“God loves by what I may venture to call the very necessity of His nature.” – Alexander MacLaren

I will pick up today where we left off in Part 3 of Notes on Alexander MacLaren’s Sermon “The Cross the Proof” – Learning to Live by Faith. Here is a link to the full sermon: The Cross the Proof by Alexander Maclaren | SermonIndex.

The Love Which Is Proved by the Death

In this section of MacLaren’s sermon, he draws a contrast between God’s love and human love. He explains that humans love when we “discern [an] object to be lovable.” But God is love. Love flows out of Him naturally. God’s love is “a love that is not called forth by any lovableness on the part of its objects.” This love is proved by Jesus’ death on the cross because He died for us while we were still His enemies.

We’ll talk more about what MacLaren said about this in his sermon in just a minute. First, I want to share a study note with you about what it means that God is love.

1 John 4:16 NIV says, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” Verse 8 of the same chapter also says, “God is love.”

The Berean Study Bible’s notes on this verse explain that we, as humans, are able to love. But God is love itself. Love is His very nature and essence. All of God’s actions are rooted in love.

Farther down in the study note it explains what it means that love is God’s essence: God is love, just as “God is light” (1 John 1:5) and “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Every action God takes flows from this reality. The cross is the clearest demonstration of God’s love.

summary

1 John 4:16 assures believers that God’s very nature is love, that we have personally encountered and trusted that love through Christ, and that living continually in love is the evidence and experience of God dwelling in us. Love is both the proof of our relationship with Him and the atmosphere in which that relationship flourishes. 1 John 4:16 Biblehub.com

Now, we will return to what MacLaren says in his sermon. Remember how we have been talking about the imagery of God as the fountain from whom all blessings flow? God is self-sufficient (He has everything within Himself to sustain Himself) and all-sufficient (He sustains His creation). So, God is the fountain, and blessings flow out from that fountain to us. Everything we receive is from Him. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) But God loves because He is love itself.

MacLaren explains that God’s love has its reason and roots in Himself alone, while human love has its reasons in the object. What MacLaren is saying is that human love flows towards an object in response to some desirableness that the object stirs up and draws out of the human heart. Whereas, God’s love flows towards an object whether there is a desirableness in the object or not. God is that fountain and love flows out of Him towards all of His creation. We do not draw love out of Him, it flows out of Him.

Remember that the verse MacLaren is preaching on is Romans 5:8 (NIV) where the apostle Paul says, “But God demonstrates (or proves) his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” MacLaren says that God’s love is “a love which, like all that belongs to that timeless, self-determining Being, has its reason and its roots in Himself alone. We love because we discern the object to be lovable. God loves by what I may venture to call the very necessity of His nature. Like some artesian well that needs no pumps nor machinery to draw up the sparkling waters to flesh in the sunlight, there gushes up from the depths of His own heart the love that pours over every creature He has made. He loves because He is God.”

This is very important imagery that we can use in our meditation time. Envision love springing up out of God like water out of an artesian well…a well that doesn’t use a pump to draw the water out of it. The water gushes out of it naturally…just like love gushes up from the depths of God’s heart towards us. This means that we do not have to do anything to make God love us. We do not have to try to draw God’s love out like you would use a pump or a bucket to draw water out of a regular well. Instead, God’s love gushes out of the depths of His heart towards us without us having to do anything at all.

Here is a link to a video that explains how artesian wells work: Learn How An Artesian Well Works at Aiken State Park!

MacLaren uses more imagery in the next paragraph. He says that our sin is like a black mountain-wall that stands in between us and God. When we let our guilty conscience speak, it cries out against us as an awareness of sin springs up in our hearts. We fear punishment and separation from God. I’ve included a picture of a steep mountainside. Try to get a sense of what you would feel if you were standing at the bottom of it. You would have an awareness that it was too tall and steep to climb. You might start to feel despair. MacLaren says that the only thing that can calm our hearts is the gospel that tells us that Jesus has died for our sins. It calms our hearts because now we can know with assurance that the mountain-wall of our sin will be “surged over by the rising flood of God’s love.” As you are envisioning that mountain-wall of sin and start feeling despair, take time to envision the waters of God’s love surging over the tops of the mountains. That can help you get a sense of how God’s love pursues you. God desires for you to be reconciled to Him. That makes me think of the hymn “Surely Goodness and Mercy” by John W. Peterson and Alfred Smith. The chorus says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow (or pursue) me all the days, all the days of my life.” It also makes me think of Luke 19:10 where Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” God’s love actively pursues us.

Next, MacLaren talks about how Jesus’ death on the cross was a display of both God’s love and His righteousness. I wrote in an earlier post that Jesus bought us out of the hands of God’s justice. We can talk more about this topic over time, but I will say quickly now that MacLaren is explaining that it was necessary for Jesus to die in order to save us from our sins and in order to satisfy God’s justice. A punishment for our sins had to take place.

MacLaren says, “That dying Christ, hanging there in the silence and the darkness of eclipse, speaks to me too, of a Divine love which, though not turned away by man’s sin, is rigidly righteous……Unless you can find some means whereby the infinite love of God can get at and soothe the sinner’s heart without periling God’s righteousness, you have done nothing to the purpose.” He says, “When I think of my Christ bearing the sins of the world, I say to myself, ‘Herein is love. By His stripes we are healed,’ and in Him love and righteousness are both crowned and wondrously brought into harmonious oneness.”

Finally, MacLaren talks about how Jesus’ death on the cross still demonstrates God’s love for us today. He says, “When I look on the dying Christ I see a divine love, which is bounded by no limits of time or place.” He points out that in Romans 5:8 Paul uses the present tense…he uses the word “commendeth,” or “commends” – meaning that this is still the way that God proves His love to us now. He says, “Look at that majestic and significant, ‘commendeth,’ not ‘commended’ or ‘proved,’ as if it were a past fact, sliding away rapidly into the oblivion that wraps all past events as the world gets older, and its memory gets more burdened. It is ‘commendeth’ today, as it commended eighteen hundred years ago.”

MacLaren reminds us that Paul was speaking to people that had not been eyewitnesses to Jesus’ incarnation. He says that many of those people “had not been in the world when [Jesus] left it.” Still, Paul used the present tense of the verb “commends” when he was speaking to them. He explains that Paul was saying to them “that cross stands there for you of this second generation as the present proof of eternal love.”

MacLaren says, “[The cross] stands for us men and women in Manchester as truly as for the men and women of Galilee or of Rome. There is no limit of time at all, either to the power of the proof or to the love that it establishes. But today, as long ago of old, and as it will be in the remotest future, the cross of Christ towers up like some great mountain beacon, when all beneath is lost to sight, as the one eternal demonstration of an everlasting love.”

Responding to Christ’s Love with an Answering Love

MacLaren concludes his sermon by saying that he does not want to make people believers in a doctrine only…having an intellectual understanding of the doctrines he has been talking about. He says to his listeners, “It is your hearts I want to get at – through your heads. I do not care to make you orthodox believers in a doctrine. That is all very well, but it is a very small part of our work. I want your hearts to be touched, and that Christ shall be not only the answer to your doubts, but the sovereign of your affections.” He wants his listeners to view Christ’s death as a death for their sin. And he wants them to respond to Christ’s love with an answering love.

We have talked about this some in previous posts. First, you must have the dread of punishment removed from your heart. We used the imagery of the dread of punishment being represented by a snake in your heart that dissolves away as God’s love pours in and cleanses you from your sins. Then, in response to God’s love for you, love towards Him springs up in your heart. And this is what MacLaren is talking about here when he talks about an answering love – a love for God that springs up in our heart…in response to His love for us.

I found an interesting study note by Matthew Henry when I was looking up commentaries on 1 John 4:16 that talks about how we should respond to God’s love for us. He says, “We must distinguish between the fear of God and being afraid of him; the fear of God imports high regard and veneration for God. Obedience and good works, done from the principle of love, are not like the servile toil of one who unwillingly labours from dread of a master’s anger. They are like that of a dutiful child, who does services to a beloved father, which benefit his brethren, and are done willingly. It is a sign that our love is far from perfect, when our doubts, fears, and apprehensions of God, are many. Let heaven and earth stand amazed at his love. He sent his word to invite sinners to partake of this great salvation. Let them take the comfort of the happy change wrought in them, while they give him the glory.”

So, the way we should respond to God’s love is with joyful obedience to our loving Father. We should follow Him and want to know Him and spend time communing with Him.

MacLaren finishes by saying, “There are two passages of Scripture which contain the whole secret of a noble, blessed, human life. And here they are: ‘God so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life’ (John 3:16). If that is your thought about God, you know enough about Him for time and eternity. ‘We love Him, because He first loved us’ (1 John 4:19). If you can say that about yourself, all is well.

Dear friend, do you believe the one? Do you affirm the other?”

During your meditation time, keep working with that imagery of the artesian well of God’s love springing up and freely flowing into your heart. And then envision love to God springing up in your heart in response to Him. I will be posting hymns on here soon about that God is love that will be helpful in your meditation time. I will stop here for today and post again sometime soon.