4. Must we not say more and go further than this ? Must we not say that in giving us Jesus Christ, God gave us Himself, just so far as we could receive this culminating gift ? Is it not the fact that in Him we have the Way to God, the Truth about God, and the Life of God lived out among men ? Is it not He who has made God real for us, by interpreting Godhead in terms of * Bishop Harvey Goodwin, in The Cambridge Heview, Nov. 24, 1886.
2o8 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
Fatherhood, so that henceforth we know God and have seen Him ? He brings men to God as Teacher and Leader ; but, even more wonderful, He brings God to men by visibly manifesting the Divine within Himself. In the face of so great a proof we can no longer doubt the love which prompted it. Men had thought of the Eternal as of some mighty Potentate, irresponsible in power, jealous of His own dignity, exacting obedience and praise and sacrifices ; but in Christ they saw God willing to seek and to save, ready even, incredible though it might seem, to suffer and agonize for their sakes, loving men even in their disobedience and wilfulness, and giving Himself for them. "God so loved the world that he gave " Himself to us in His own dear Son.
^ Men readily concede that God gave us Jesus, but they do not seem to see with equal clearness that God gave Himself in Jesus, and that He still continues to give Himself in everything worthy of Jesus that is making the world better, nobler, kinder. I remember reading during the South African war that the greatest deaths were those of the mothers who died in their sons, the greatest gifts were those of the mothers who gave their sons, the keenest anguish was that of the mothers who suffered in their sons for the sake of England. Here is a figure of the word of God for the world.^
(1) Here we come upon the doctrine of the Atonement, properly so called ; that is, we are led to the recognition of the truth that the spiritual condition of the race of man has been changed, as the result of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Persons may of course easily misrepresent this doctrine, and say that it is derogatory to the character of the Almighty that He should require a human sacrifice to appease His wrath ; that God is love and cannot be propitiated by the sufferings of the innocent ; and that it is impossible for a man of honourable feeling to wish for a boon so obtained. But who preaches such doctrines as those which are thus reprobated ? who does not maintain the doctrine of the text as the only ground of that of the Atonement, namely, that God so loved the world, that He even stooped Himself to save it?
^ " What is the blood of Christ ? " asked Livingstone of his own solitary soul in the last months of his African wanderings. " It is Himself. It is the inherent and everlasting mercy of God
1 R. J. Campbell.
ST. JOHN in. i6 209
made apparent to human eyes and ears. The everlasting love was disclosed by our Lord's life and death. It showed that God forgives because He loves to forgive." ^
(2) Not only is the gift of the only begotten Son the gift of God Himself, it is also the gift of God Himself in sacrifice. In giving Jesus to us God made a real sacrifice and really im- poverished Himself to give it. If God had not truly loved us, or if He had loved us only in a measure, would He not have kept His Son in blessed fellowship, living in His love and finding in it His highest joy and the satisfaction of all His needs ? But no; the love which God had was the love which stopped short at no sacrifice, and therefore He gave to us His only begotten Son.
H When we are asked, as we have been asked in Robert Msmere, and in much literature that has preceded and followed it, why we do not get rid of the sternness and awfulness of religion and rest content simply with preaching the Fatherhood of God, our answer is plain. The one proof of God's love that will ever convince the world is the Cross of Christ. Said the great German, " If I were God, the sorrows of the world would break my heart." He knew not what he said. The sorrows of the world did break the Heart of hearts. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, even unto blood, even unto broken-heartedness. Why do you not say that God is Father and that all is to be well, and leave Christ out? Why do you not read the text, " God so loved the world, that he gave to every one everlasting life " ? If any one proclaims that God is love, upon what facts is he to rest his arguments ? Does he find the love of God in the mass of misery and vice in which the world around is weltering ? Belief in the love of God has been maintained and propagated in the shadow of the Cross, and only there. Apart from that, where is the proof that God is a Father and not merely a force? In the Old Testament they did not know it, though there are passages that dimly shadow it. Christ came in time. The heart of the world was failing. Martyr after martyr, prophet after prophet had died without a token. He came to change the Cross into a throne, and the shroud into a robe, and death into a sleep, and defeat into everlasting triumph.2