the JOY that was set before him endured the
cross, despising the shame.”
A great sorrow was on Christ when our load of sin was laid on
him, but a greater joy flashed into his mind when he thought
that we were by his death, recovered from our lost estate.
He said to himself, “I have taken them up upon My shoulders,
and none can hurt them now, neither can they wander to
destruction. I am bearing their sin, and they shall never come
into condemnation. The penalty of their guilt has been laid
on Me that it may never be laid on them. I am an effectual
and efficient Substitute for them. I am bearing their sin,
that they may never bear My Father’s righteous anger.”
His love to them made it a JOY for him to feel
every lash of the scourge of justice!
His love to them made it a delight that
the nails should pierce his hands and feet!
His love to them made it a JOY for him that
his heart should be broken with the absence of his Father, God.
Even “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
when the depths of its woe have been sounded,
will be found to have pearls of joy in its caverns.
No shout of triumph can equal that cry of grief, because our
Lord joyed to bear even the forsaking by his Father, for the
sin of his chosen ones, whom he had loved from before
the foundation of the world.
Oh, you cannot understand it except in a very feeble measure!
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THE MEASURE OF LOVE
“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said,”
“As the Father has loved Me — so have I loved you.” — John 15:9
This is the most amazing verse in the Bible! Who can fathom the unimagined depths of that love which dwelt in the bosom of the Father from all eternity towards His Son? — and yet, here is the Savior’s own measure of His love towards His people!
There is no subject more profoundly mysterious than those mystic inter-communings between the first and second persons in the adorable Trinity before the world was. Scripture gives us only some dim and shadowy revelations regarding them — distant gleams of light, and no more. Let one suffice. “Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.”
We know that earthly affection is deepened and intensified by increased familiarity with its object. The friendship that began only yesterday is not the sacred, hallowed thing which years of growing communion have matured. If we may with reverence apply this test to the highest type of holy affection, what must have been that interchange of love which the measureless span of Eternity had fostered — a love, moreover, not fitful, transient, vacillating, subject to altered tones and estranged looks — but pure, constant, untainted, without one shadow of turning! And yet, listen to the words of Jesus, “As the Father has loved Me — so have I loved you!”
It would have been infinitely more than we had reason to expect, if He had said, “As My Father has loved angels — so have I loved you.” But the love borne to no finite beings is an appropriate symbol. Long before the birth of time or of worlds — that love existed. It was together with Eternity itself. Hear how the two themes of the Savior’s eternal rejoicing — the love of His Father, and His love for sinners — are grouped together, “Rejoicing always before Him, and in the habitable part of His earth!”
To complete the picture, we must take in a counterpart description of the Father’s love to us, “Therefore does My Father love Me,” says Jesus in another place, “because I lay down My life!” God had an all-sufficiency in His love — He needed not the wearisome love of creatures to add to His glory or happiness; but He seems to say, that so intense is His love for us — that He loves even His beloved Son more (if infinite love be capable of increase), because He laid down His life for the guilty! It is regarding the Redeemed it is said, “He shall rest in His love — He shall rejoice over them with singing.”
In the assertion, “God is love,” we are left truly with no mere unproved affirmation regarding the existence of some abstract quality in the divine nature. “Herein,” says the apostle, “perceive we THE LOVE of God,” but, as it has been remarked, (“Our translators need not have added whose love, for there is but one such specimen”), “because He laid down His life for us.” No expression of love can be wondered at, after this. Ah, how miserable are our best expressions, compared with His! “Our love is but the reflection — as cold as the moon; His is as the sun.” Shall we refuse to love HIM more in return, who has first loved, and SO loved us? John MacDuff,1858.