Redeeming love
What is it? It is that force, that motive that has one purpose, an all-consuming desire—the uplifting, the saving of a soul. That sounds of the utmost religious jargon, but in a natural response of the human heart it is seen in millions of everyday situations all around the world. The glory of God is His redeeming love; and it is that glory that keeps this dark world still shining.
There is the school teacher who sees the child or teenager demonstrating the early stages of self-destruction. It’s the lack of love in the home that eats away at the child’s esteem and leads him to believe he is worthless. So then why should he bother working to develop his level of knowledge or skills? What’s the purpose? His soul is empty, his mind depressed, his will dead.
Maybe the teacher deduces that love and grace are lacking at home, or maybe she doesn’t factor that in. But her natural reaction is to welcome that young person into her life. She opens her heart to him. Why this strange response toward someone for whom she has no legal responsibility? Because she sees his great need. She looks down his life’s road and sees the heartache and self-destruction his apathy and depression will take him. She fears for him, because he cannot fear for himself.
So she spends extra time, not for extra pay, but purely for the sake of her beloved student. She knows that time is an investment that will surely be repaid in his great achievements and greater love, a life of wonderful potential for good. It is a risk, though. He may not respond as she envisions he will. He may not catch the dream she has for him. He may not believe. But she cannot let him go the way of the fool without her utmost effort to woo him away from the precipice he wants to fall over; and she brings him all the way to success and purpose and health and love.
This situation has been repeated over and over around the world. The teacher may be faculty in a public or private school. She may be a parent or a pastor or a policeman. She may be a judge or an employer or a supervisor. She may be a neighbor or a grandparent or aunt or uncle. She may be a complete stranger, a passer-by, an extra-terrestrial from a previous generation.
Redeeming love shows up in so many different circumstances.
“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
Then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
That He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:
So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.
His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.
Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:
Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.
His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:
He shall pray unto God, and He will be favourable unto him: and He shall see his face with joy: for He will render unto man his righteousness.
He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;
He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man,
To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.” (Job 33:14-30).
It is the constant work of the Holy Spirit to work between the hearts of individuals to bring out the glory of God and Christ. In the least expected situations a thought of mercy arises in one’s heart toward another; a sinner, the member of a sinful race yet still made in the image of God, is caught off guard and consciously unprepared for the inrushing of the Spirit of God to move that person to do righteously and graciously in love to someone who needs it—Redeeming love.
Prejudices and self-preservation were laid down, the heart was softened in rest, fears were allayed, the essence of risk took shape in the mind, and the will acted its part in loving-kindness for the salvation of the one in need.
Thus, through these experiences of grace around the globe, this dark world commanded by the most devious of devils, nevertheless, still sparkles with life and love.
Redeeming love—that love that uplifts; that self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love of the Creator—the King’s single, over-arching motive in all that He does. “God is love,” “God so loved.”
Even in His judgments? Even in His destructions? Even in His “ministration of condemnation” and His “ministration of death”? (2Cor. 3:9,7). Even when He raised up Nebuchadnezzar to besiege and conquer His own children, and cause such suffering and death? Redeeming love? Yes, redeeming love.
From one who was there in the seige:
“The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.” (Lam. 4:4-11).
Redeeming love there? Yes, even then; redeeming love was even then at work. Without a terrible purging at the powerful hand of God, no hope could be given to the succeeding generations of the nation of Israel, hardened in self-sufficiency, nor to the world at large which was to be eternally saved through the Messiah. If Satan could bring Israel to a condition that would cause the Lord to give up His people to completely destroy themselves, then there would be no descendents of that nation through which the Savior of the world could come.
Redeeming love even when the Lord said, “Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness”? (Num. 14:29). “Your carcases?” Redeeming love? Yes, redeeming love. When you look deeply at the context of that statement, you see a band of people who deserved and blindly desired the worst treatment in slavery, even when the God of their fathers was trying to save them from it. Their hearts were full of unwarranted vengefulness and self-indulgence.
Yet, redeeming love didn’t destroy them that day. They were permitted to live out their lives. But they knew that it was only because of Moses, whom they had tried to stone but who loved them, that they were spared, and that it was only because of a mediator that they were alive. This did much to quell the bold rebellion in their hearts and made life much more peaceful to the meek and timid. It was God’s fearless “your carcases” that helped eventually make Israel a peace-loving nation rather than a barbarous one during the years the judges reigned.
The God of redeeming love must act severely on the rebels who were ignorant of the plan Satan had concocted in order to destroy the hidden plan of salvation for mankind. This severity was labeled “strange” for a God of love and grace. “For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do his work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” (Is. 28:21).
His grace is abundantly showered upon those who have the deepest trust in Him. But even for those with the smallest sense of dependence on Him He retains His grace and restrains His quick judgments. Howbeit, when Satan has convinced men that that divine grace is an entitlement that nothing can break off and that no amount of their blatant iniquity is presumptuous to that grace and can call out outrage from an insulted Creator, then the Lord of grace and righteousness performs His strange work upon them. But, again, this is only for their sake and the sake of His children. For if He were to allow them to continue, then He would later have to wreak greater destruction for the protection of those who remain faithful to goodness and fairness and love. In light of the great judgment to come, it is mercy to rebels that their mortal life is shortened and, thus, their future arraignment before the heavenly court lessened.
He is the God of love, even if our selfish, self-centered perceptions, while we stew in the troublesome consequences we have brought upon ourselves, view Him as arbitrary and unfeeling. He is the God of redeeming love. All He wants for everyone who desires His acceptance and help, is to unite with their heart, bring them to a knowledge of their great need and the helplessness to uplift themselves, and then to respond immediately to their sorrow for sin and yearning for His friendship and grace.
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels. He was the Word of God,—God’s thought made audible. In His prayer for His disciples He says, “I have declared unto them Thy name,”—“merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”—“that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which “angels desire to look,” and it will be their study throughout endless ages.
Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which “seeketh not her own” has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto. Desire of Ages, p.19, 20.
Redeeming love. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22:17).
There is the school teacher who sees the child or teenager demonstrating the early stages of self-destruction. It’s the lack of love in the home that eats away at the child’s esteem and leads him to believe he is worthless. So then why should he bother working to develop his level of knowledge or skills? What’s the purpose? His soul is empty, his mind depressed, his will dead.
Maybe the teacher deduces that love and grace are lacking at home, or maybe she doesn’t factor that in. But her natural reaction is to welcome that young person into her life. She opens her heart to him. Why this strange response toward someone for whom she has no legal responsibility? Because she sees his great need. She looks down his life’s road and sees the heartache and self-destruction his apathy and depression will take him. She fears for him, because he cannot fear for himself.
So she spends extra time, not for extra pay, but purely for the sake of her beloved student. She knows that time is an investment that will surely be repaid in his great achievements and greater love, a life of wonderful potential for good. It is a risk, though. He may not respond as she envisions he will. He may not catch the dream she has for him. He may not believe. But she cannot let him go the way of the fool without her utmost effort to woo him away from the precipice he wants to fall over; and she brings him all the way to success and purpose and health and love.
This situation has been repeated over and over around the world. The teacher may be faculty in a public or private school. She may be a parent or a pastor or a policeman. She may be a judge or an employer or a supervisor. She may be a neighbor or a grandparent or aunt or uncle. She may be a complete stranger, a passer-by, an extra-terrestrial from a previous generation.
Redeeming love shows up in so many different circumstances.
“For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;
Then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction,
That He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:
So that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.
His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out.
Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:
Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.
His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth:
He shall pray unto God, and He will be favourable unto him: and He shall see his face with joy: for He will render unto man his righteousness.
He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;
He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man,
To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.” (Job 33:14-30).
It is the constant work of the Holy Spirit to work between the hearts of individuals to bring out the glory of God and Christ. In the least expected situations a thought of mercy arises in one’s heart toward another; a sinner, the member of a sinful race yet still made in the image of God, is caught off guard and consciously unprepared for the inrushing of the Spirit of God to move that person to do righteously and graciously in love to someone who needs it—Redeeming love.
Prejudices and self-preservation were laid down, the heart was softened in rest, fears were allayed, the essence of risk took shape in the mind, and the will acted its part in loving-kindness for the salvation of the one in need.
Thus, through these experiences of grace around the globe, this dark world commanded by the most devious of devils, nevertheless, still sparkles with life and love.
Redeeming love—that love that uplifts; that self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love of the Creator—the King’s single, over-arching motive in all that He does. “God is love,” “God so loved.”
Even in His judgments? Even in His destructions? Even in His “ministration of condemnation” and His “ministration of death”? (2Cor. 3:9,7). Even when He raised up Nebuchadnezzar to besiege and conquer His own children, and cause such suffering and death? Redeeming love? Yes, redeeming love.
From one who was there in the seige:
“The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.
They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.
For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.
Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:
Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.” (Lam. 4:4-11).
Redeeming love there? Yes, even then; redeeming love was even then at work. Without a terrible purging at the powerful hand of God, no hope could be given to the succeeding generations of the nation of Israel, hardened in self-sufficiency, nor to the world at large which was to be eternally saved through the Messiah. If Satan could bring Israel to a condition that would cause the Lord to give up His people to completely destroy themselves, then there would be no descendents of that nation through which the Savior of the world could come.
Redeeming love even when the Lord said, “Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness”? (Num. 14:29). “Your carcases?” Redeeming love? Yes, redeeming love. When you look deeply at the context of that statement, you see a band of people who deserved and blindly desired the worst treatment in slavery, even when the God of their fathers was trying to save them from it. Their hearts were full of unwarranted vengefulness and self-indulgence.
Yet, redeeming love didn’t destroy them that day. They were permitted to live out their lives. But they knew that it was only because of Moses, whom they had tried to stone but who loved them, that they were spared, and that it was only because of a mediator that they were alive. This did much to quell the bold rebellion in their hearts and made life much more peaceful to the meek and timid. It was God’s fearless “your carcases” that helped eventually make Israel a peace-loving nation rather than a barbarous one during the years the judges reigned.
The God of redeeming love must act severely on the rebels who were ignorant of the plan Satan had concocted in order to destroy the hidden plan of salvation for mankind. This severity was labeled “strange” for a God of love and grace. “For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do his work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” (Is. 28:21).
His grace is abundantly showered upon those who have the deepest trust in Him. But even for those with the smallest sense of dependence on Him He retains His grace and restrains His quick judgments. Howbeit, when Satan has convinced men that that divine grace is an entitlement that nothing can break off and that no amount of their blatant iniquity is presumptuous to that grace and can call out outrage from an insulted Creator, then the Lord of grace and righteousness performs His strange work upon them. But, again, this is only for their sake and the sake of His children. For if He were to allow them to continue, then He would later have to wreak greater destruction for the protection of those who remain faithful to goodness and fairness and love. In light of the great judgment to come, it is mercy to rebels that their mortal life is shortened and, thus, their future arraignment before the heavenly court lessened.
He is the God of love, even if our selfish, self-centered perceptions, while we stew in the troublesome consequences we have brought upon ourselves, view Him as arbitrary and unfeeling. He is the God of redeeming love. All He wants for everyone who desires His acceptance and help, is to unite with their heart, bring them to a knowledge of their great need and the helplessness to uplift themselves, and then to respond immediately to their sorrow for sin and yearning for His friendship and grace.
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels. He was the Word of God,—God’s thought made audible. In His prayer for His disciples He says, “I have declared unto them Thy name,”—“merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”—“that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which “angels desire to look,” and it will be their study throughout endless ages.
Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which “seeketh not her own” has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto. Desire of Ages, p.19, 20.
Redeeming love. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22:17).
posted by David | 6:57 AM
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