THE ASSUMPTION and discharge
of the mediatory office by the Son of God is most
eminently represented in Scripture.
2. The love of Christ was the sole impelling
cause of His assumption of the office of Mediator
(Gal. 2:20; I John 3:16; Rev. 1:5).
Herein is He glorious, in a way and manner
incomprehensible; for in the glory of divine love the
chief brightness of glory consists. There is nothing
of dread or terror accompanying it, nothing but what
is amiable and infinitely refreshing. Now, that we may
take a view of the glory of Christ by faith, the
nature of it must be inquired into.
a) The eternal disposing cause of the whole work
wherein the Lord Christ was engaged, for the
redemption and salvation of the Church, is the love of
the Father. It is constantly ascribed to this in the
Scripture. And this love of the Father acted itself in
His eternal decrees, "before the foundation of the
world" (Eph. 1:4); and afterward in the sending of
His Son to render it effectual (John 3:16).
Originally, it is His eternal election of a portion of
mankind to be brought to the enjoyment of Himself,
through the mystery of the blood of Christ and the
sanctification of the Spirit (II Thess. 2:13,16; Eph.
1:4—9; I Peter 1:2).
This eternal act of the will of God the Father does
not contain in it an actual approbation of, and
complacency in, the state and condition of those that
are elected; but only designs that on which they shall
be accepted and approved. And it is called His love
for several reasons.
(1) Because it is an act suited to that glorious
excellency of His nature wherein He is love; for
"God is love" (I John 4:8,9). And the first
egress of the divine properties must, therefore, be in
an act of communicative love. And since this election,
being an eternal act of the will of God, can have no
moving cause but what is in Himself, if we could look
into all the treasures of the divine excellencies, we
would find none it could be so properly ascribed as to
love. Wherefore,
(2) It is styled love because it was free
and undeserved, as to anything on our part; for
whatever good is done to any altogether undeserved, if
it be with a design of their profit and advantage, it
is an act of love and can have no other cause. So is
it with us in respect of eternal election. There was
nothing in us, nothing foreseen, as that which, from
ourselves, would be in us, that should any way move
the will of God to this election; for whatever is good
in the best of men is an effect of it (Eph. 1:4).
Since it tends to our eternal good, the spring of it
must be love.
(3) The fruits or effects of it are inconceivable
acts of love. It is by multiplied acts of love that it
is made effectual (John 3:16; Jer. 31:3; Eph. 1:3
— 5; I Joh 4:8, 9, l6).
b) This is the eternal spring which is
derived to the Church through the mediation of Christ.
Wherefore, that which put all the design of this
eternal love of the Father into execution and wrought
our the accomplishment of it was the love of the Son,
which we inquire after; and light may be given to it
in the ensuing observations.
(1) The whole number or society of the elect were
creatures made in the image of God, and thereby in a
state of love with Him. All that they were, had, or
hoped for, were effects of divine goodness and love.
And the life of their souls was love to God. And a
blessed state it was, preparatory for the eternal life
of love in heaven.
(2) From this state they fell by sin into a state
of enmity with God; which is comprehensive of all
miseries, temporal and eternal.
(3) Notwithstanding this woeful catastrophe of our
first state, yet our nature, on many accounts, was
recoverable to the enjoyment of God; as I have
elsewhere declared.
(4) In this condition, the first act of love in
Christ towards us was in pity and compassion. A
creature made in the image of God and fallen into
misery, yet capable of recovery, is the proper object
of divine compassion. That which is so celebrated in
the Scripture, as the bowels, the pity, the compassion
of God, is the acting of divine love toward us on the
consideration of our distress and misery. But all
compassion ceases toward them whose condition is
irrecoverable. Wherefore the Lord Christ pitied nor
the angels that fell, because their nature was not to
be relieved. Of this compassion in Christ, see Hebrews
2:14—16 and Isaiah 63:9.
(5) As then we lay under the eye of Christ in our
misery, we were the objects of His pity and
compassion; but as He looks on us as recoverable out
of that state, His love works in and by delight. It
was an inconceivable delight to Him to take a prospect
of the deliverance of mankind to the glory of God;
which is also an act of love. See this divinely
expressed in Proverbs 8:30, 31, as that place has been
elsewhere explained. [See Owens
Christologia, or A Declaration of the
Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ—God and
Man, 1679, reprinted in Goold’s edition of
the Works of John Owen, Edinburgh, 1850, I, p.
54.]
(6) If it be asked what is the cause of this
compassion and delight in Him that He who was
eternally blessed in His own self-sufficiency should
so deeply concern Himself in our lost, forlorn
condition, I say it did so merely from the infinite
love and goodness of His own nature without the least
procuring the inducement from us or anything in us
(Titus 3:5).
(7) In this His readiness, willingness, and
delight, springing from love and compassion, the
counsel of God concerning the way of our recovery is,
as it were, proposed to Him. Now, this was a way of
great difficulties and perplexities to Himself, that
is, to His person as it was to be constituted. To the
divine nature nothing is grievous, nothing is
difficult; but He was to have another nature, wherein
He was to undergo the difficulties of this way and
work. It was required of Him that He should pity us
until He had none left to pity Himself when He stood
in need of it; that He should pursue His delight to
save us until His own soul was heavy and sorrowful
unto death; that He should relieve us in our
sufferings by suffering the same things that we should
have done. But He was not in the least deterred by
these from undertaking this work of love and mercy for
us; yea, His love rose on this proposal like the
waters of a mighty stream against opposition. For He
says, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God"; it is
My delight to do it (Heb. 10:5—7; Isa.
50:5—7).
(8) Being thus inclined, disposed, and ready, in
the eternal love of His divine person, to undertake
the office of mediation and the work of our
redemption, a body was prepared for Him. In this body
or human nature, made His own, He was to make this
love effectual in all its inclinations and actings. It
was provided for Him to this end, and filled with all
grace in a way unmeasurable, especially with fervent
love to mankind. And hereby it became a meet
instrument to actuate His eternal love in all the
fruits of it.
(9) It is hence evident that this glorious love of
Christ does not consist only of the eternal actings of
His divine person, or the divine nature in His person.
Such, indeed, is the love of the Father, His eternal
purpose for the communication of grace and glory, with
His acquiescency therein; but there is more in the
love of Christ. For when He exercised this love He was
man also, and not God only. And in none of those
eternal acts of love could the human nature of Christ
have any interest or concern; yet is the love of the
Man Christ Jesus celebrated in the Scripture.
(10) Wherefore this love of Christ which we inquire
after is the love of His person, that is, which He in
His own person acts in and by His distinct natures,
according to their distinct essential properties. And
the acts of love in these distinct natures are
infinitely distinct and different; yet are they all
acts of one and the same person. So, then, whether
that act of love in Christ which we would at any time
consider be an eternal act of the divine nature in the
person of the Son of God; or whether it be an act of
the human, performed in time by the gracious faculties
and powers of that nature, it is still the love of one
and the selfsame person—Christ Jesus.
It was an act of inexpressible love in Him that He
assumed our nature (Heb. 2:14,17). But it was an act
in and of His divine nature only; for it was
antecedent to the existence of His human nature, which
could not, therefore, concur therein. His laying down
His life for us was an act of inconceivable love (I
John 3:16). Yet it was only an act of the human
nature, wherein He offered Himself and died. But both
were acts of His divine person; whence it is said that
God laid down His life for us, and purchased the
Church with His own blood.
This is that love of Christ wherein He is glorious,
and wherein we are by faith to behold His glory. A
great part of the blessedness of the saints in heaven,
and their triumph therein, consists in their beholding
this glory of Christ, in their thankful contemplation
of the fruits of it. (See Rev. 5:9,10, etc.).
The illustrious brightness wherewith this glory
shines in heaven, the all-satisfying sweetness which
the view of it gives unto the souls of the saints
there possessed of glory, cannot be conceived or
expressed by us. Here, this love passes knowledge;
there, we shall comprehend the dimensions of it. Yet
even here, if we are not slothful and carnal, we may
have a refreshing prospect of it; and where
comprehension fails, let admiration take place.
My present business is to exhort others to the
contemplation of it, though it be but a very little of
it that I can conceive; and less than that very little
that I can express. Yet may it be my duty to excite
not only myself, but others also, to due inquiries
after it; to which end I offer the things ensuing.
1. Labor that your minds may continually be
prepared for such heavenly contemplations.
If they are carnal and sensual, or filled with
earthly things, a due sense of this love of Christ and
its glory will not abide in them. Virtue and vice, in
their highest degrees, are not more diametrically
opposed and inconsistent in the same mind than are an
habitual course of sensual, worldly thoughts and a due
contemplation of the glory of the love of Christ. Yea,
an earnestness of spirit, pregnant with a multitude of
thoughts about the lawful occasions of life, is
obstructive of all due communion with the Lord Jesus
Christ herein.
Few there are whose minds are prepared in a due
manner for this duty. The actions and communications
of most persons evidence the inward frame of their
souls. They rove up and down in their thoughts, which
are continually led by their affections into the
corners of the earth. It is in vain to call such
persons to contemplations of the glory of Christ in
His love. A holy composure of mind, by virtue of
spiritual principles, an inclination to seek after
refreshment in heavenly things and to bathe the soul
in the fountain of them, with constant apprehensions
of the excellency of this divine glory, are
required.
2. Be not satisfied with general notions of
the love of Christ which represent no glory to the
mind, wherewith many deceive themselves.
All who believe His divine person profess a
valuation of His love, and think them not Christians
who are otherwise minded; but they have only general
notions, and not any distinct conceptions of it, and
really know not what it is. To deliver us from this
snare, peculiar meditations on its principal concerns
are required of us. As,
a) Whose love it is—of the divine
person of the Son of God. He is expressly called God,
with respect to the exercise of this love, that we may
always consider whose it is (I John 3:16), "Hereby
perceive we the love [of God], because he laid
down his life for us."
b) By what ways and means this wonderful
love of the Son of God acts—in the divine nature
by eternal acts of wisdom, goodness, and grace proper
to it; and in the human, by temporary acts of pity or
compassion, with all the fruits of them in doing and
suffering for us. (See Eph. 3:19; Heb. 2:14,15; Rev.
1:5.)
c) What is the freedom of it, as to any
desert on our part (I John 4:10). It was hatred, not
love, that we in ourselves deserved; which is a
consideration suited to fill the soul with
self-abasement, the best of frames in the
contemplation of the glory of Christ.
d) What is the efficacy of it in its fruits
and effects, with sundry other considerations of the
like nature.
By a distinct prospect and admiration of these
things, the soul may walk in this paradise of God, and
gather here and there a heavenly flower, conveying to
it a sweet savor of this love of Christ. (See Song of
Sol. 2:2—4.)
Moreover, be not contented to have right notions of
the love of Christ in your minds unless you can attain
a gracious taste of it in your hearts; no more than
you would be to see a feast or banquet richly prepared
and not partake of it for your refreshment. It is of
that nature that we may have a spiritual sensation of
it in our minds; whence it is compared by the Spouse
to apples and flagons of wine. We may taste that the
Lord is gracious; and if we find nor a relish of it in
our hearts, we shall not long retain the notion of it
in our minds. Christ is the meat, the bread, the food
of our souls. Nothing in Him is of a higher spiritual
nourishment than His love, which we should always
desire.
In this love He is glorious; for it is such as no
creatures, angels or men, could have the least
conception of, before its manifestation by its
effects; and, after its manifestation, it is in this
world absolutely incomprehensible.