0843. The Endurance of Christ's Love

The Endurance of Christ's Love

"Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end" (Joh_13:1).

There is but one expression that fitly marks the long endurance, the length of the love of Christ; that word is "unto the end."

1. He loved us unto the end of His own anguish. He never turned back. The pathway of His love was a thorny path. It was a steep and rugged way. It was indeed the way of "Les Miserables." Upon His pathway lay the suffering and the shame, the stripping and the spitting, the breaking of His heart and the shedding of His Blood. Yet, our Lord went through it all–"having loved His own, * * He loved them unto the end."

2. He loved us unto the end, the completion of His task. He went round and round the cycle of His suffering until He cried, "It is finished," and "gave up the ghost."

Christ did not do a half work upon the Cross. It was not a work that needs additional touches by those who wish to be saved. The unregenerate can do no more than to accept the work He did; "believe and be saved."

3. Christ loved us unto the end of our journey; unto the completion of our salvation. He does not love us and then forget us; He loves us all the way. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. Great is His faithfulness; it is renewed every morning; it is fresh every evening.

"Christ is able to help us,

He will carry us through."

Christ will love us until He sees us safely over the river; and then He will love us forever more. He will love us until He sees us translated; sees us changed in the twinkling of an eye; sees us inheritors with the saints in light. Yes, Christ will love us for ever more.

4. Christ will love us through all of our failures and backslidings, even unto the end. Christ loved Peter when he curse and swore. It was the look of love that broke Peter's heart.

That the Lord still loves us when we grieve Him we know, because it is written, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth" (Heb_12:6). Christ does not love our sinning, but He loves us through our sinning. He chastens us in order to get us back to the place of fellowship and approval. However, a child of God never gets away from God's love.

Rom_8:38-39 : "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Perhaps in all the Bible there is no story of Christ's enduring love more beautifully set forth than in the 13th chapter of I Corinthians, where we read:

"Love suffereth long and is kind; * *

Love endureth all things; * *

Love never faileth."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR