UNFATHOMABLE LOVE
‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.’
Sin is sin, because ‘God is love,’ and the degree of the love is the measure of the sin. He who never knew light can never know darkness; and it is the brightest sunshine which makes the deepest shadow.
It is sometimes difficult when we meet the expression, ‘the love of God,’ to discriminate whether it means God’s love to us, or our love to God.
I. They are one and the same thing.—We cannot love God, but as He loves us, it is the consciousness of His love to us which makes ours to Him. Just as any object I see is only an image of the object formed on the retina of my eye, so, whatever love I feel is only the reflection of the love of God laid upon my heart; and the ray which lays the image is the Spirit of God. The love of the saints in heaven is the brightest and truest because the Original is nearest and dearest.
II. It may be said, ‘How can it be reconciled with this view that ‘God is love,’ when we see all the sufferings, and unhappiness, and sins which there are in the world? The answer is twofold.
(a) In the first place, God made this world to be a probationary world, preparatory to another world. And it could not be probationary unless there were the capabilities of wrong, and the presence of evil.
(b) But more than this. The greatest reason why this earth was ever created was to provide a platform on which God should exhibit His transcendent wisdom and holy tenderness.
III. Love is a personal thing, and of deep individuality.—I wish I could go with every one of you in this church this morning into your own private history. It is there that you would find true love. I ask you to retrace in your own homes, in your own minds, in your private hours, some of those passages of your life, and retouch the fine lines, and refresh the memories of your soul! The more you read these Chapter s, the more will unbelief and doubt and murmur flee away.
IV. And what yet remains?—For that love unfathomable will all lie open to our view one day, when there shall be no more sorrow. The whole earth, heaven, and hell, and every lost soul must make a confession of it. All will bear on their forehead, ‘ God is love, and love is God.’
—Rev. James Vaughan.