0841. The Fact of Christ's Love

The Fact of Christ's Love

"And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (Eph_3:19).

1. Christ loved me. "The Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal_2:20).

It is blessed to consider this personally. He loved me. Paul had every reason to believe that Christ loved him, for Paul had been stopped on the Damascus road by the direct interposition of Christ. There he saw Him Whom he had persecuted; there he made his allegiance to Christ, and said, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Many further tokens of Christ's love had been manifested toward Paul, as he traveled along the way. He could well say, "The Son of God Who loved me."

What we want to consider is this: Does such a love follow each individual believer? We may never have had the same marvelous manifestations of saving grace as Paul experienced. Yet, there are many tokens of Christ's love all about us.

Difficulties? Trials? Divers testings? Yes. Did you think that these meant you were not loved? Paul had many hours of anguish, both of body and mind (see 2Co_11:23-29); yet Paul said, "Unto Him Who loved us."

Surely there is One Who loves you. He has you in His heart and you are "all in all" to Him.

2. Christ loved me when I was still unwashed. "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins" (Rev_1:5).

There are some who need to know this. Christ did not love our filth, but He loved us in spite of it. Christ did not love us because of what we were, but He loved us in anticipation of what grace would make us.

Marvelous and inexplicable fact–"He loved us."

"He saw me ruined by the fall,

Yet loved me notwithstanding all,

He saved me from my lost estate;

His loving kindness, oh, how great."

3. Christ loved His Church. "Even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it" (Eph_5:25).

This is a step of enlargement. It passes out of the personal into the general. Yet, this is a specified love. He loved the Church.

Does Christ love a Laodicean church? He says to such a people: "I will spue thee out of My mouth."

Yet, even to Laodicea, He also says: "As many as I love;" and He calls upon any who will, to open the door that He may come in and sup with them.

In our local churches Christ makes a difference. Some individuals He spues out, some He fellowships. It is the true Church, the Church of all the redeemed, the Body of Christ, that He loves.

The husband loves his wife; Christ loves His Church.

The love of Christ for the Church is a sacred love. It is a love which nourishes and cherishes. It is a bosom love, a love which bids us lean upon His breast.

4. Christ loved the world. "For God so loved the world" (Joh_3:16). Every "whosoever" of the Gospel is a great big love call. Marvel of marvels, God loved a world that was unlovely; a world corrupted in sin; a world of which He Himself said: "There is none good, no not one, they are all gone out of the way."

God is love. His love is not an acquired love, He is love by nature. All men are God's creation and He loves His creatures. Why? Because He is love. The fact that man has sinned does not alter God's love. Even we, who are born again and are filled with the Father's love, cannot hold back our love from the vilest of the vile. We love them and we want them saved; we love them because we know that God loves them.

Oh, world full of putrefying wounds and sores, God loves you! He so loved that He gave His Son to die. Why will you not believe in Him and trust His love?

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR