Loving Christ In His Passion

Let us love Jesus as carrying on the great work of our salvation for us, during His sufferings and death. What, did He suffer and die? “Greater love than this hath no man, that a man should give His life for His friends.” But God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Why, here is an argument of love indeed. How should we but love Him, who hath thus loved us? In prosecution of this, I have no more to do, but first to show Christ’s love to us, and then to exercise our love to Him again.

For His love to us, had not God said it, and the Scriptures recorded it, who would have believed our reports? Yet Christ hath done it, and it is worth our while to weigh it, and consider it in a holy meditation. Indeed, with what less than ravishment of spirit can I behold the Lord Jesus, who, from everlasting, was clothed with glory and majesty, now wrapped in rags, cradled in a manger, exposed to hunger, thirst, weariness, danger, contempt, poverty, revilings, scourgings, persecution? But to let them pass, into what ecstasies may I be cast, to see the Judge of all the world accused, judged, condemned? To see the Lord of life dying upon the tree of shame and curse? To see the eternal Son of God struggling with His Father’s wrath? To see Him, who had said, “I and my Father are one,” sweating drops of blood in His agony, and crying out on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Oh! whither hath His love to mankind carried Him? Had He only sent His creatures to serve us, had He only sent His prophets to advise us in the way to heaven, had He only sent His angels from His chamber of presence to attend upon us, and minister to us, it had been a great deal of mercy; or if it must be so, had Christ come down from heaven Himself, but only to visit us, or had He come only and wept over us, saying, “Oh! that you had known, even you, in this your day, the things belonging to your peace! Oh! that you had more considered of my goodness! Oh, that you had never sinned!” This would have been such a mercy as that all the world would have wondered at it; but that Christ Himself should come and lay down His blood, and His life, and all for His people, and yet I am not at the lowest, that He should not only part with life, but part with the sense and sweetness of God’s love, which is a thousand times better than life, “Thy loving kindness is better than life” (Ps. 63:3). That He should be content to be accursed, that we might be blessed; that He should be content to be forsaken, that we might not be forsaken; that He should be content to be condemned, that we might be acquitted: oh! what raptures of spirit can be sufficient for the admiration of this so infinite mercy? Be thou swallowed up, O my soul, in this depth of divine love, and hate to spend thy thoughts any more upon the base objects of this wretched world, when thou hast such a Saviour to take them up. Come, look on thy Jesus, who died temporally, that thou mightest live eternally, who out of His singular tenderness, would not suffer thee to burn in hell, for ten, twenty, thirty, forty, an hundred years, and then recover thee; by which, notwithstanding, He might better and deeper have imprinted in thee the blessed memory of a dear Redeemer; no, no: this was the article betwixt Him and His Father, “That thou shouldest never come there.” See, but observe but Christ’s love in that mutual agreement betwixt God and Christ, “Oh! I am pressed (saith God) with the sins of the world, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves; come, my Son, either thou must suffer, or I must damn the world.” Accordingly I may imagine the attributes of God to speak to God, Mercy cries, I am abused; and patience cries, I am despised; and goodness cries, I am wronged; and holiness cries, I am contradicted: and all these come to the Father for justice, crying to Him, “That all the world were opposers of His grace and Spirit; and if any be saved, Christ must be punished.” In this case we must imagine Christ stepped in: “rather than so, (saith Christ) I will bear all, and undertake the satisfying of all.” And now look upon Him, He hangs on the cross all naked, all torn, all bloody, betwixt heaven and earth, as if He were cast out of heaven: and also rejected by earth: He has a crown indeed, but such a one as few men will touch; none will take from Him; and if any rash man will have it, He must tear hair, skin and all, or it will not come: His hair is all clotted with blood, His face all clouded with black and blue; He is all over so pitifully rent, outwards, inwards, body and soul. I will think the rest, alas! when I have spoken all I can, I shall speak under it; had I the tongues of men and angels, I could not express it. Oh! love more deep than hell! Oh! love more high than heaven! the brightest seraphims that burn in love, are but as sparkles to that mighty flame of love in the heart of Jesus.

If this be Christ’s love to us, what is that love we owe to Christ? Oh now for an heart that might be somewise answerable to these mercies! Oh for a soul sick of love, yea, sick unto death! How should I be otherwise, or any less affected? This only sickness is our health, this death our life, and not to be thus sick is to be dead in sins and trespasses: why surely I have heard enough, for which to love Christ for ever. The depths of Cod’s grace are bottomless, they pass our understandings, yet they recreate our hearts; they give matter of admiration, yet they are not devoid of consolation: O God raise up our souls to Thee; and if our spirits be too weak to know Thee, make our affections ardent and sincere to love Thee.

Surely the death of Christ requires this, and calls for this: many other motives we may draw from Christ, and many other motives are laid down in the gospel; and indeed the whole gospel is no other thing than a motive to draw man to Cod by the force of God’s love to man: in this sense the holy scriptures may be called, The book of true love, seeing therein God both unfolds His love to us, and also binds our love to Him; but of all the motives we may draw from Christ, and of all the arguments we may find in the gospel of Christ, there is none to this, the death of Christ, the blood of Jesus; is not this such a love-letter, as never, never was the like? Read these words, “for His great love wherewith He loved us” (Eph. 2:4). Or, if you cannot read, observe the hieroglyphics, every stripe is a letter, every nail is a capital letter, every bruise is a black letter; His bleeding wounds are as so many rubrics to show upon record: oh! consider it, is not this a great love! Are not all mercies wrapt up in this blood of Christ? It may be thou hast riches, honors, friends, means; oh! but thank the blood of Christ for all thou hast; it may be thou hast grace, and that is better than corn, or wine, or oil: oh! but for this thank the blood of Jesus, surely it was the blood of Christ that did this for thee; thou wast a rebellious soul, thou hadst an hard and filthy heart, but Christ’s blood was the fountain opened, and it took away all sin and all uncleanness; Christ, in all, and Christ above all. And what,

wilt thou not love Him? Oh! that all our words were words of love, and all our labors labors of love, and all our thoughts thoughts of love, that we might speak of love, and muse of love, and love this Christ who first loved us, with all our heart, and soul, and might! What, wilt thou not love Jesus Christ? Let me ask thee then, Whom wilt thou love, or rather whom canst thou love, if thou lovest not Him? If thou sayest, “I love my friends, parents, wife, children”; oh! but love Christ more than these; a friend would be an enemy, but that the blood of Christ doth frame his heart, a wife would be a trouble, but that the blood of Christ doth frame her heart; all mercies are conveyed to us through this channel; oh! who would not love the fountain? Consider of it again and again, our Jesus thought nothing too good for us, He parted with His life and blood, He parts with the sense and feeling of the love of God, and all this for us, and for our sakes; ah! my soul, how shouldest thou but love Him in all things, and by all means?

If I had a thousand hearts to bestow on Christ, and they most enlarged to the highest pitch of affection; all these were infinitely short of what I owe to my dear Lord.

It is reported of Ignatius, that he so continually meditated on the great things Christ suffered for him, that he was brought entirely to love Him: and when he was demanded, why he would not forsake Christ, rather than to suffer himself to be torn and devoured of wild beasts? He answered, that he could not forget Him, because of His sufferings, “Oh! His sufferings (said he) are not transient words, or removable objects, but they are indelible characters, so engraven in my heart, that all the torments of earth can never raze them out.” And being commanded by that bloody tyrant Trajan to be ripped and embowel led, they found Jesus Christ written upon his heart in characters of gold. Here was an heart worth gold; oh that it might be thus with us! If my hands were all of love, that I could work nothing but love; if my eyes were all of love, that I could see nothing but love; if my mind were all of love, that I could think nothing but love, all were too little to love that Christ, who hath thus immeasurably loved me; if I had a thousand hearts to bestow on Christ, and they most enlarged to the highest pitch of affection; all these were infinitely short of what I owe to my dear Lord and dearest Saviour. Come, let us join hands, “He loved us, and therefore let us love Him,” if we dispute the former, I argue from the Jews, when He shed out a few tears out of His eyes at Lazarus’ grave, “Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him!” John 11:36. How much more truly may it be said of us, for whom He shed both water and blood, and that from His heart, “Behold, how He loved us!” why then, if our hearts be not iron; yet, if they be iron, how should they choose but feel the magnetical force of this loadstone of love? For to a loadstone doth Christ resemble Himself, when He saith of Himself, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me.” John 12:32.

Isaac Ambrose (1592-1664), a Presbyterian minister, was born in Lancashire, and educated at Oxford. He pastored two churches before the 1662 Ejection for non-conformity, and was noted for what our forefathers aimed so ardently for—”intelligent piety.” Each year Ambrose spent four weeks in solitude in nature to meditate, pray, and write. His works contain: The Doctrine of Regeneration; Directions to a Man in the Act of the New Birth; The Practice of Sanctification; Of Self-Denial; Of the Life of Faith; Of Family Duties; The Ministration of, and Communion with, Angels; and especially the renowned classic, Looking unto Jesus, from which this article is extracted. Looking Unto Jesus, has recently been reprinted by Sprinkle Publications in Virginia and is to be highly recommended as an informative, experiential, and practical volume full of Christ-centered comfort for true believers. (For discount prices, write Bible Truth Books, P.O. Box 2373, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49003.) As we commence on February 14 the commemoration of the sufferings of Christ in these seven weeks of passion, may we have room made in our hearts for the suffering Savior by whom alone we may and must be saved.

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