Love's Crowning Deed

"Greater love has no man than this — that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

I have lately in my ministry very much detained you in the balmy region of divine loving-kindness. Our subjects have frequently been full of love. I have, perhaps, repeated myself, and gone over the same ground again and again, but I could not help it; my own soul was in a grateful condition, and therefore out of the abundance of the heart the mouth has spoken. Truly I have little reason to excuse myself, for the region of love to Christ is the native place of the Christian; we were first brought to know Christ and to rest in him through his love, and there, in the warmth of his tenderness, we were born to God. Not by the terrors of justice, nor the threats of vengeance, were we reconciled, but grace drew us with cords of love. Now, we have sometimes heard of sickly people, that the physician has recommended them to try their native air, in hopes of restoration; so we also recommend every backsliding Christian to try the native air of Christ's love, and we charge every healthy believer to abide in it. Let the believer under decays of grace go back to the cross again; there he found his hope, there he must find it again: there his love to Jesus began; we "love him because he first loved us," and there must his love be again inflamed.

The atmosphere around the cross of Christ is strengthening to the soul; get to think much of his love and you grow strong and vigorous in grace. As the dwellers in the low lying Alpine valleys become weak and full of disease in the close, damp atmosphere, but soon recover health and strength if they climb the hill side and tarry there; so in this world of selfishness, where every man is fighting for his own, and the base spirit of caring only for one's own self reigns predominant, the saints become weak and diseased, even as worldlings are; but up on the hill sides, where we learn Christ's self-denying, unselfish affection to the sons of men, we are braced to nobler and better lives. If men are ever to be truly great they must be nurtured beneath the wing of free grace and dying love. The grandeur of the Redeemer's example suggests to his disciples to make their own lives sublime, and both furnishes them with motives for so doing and with forces to constrain them thereto.

Moreover, may we tarry for many a day in the region of the love of Christ, because not only is it our native region and full of strengthening influences, but it has an outlook towards the better shore. As shipwrecked mariners upon a desert island have been known to linger most of the day upon that headland which pushes farthest out into the main ocean, in the hope that, perhaps, if they cannot catch a glimpse of their own country across the waves, they may possibly discern a sail which had left one of the ports of the well beloved land, so it is that while we are sitting on the headlands of divine love we look across to heaven, and become familiar with the spirits of the just. If ever we are to see heaven while yet we are tarrying here, it must surely be from Cape Cross or Mount Fellowship; from that jutting piece of holy experience of divine love which runs away from the ordinary thoughts of men, and approaches the heart of Christ. There at any rate do I long to sit for many an hour, until the eternal day shall break, and the shadows flee away, and I shall dwell with all the chosen in the land where there is no more sin; for if there can be found a heaven below, it is whereheaven came down from heaven to die for sinful men, that sinful men might go up to heaven to live eternally.

Our subject this morning, then, is divine love, and we have chosen the highest hill in all the goodly land for you to climb; we shall take you today to love's most sacred shrine, to the Jerusalem of the holy land of love, to the labor of love, where it was transfigured, and put on its most beautiful garments, where it became indeed too bright for mortal eye fully to gaze upon it, too lustrous for this dim vision of ours. Let us come to Calvarywhere we find love stronger than death, conquering the grave for our sakes.

We shall speak, first, upon love's crowning act: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;" but, then, since the text, grand as it is, and so high that we cannot attain unto it; yet it seems to fall short of the great argument, though it be one of the Master's own sayings, we shall speak upon the sevenfold crown of Jesus' love; and when we have so done, we shall have some royal things to say, which befit the place whereon we stand when we are gathered at the cross-foot.

I. First, then, LOVE'S CROWNING DEED. There is a climax to everything, and the climax of love is to die for the beloved one. "Free grace and dying love" are the noblest themes among men, and when united they are sublimity itself. Love can do much, can do infinite things, but greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. This is the supreme exhibitionof love; its sails can find no further shore, its deeds of self-denial can go no further. To lay down one's life is the most that love can do.

This is clear if we consider, first, that when a man dies for his friends, it proves his deep sincerity. 'Lip' love, proverbially, is a thing to be questioned; too often is it a counterfeit. Love which merely speaks can use hyperbolical expressions at its will, but when you heard all you can hear of love's speech, you are not sure that it is love; for all are not hunters that blow the horn, all are not friends who cry up friendship. Much there is among men of a feeling which wears all the likeness of that priceless thing called love, which is more precious than the gold of Ophir, and yet for all that, as all is not gold that glitters, so it is not all love that walks delicately and pretends affection. But a man is no liar when he is willing to die to prove his love. All suspicion of insincerity must then be banished.

We are sure he loves, who dies for love. Yes, it is not bare sincerity that we see in such a case, we see theintensity of his affection. A man may make us feel that he is intensely in earnest when he speaks with burning words, and he may perform many actions which may all appear to show how intense he is, and yet for all that he may but be a skillful player, understanding well the art of simulating that which he does not feel: but when a man dies for the cause he has espoused, you know that his is no superficial passion, you are sure that the core of his nature must be on fire whenhis love consumes his life; if he will shed his blood for the object beloved, there must be blood in the veins of his love, it is a living love. Who can question the solemn vehemence of a man's love when he passes through the sepulcher, and yields his soul up for the thing he professes to love? So that "greater love has no man than this," because he can give no greater proof of the sincerity and intensity of his affection than to lay down his life for his friends.

And, again, it proves the thorough self abnegation of the heartwhen the man risks life itself for love. Love and self denial for the object loved go hand in hand. If I profess to love a certain person, and yet will neither give my silver nor my gold to relieve his needs, nor in any way deny myself comfort or ease for his sake, such love is contemptible; it wears the name, but lacks the reality of love: true love must be measured by the degree to which the person loving will be willing to subject himself to crosses and losses, to sufferings and self-denials. After all, the value of a thing in the market is what a man will give for it, and you must estimate the value of a man's love by that which he is willing to give up for it. What will he do toprove his affection? What will he suffer for the sake of benefitting his beloved?

Greater love for friends has no man than this, that he lay down his life for them. Even Satan acknowledged the reality of the virtue which would lead a man to die, when he spoke concerning Job to God: he made little of Job's losing his sheep, add his cattle, and his children, and remaining patient; but he said, "Skin for skin; yes all that a man has will he give for his life; but put forth now your hand, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." So if love could give up its cattle and its land, its outward treasures and possessions, it would be somewhat strong, but comparatively it would fail if it could not go further, and endure personal suffering, ay, and the laying down of life itself. No such failure occurred in the Redeemer's love. Our Savior stripped himself of all his glories, and by a thousand self denials proved his love; but the most convincing evidence was given when he gave up his life for us. "Hereby perceive we the love of God," says the apostle John, "because he laid down his life for us"; as if he passed by everything else which the Son of God had done for us, and put his finger upon his death and said, "Hereby we perceive the love of God towards us." It was majestic love that made the Lord Jesus lay aside his diadem and rings of light, and lend their glory to the stars, strip off his azure mantle and hang it on the sky, and then come down to earth to wear the poor, base garments of our flesh and blood, in which to toil and labor like ourselves; but the masterpiece of love was when he would even put off the garment of his flesh, and yield himself to the unsurpassed agonies of death by crucifixion. He could go no further; self-abnegation had achieved its utmost; he could deny himself no more, when he denied himself the right to live.

Again, beloved, the reason why death for its object is the crowning deed of love is this, that it excels all other deeds. Jesus Christ had proved his love by dwelling among his people as their brother, and participating in their poverty as their friend, until he could say, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have not where to lay my head"; he had manifested his love by telling them all he knew of the Father, unveiling the secrets of eternity to simple fishermen; he showed his love by the patience with which he bore with their faults, never harshly rebuking, but only gently chiding them, and even that but seldom; he revealed his love to them by the miracles he wrought on their behalf, and the honor which he put upon them by using them in his service, indeed, there were ten thousand princely acts of the love of Jesus Christ towards his own, but none of them can for a moment endure comparison with his dying for them; the agonizing death of the cross surpasses all the rest. These 'life actions' of his love are bright as stars, and, like the stars, if you gaze upon them, they will be seen to be far greater than you dreamed, but yet they are only stars compared with this clear, blazing sun of infinite love which is to be seen in the Lord's dying for his people on the bloody tree.

Then, I must add that his death did in effect comprehend all other acts, for when a man lays down his life for his friend he has laid down everything else. Give up life, and you have given up wealth; where is the wealth of a dead man? Renounce life, and you have relinquished position; where is the rank of a man who lies in the sepulcher? Lay down life, and you have forsaken enjoyment; what enjoyment can there be to the denizen of the charnel house? Giving up life, you have given up all things, hence the force of that reasoning, "He that spared not his own Son but freely delivered him up for us all, how will he not with him also freely give us all things?" The giving of the life of his dear Son was the giving of all that his Son was; and as Christ is infinite, and all in all, the delivering up of his life was the concession of all in all to us; there could be nothing more.

Beloved, I speak but too coldly upon a theme which ought to stir my soul first, and yours afterwards. Spirit of the living God, come like a quickening wind from heaven, and let the sparks of our love glow into a mighty furnace-flame just now, even now, if it may so please you!

Beloved, we now are to remark that for a man to die for his friends is evidently the grandest of all proofs of his love in itself. The words glide over my tongue, and drop from my lips very readily; "lay down his life for his friends," but do you know or feel what the words mean? To die for another!There are some who will not even give of their substance to the poor; it seems like wrenching away a limb for them to give a trifle to God's poor servants; such people cannot guess what it must be to have love enough to die for another, any more than a blind man can imagine what colors can be like: such people are out of court altogether. There have been loving spirits who have denied themselves comfort and ease, and even commonnecessities, for the sake of their fellow men, and such as these are in a measure qualified to form an idea of what it must be to die for another; but still none of us can fully know what it means. To die for another! Conceive it! Concentrate your thoughts upon it! We start back from death, for under any light in which you may place it, human nature can never regard death as otherwise than a terrible thing.

To pass away into the glory land is so bright a hope that death is swallowed up in the victory, but the death itself is a bitter thing, and therefore needs to be swallowed up in the victory, before we can bear it. Death is a bitter pill, and must be drowned in a sweet potion before we can rejoice in it. I am certain that no person, apart from sweet reflections of the presence of God and the heavenly future, could regard death otherwise than as a dreadful calamity. Even our Savior did not regard his approaching death without trembling; the thought of dying was not in itself otherwise than saddening even to him; witness the bloody sweat as it streamed from him in Gethsemane, and that manlike putting away of the cup with, "If it be possible let this cup pass from me;" As you think of that soul conflict let it increase your idea of the Godlike love which took the cup with both its hands resolutely, and persisted on, and never stopped its dreadful draught until the Lord had drank damnation

dry for all his people, swallowing up their deaths in his own most comprehensive death. It is no light thing to die. We speak too flippantly of death, but dying is no child's play to any man, and dying as the Savior died, in awful agonies of body and tortures of soul, it was a great thing indeed for his love to do. You may surround death if you please with luxury, you may place at the bedside all the dear assuagements of the tenderest love, you may alleviate pain by the art of the apothecary and the physician, and you may decorate the dying couch with the honor of a nation's anxious care, but death, for all that, is in itself no slight thing, and when borne for others it is the masterpiece of love.

And so, closing this point of love's crowning action, let me say that after a man has died for another, there can be no question raised about his love. Unbelief would be insane if it should venture to intrude itself at the cross foot, though, alas, it has been there, and has there proved its utter unreasonableness. If a man dies for his friend, he must love him, nobody can question that; and Jesus dying for his people must love them: who shall cast a doubt upon that fact? Shame on any of God's children that they should ever raise questions on a matter so conclusively proven. Yet, as if the Lord Jesus knew that even this masterpiece of love might still be intruded upon by unbelief, he rose again from the dead, and rose with his love as fresh as ever in his heart, and went to heaven leading captivity captive, his eyes flashing with the eternal love that brought him down. He passed through the pearly gates, and rode in triumph up to his Great Father's throne, and though he looked upon his Father with love ineffable and eternal, he gazed upon his people too, for his heart was still theirs. Even at this hour, from his throne among the seraphim, where he sits in glory, he looks down upon his people with pitying love and condescending grace. "Now, though he reigns exalted high, His love is still as great; Well he remembers Calvary, Nor let his saints forget." He is all love, and altogether love. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

II. THE SEVEN CROWNS OF JESUS' DYING LOVE are our second point. I hope I shall have your interested attention while I show that above that highest act of human love there is a something in Christ's death for love's sake still more elevated. Men's dying for their friends - this is superlative, but Christ's dying for us is as much above man's superlative as that could be above mere commonplace. Let me show you this in seven points.

The first is this; Jesus was immortal, hence the special character of his death. Damon is willing to die for Pythias. The classic story shows that each of the two friends was anxious to die for the other. But suppose Damon dies for Pythias, he is only antedating what must occur, for Damon must die one day, and if he lays down his life for his friend, say ten years before he otherwise would have done so, still he only loses that ten years of life, he must die sooner or later; or if Pythias dies and Damon escapes, it may be that only by a few weeks one of them has anticipated the departure, forthey must both die eventually. When a man lays down his life for his friend, he does not lay down what he could altogether keep; he could only have kept it for a while, even if he had lived as long as mortals can, until grey hairs are on their head, he must at last have yielded to the arrows of death. A substitutionary death for love's sake in ordinary cases would be but a slightly premature payment of that debt of nature which must be paid by all.

But such is not the case with Jesus. Jesus needed not die at all. There was no ground or reason why he should die apart from his laying down his life in the room and place and stead of his friends. Up there in the glory was the Christ of God forever with the Father, eternal and everlasting; no age passed over his brow; we may say of him, "Your locks are bushy and black as the raven, you have the dew of your youth." He came to earth and assumed our nature that he might be capable of death, yet remember, though capable of death, his body need not have died, as it never saw corruption, because there was not in it the element of sin which necessitated death and decay. Our Lord Jesus, and none but he, could stand at the brink of the grave and say, "No man takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again." We poor mortal men have only power to die, but Christ had power to live. Crown him, then! Set a new crown upon his beloved head! Let other lovers who have died for their friends be crowned with silver, but for Jesus bring forth the golden diadem, and set it upon the head of the Immortal who never needed to have died, and yet became a mortal, yielding himself to death's pangs without necessity, except the necessity of his mighty love!

Note, next, that in the cases of people who have yielded up their lives for others they may have entertained, and probably did entertain the prospect that the supreme penalty might not have been exacted from them.

They hoped that they might yet escape, Damon stood before Dionysius, the tyrant, willing to be slain instead of Pythias; but you will remember that the tyrant was so struck with the devotion of the two friends that he did not put either of them to death, and so the proposed substitute escaped.

There is an old story of a pious miner, who was in the pit with an ungodly man at work. They had lighted the fuse, and were about to blast a piece of rock with the powder, and it was necessary that they should both leave the mine before the powder exploded; they both got into the bucket, but the hand above which was to wind them up was not strong enough to draw the two together, and the pious miner, leaping from the bucket, said to his friend, "You are an unconverted man, and if you die your soul will be lost. Get up in the bucket as quickly as you can; as for me, I commit my soul into the hands of God, and if I die I am saved." This lover of his neighbor's soul was spared, for he was found in perfect safety arched over by the fragments which had been blown from the rock: he escaped. But, remember well that such a thing could not occur in the case of our dear Redeemer.

He knew that if he was to give a ransom for our souls he had no loophole for escape, he must surely die. Die he or his people must, there was no other alternative. If we were to escape from the pit through him, he must perish in the pit himself; there was no hope for him, there was no way by which the cup could pass from him. Men have risked their lives for their friends bravely; but perhaps had they been certain that the risk would have ended in death they would have hesitated; Jesus was certain that our salvation involved death to him, the cup must be drained to the bottom, hemust endure the mortal agony, and in all the sufferings of extreme death he must not be spared one jot or tittle; yet deliberately, for our sakes, he espoused death that he might espouse us. I say again, bring forth another diadem! Put a second crown upon that once thorn-crowned head! All hail, Immanuel! Monarch of misery, and Lord of love! Was ever love like yours! Lift up his praises, all you sons of song! Exalt him, all you heavenly ones!Ay, set his throne higher than the stars! and let him be extolled above the angels, because with full intent he bowed his head to death. He knew that it behooved him to suffer, it behooved that he should be made a sacrifice for sin, and yet for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.

Note a third grand excellency in the crowning deed of Jesus' love, namely, that he could have had no motive in that death but one of pure, unmingled love and pity.

Next Part Love's Crowning Deed 2

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