These words gather up into their brief utterance all the song of the great king David when he recounted his greatness, and reveal at once the secret of his greatness and the heart of his song. David knew God as few human souls have done. He knew Him as the Creator and the Judge, but when he comes to consider his own life, it is to the gentleness of God he turns. All the lights and shadows and depths and heights of his manifold spiritual life had this for their source, and only this: the gentleness of God.
I. The gentleness of God is the secret spring of all the worth to which the great ones of God's kingdom have ever reached. Above and underneath all virtues are the dews and fountain-springs of the gentleness of God. From verge to verge, over all the sea of redeemed life, rises the thankful, joyous, self-abasing song, "Lamb of God, slain for us, Thy gentleness hath made us great."
II. It is not only the lives of saintly thinkers and workers in former centuries that illustrate this fact. It is borne out by the experience and testimony of God's people at the present day. Under all varieties of experience each arrives at the same conclusion: "By His grace we are what we are."
III. Of this gentleness which maketh great, Christ is the manifestation to us. The work Christ came to accomplish was the bestowal of gentleness upon a world which had lost the very elements of it. The light which shines from the Cross is the gentleness of God. He passed into the shadow of death, and there, with the gentleness of a Divine mother, laid His hand on the hand, His heart on the heart, of the very race which crucified Him, that He might overcome their enmity and bring them back to God.
IV. This is still the greatness of Christ as a Saviour and His power over the hearts of men. He is strong to save because He is longsuffering, and merciful, and generous. We are surprised when we read, "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us," but it is the same wonder of mercy, the same manifestation of gentleness, that He still lives to save His enemies.
A. Macleod, Days of Heaven upon Earth,p. 184.
References: 2 Samuel 22:36. A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God,p. 204; W. H. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 172; J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 433. 2 Samuel 22:51. J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 371. 2Sam 22-23. Parker, vol. vii., p. 214.