Unpurchasable Love

"If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be scorned." -- Song of Solomon 8:7. That is a general truth, applying to all forms of real love; you cannot purchase love. If it is true love, it will not run on rails of gold. Many a marriage would have been a very happy one if there had been a tenth as much love as there was wealth. Sometimes, love will come in at the cottage door, and make the home bright and blest, when it refuses to recline on the downy pillows of the palace. Men may give all the substance of their house, and form a marriage bond- the bond may be there, but not that which will make it sweet to wear. "If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be scorned."

Who, for instance, could purchase a mother's love? She loves her own child specially because it is her own; she watches over it with sedulous care, she denies her eyes the necessary sleep at night if her babe be sick, and she would be ready to part with her own life sooner than it should die. Bring her another person's child, and endow her with wealth to induce her to love it; and you shall find that it is not in her power to transfer heraffection to the son or daughter of a stranger. Her own child is exceedingly precious to her, and another infant, that to an unprejudiced eye might be thought to be a far more lovely babe, shall receive tenderness from her, for the woman is compassionate; but it can never receive the love that belongs to her own offspring.

Take, again, even the love of friends; I only instance that just to show how true our text is in relation to all forms of love. Damon loved Pythias; the two friends were so bound together that their names became household words, and their conduct towards one another grew into a proverb. Yet Damon never purchased the heart of Pythias neither did Pythias think to pay a yearly stipend for the love of Damon. The introduction of the question of cost would have spoiled it all; the very thought of anything mercenary, anything like payment on the one side or receipt upon the other, would have been a death-blow to their friendship. No; if a man should give all the substance of his house even for human love, for the common love that exists between man and man, it would utterly be scorned. Rest assured that this is pre-eminently true when we get into higher regions, when we come to think of the love of Jesus, and when we think of that love which springs up in the human breast towards Jesus when the Spirit of God has renewed the heart, and shed abroad the love of God within the soul.

Neither Christ's love to us nor our love to him can be purchased; neither of those could be bartered for gold, or rubies, or diamonds, or the most precious crystal. If a man should offer to give all the substance of his house for either of these forms of love, it would utterly be scorned.

I. We will begin at the highest manifestation of love, and commune together upon it. So let me say, first, that THE LOVE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS ALTOGETHER UNPURCHASABLE.

This fact will be clear to us if we give it a moment's careful thought. Indeed, so clear is it that I scarcely like to multiply words upon it, and I do so only that you may dive the deeper into this glorious truth. It must be quite impossible to purchase the love of Christ, because 'it is inconceivable that he ever could be mercenary'. It would be profane, surely, it would amount to blasphemy, and a very high degree of it, to suppose that the love of his heart could be bought with gold, or silver, or earthly stores. No, if he loves, it must be all free, like his own royal self. If he condescends to cast his eyes so far downward as to view the creatures of an hour, and to set hislove upon them so that his delights are with the sons of men, it is not possible that he could gain anything from them. No, were we angels, we <could not think that he could love us because of some service we could render, or some price we could pay to him. The bare idea runs cross and counter to all we know of Jesus; it is a flat contradiction of all our beliefs and all our knowledge concerning him.

He loves us because he pities us, but not because there is a fee when he comes to us as the great Physician. He instructs us because he grieves over our ignorance, and because he knows the sorrow of it, and would have us learn of him; but his instructions are not given in order that we may each one bring our school pence to him. He labors, it is true; but none shall say that he labors for hire; though if he asked all worlds for his hire, he might well claim them for such labors as those which he has performed.

The feats attributed to Hercules are nothing compared with the wonders wrought by Christ. He has cleansed stables far more filthy than the Augean, and slain monsters far more terrible than the hydra-headed demons of the ancient fables. True, "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied;" there was a joy that was set before him, for which he endured the cross, despising the shame; yet the love that lay at the bottom of it all was love 'unbought', and love 'unsought', and love in which not so much as a single atom of any thing like selfishness could ever be discovered. The pure stream of his love leaps like the crystal stream, and there is no sediment that can be found in it; it is altogether unmixed love to us.

Besides, brethren, there is another point that renders this idea of purchasing Christ's love as impossible, as the first thought shows it to be incredible- 'for all things are already Christ's'. Therefore, what can be given to him with which his love could be purchased? If he were poor, we might enrich him; but all things are his. "He was rich," says the apostle; "he is rich," we also may reply. He could say to us, at this moment, if we were so foolish as to attempt to bribe him to win the love of his heart, "I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he-goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountain: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof."

All things are Christ's, not only on this speck of a world, but throughout the universe. The things that are seen by us are as nothing compared with the things that we have not seen; yet all belong to Christ, and he has the power to create ten thousand times more than ever yet have been formed by him. There is nothing which he conceives in his infinite mind but he could at once fashion it by his almighty power; there is nothing he might desire but he could in an instant command it to appear before him. "Let it be," he might say, and it would be even as he had said. With what, then, could you bribe him, and where is the substance of your houses that you would give in exchange for his divine love? O you who dwell in houses of clay, where is the substance which you could bring to him who is Lord of heaven and earth?

Our substance? It is but a shadow. Our wealth? It is a child's plaything in his sight; it is nothing compared with his boundless riches. Let us also note that, if Christ's love could be won by us by something we could bring to him or do for him, it would suppose that there was something of ours that was of equal merit and of equal value with his love, or, at any rate, 'something which he was willing to accept as bearing some proportion to his love'. But, indeed, there is nothing of the sort. Gold and silver-- I scarcely like to mention them in the same connection with the love of Christ. I am sure our poet was right when he said-- "Jewels to you are gaudy toys

And gold is sordid dust." Think of the difference between gold and the love of Christ, in the hour of pain, in the hour of depression of spirit; what can the strong boxes of the merchant do for him then? But one drop of the love of Christ helps him tobear up, however fast the heart may palpitate, or however much the spirits may have been cast down. What is the use of earthly riches when one comes to die? One laid his money bags close to his heart, to see if they could make a plaster that would give him rest, but they were hard and cold.

But the love of Jesus, like the touch of the king's hand in the old superstition, heals even the disease of death itself, and makes it no longer death to die. There is nothing, then, by way of treasure that could be compared with the love of Christ. I will say it, and every believer here will agree with me, that there is no emotion we have ever felt in our most sanctified moments, there is no holy desire that has ever flashed through our soul in our most hallowed times, there is no seraphic longing that ha sever been begotten in us when the Spirit of God has been most operative in our hearts, that we should dare to put side by side with the love of Christ, and say that it was at all fit to be reckoned as a fair price for it. Our best is not one-thousandth part as good as Christ's worst. Our gold is not equal to his clay.

There is nothing that can be found in us, or that ever will be in us,that we should dare to say could for a moment stand in comparison with his love.Well, then, since there is no coin of metal, or emotion of mental condition, or power of spiritual grace, that could be counted out or weighed as the purchase price of Christ's love, we will not dream of having anything of the kind; for there comes, at the back of this thought, the consciousness that, even if we do possess anything that is really valuable, if there is something about us now that is commendable, and pure, and acceptable, 'yet it all belongs to Christ already'. We have nothing with which we can buy anything of him, because all we have belongs to him. Under the righteous law of God, all the good of which we are capable is already due to our Creator. His command is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Very comprehensive,very sweeping, are the demands of the law of the Lord. You must not imagine that there is the slightest truth in the idea that man may come to do more for Christ than it is his duty to do; this cannot be, for all that is possible for us to do, is already Christ's.

"You are not your own," and yet you talk about giving yourself to him. You belong to him now, you Christians, doubly so; and all men are under obligation to Christ even for the temporal favors he has bestowed upon them. You, believer, cannot say, "Now I am going to do for Christ something more than, I think, might absolutely be claimed by him." Why, if you are really what you claim to be,you are his already, body, soul, and spirit! All your time, all your money, all your faculties, all the possibilities that are in you, are all his now; and therefore, wherewithal shall you come to purchase his love? No, it cannot be purchased; that is certain for many other reasons besides these which I have given you.

But what a blessing it is that 'we have the love of Christ, though we could not purchase it!' The Son of God has loved us; he has bestowed upon us what he never would have sold us; and he has given it to us freely, "without money and without price." And, beloved, this love is no new thing. He loved us long before we were born. When his foreknowledge sketched us in his mind's eye, he beheld us in love. He proved his love, too. It was not merely 'contemplative' love, but it was 'practical' love- for he died for us before we knew anything of him, or were even here to learn about him.His love is of such a wondrous kind that he always will love us.

When heaven and earth have passed away, and like a scroll the universe shall be rolled up, or be put away like a worn-out vesture, he will still love us as he loved us at the first. The greatest wonder to me is that this unpurchasable love, this unending love is MINE; and you, my brethren and sisters, can always say, each one of you, if you have been regenerated, "This love is mine; the Lord Jesus Christ loves me with a love I never could have purchased." Peradventure, someone is saying just now, "I wish I could say that." Do you really wish it? Then, let the text serve to guide you as to the way by which you may yet know Christ's love to you. Do not try to purchase it, abandon that idea at once. Perhaps you say, "I never thought of buying it with money." Possibly not, but the mass of mankind think of purchasing it in some way or other. They hear from their priests of certain ceremonies, and they attach great importance to them, and offer them as a bribe to Christ; but these things will never buy his love.

They then resort to prayers-- not prayers from the heart, but prayers said as a sort of punishment; and it is thought by many that surely these will procure his love, but they never will. We have even known some who have punished themselves, tortured themselves, thinking they would get Christ's love in that fashion. Now, if I knew anybody who tried to win my love by making himself miserable, I should say to him, "My good fellow, you will never make me love you in that way; be as happy as you can, that method is a great deal more likely to touch my heart than the other." I don't believe that penance and mortification afford any pleasure to God; I think he would be more likely to say, "Poor silly creatures; when I make gnats, I teach them to dance in the summer sunshine; when I make the fish of the sea, they leap up from the waves with intense delight; and when I make birds, I show them how to sing."

God has no delight in the miseries of his creatures, and the flagellations that fools give to themselves they deserve for their folly, but they certainly bring no pleasure to the heart of God. It is vain to think of purchasing the love of Christ in such a way. "But surely, surely, we may do something. We will give up this vice, we will renounce that bad habit, we will be strict in our religiousness, we will be attentive to all moral duties." So you should; but when you have done all that, do you do you think have done enough to win his love? Is the servant, who has only done what he ought to have done, entitled to the love of his master's heart because of that? You shall not win Christ's love this way. If you have his love shed abroad in your heart, you have infinitely more than you have ever earned.

Suppose any person here were to say, "I do feel so resolved to be saved that I will give all I have in this world to some good cause, and then I will give myself to go abroad into foreign lands, to some fever-stricken place, to die in the service of God." Ah! should you do all that, you would utterly be scorned if you did think thus to purchase the love of God. Will he be bartered with? Will he put up his heart to be sold in the market, he whose very temple was defiled by the presence of buyers and sellers? It cannot be. Go and bid, and barter with your fellow-men; even they will disdain you if you think that love is thus to be procured, but dream not that you are thus to deal with your God.

I say again, it cannot be. The text does not merely say that the price would be refused, but "it would utterly be scorned." Love would open her bright eyes, and look at the man, and then she would frown, and say, "How can you insult me so? Take back your gold, and begone;" and God's great love, even when his pity was in the ascendant, would but weep a tear, and then reply, "I pity you, for you know not what you are doing; and I despise the price you bring to me. How could you think that I was such an one as yourself, and that my love could be purchased with paltry pelf that you can bring?" We cannot spare more time for that point, but it is one that you may think over for many a day, and your heart may be charmed with it until you love and bless your Savior with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

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