^f A poor ignorant woman had been ill-used by her husband, a worthless wretch. She had had to work hard for a precarious
1 H. C. Trumbull, Our Misunderstood Bible, 164.
ROMANS v. 8 309
livelihood because he refused to work at all. Life was so hard and dark for her that she might have been excused for hating and scorning the man who had made it so. This was Calvary- over again, you see ; and this child of God was being crucified. The day came when the husband was sentenced to penal servitude for a crime against society. One day the person who tells the story met this woman helping a broken-down man along the street towards her home. It was the released convict, and he looked the brute he was. Her explanation of her action was, " You see, sir, Jim has no one but me now." x
"ft An English clergyman was once preaching to a congregation of young people. During the discourse he narrated the story of a Kussian nobleman who, with his wife and child, was driving through a forest. Soon they became aware by the frantic way in which the horses struggled and strained at the traces, as they sped along at a furious pace, that the animals feared some calamity. As the frightened steeds tore through a ravine and up a high hill, those in the carriage looked back fearfully, and across the white fields of snow on the hill they had left, they saw a black moving mass, and knew that a pack of ferocious wolves was following them. Every nerve was strained to reach the village, still a few miles distant ; but the wolves drew nearer and nearer, and at last the coachman cut away the traces and set two of the leaders free, just as the wolves were approaching. The hungry pack turned its attention from the carriage to the unfortunate horses thus set free. They were speedily torn in pieces, and then, with their appetites whetted, the wolves continued their pursuit in full cry after the carriage, now some distance ahead. The coachman again felt the wolves approaching, but he could not sacrifice the two remaining horses. So he nobly volunteered to sacrifice himself, and imploring his master to take his place on the box as the only hope of saving his wife and daughter, the devoted servant descended anastood in the middle of the road, revolver in hand, attempting vainly, as he well knew, to bar the progress of the pack. The carriage dashed into the village. The nobleman sallied forth at once with a crowd of armed villagers in quest of the noble-hearted servant, whose voluntary sacrifice had saved three precious lives ; but after beating back the wolves they found, as they had feared, that he had paid the price of his life for his devotion. " Now," said the clergyman, pointedly addressing his hearers, " was that man's devotion equal to the love of the Lord Jesus Christ ? " A young girl in the audience, carried away with rapt interest in the story, answered clearly, " No, sir." " Why not ? " said the preacher,
1 E. J. Campbell.
310 GOD'S OWN LOVE
" Because," replied the young girl, " that man died for his friends, but the Lord Jesus died for His enemies." *
II.
We need to have God's own Love commended to us.
1. "God commendeth his own love" — that is true and beautiful, but that is not all that the Apostle means. We " commend " persons and things when we speak of them with praise and confidence. If that were the meaning of the text it would represent the death of Christ as setting forth, in a manner to win our hearts, the greatness, the excellence, the transcendency, of God's love. But there is more than that in the words. The expression here employed strictly means to set two things side by side, and it has two meanings in the New Testament, both derived from that original signification. It sometimes means to set two persons side by side, in the way of introducing and recommending the one to the other. It sometimes means to set two things side by side, in the way of confirming or proving the one by the other. It is used in the latter sense here. God not merely " commends," but " proves," His love by Christ's death.
■[j But " proves " is a cold word. It is addressed to the head. " Commends " is a warmer word. It is addressed to the heart. It is not enough to establish the fact that God loves. Arguments may be wrought in frost as well as in fire. But it is the heart that must be reached — through the head, indeed ; but it is a small thing to be orthodox believers in a doctrine. Christ must be not only the answer to our doubts, but the Sovereign of our affections. Do we look on the death of Christ as a death for our sin ? In the strength of the revelation that it makes of the love of God, do we front the perplexities, the miseries of the world, and the ravelled skeins of Providence with calm, happy faces ? And — most important of all — do we meet that love with an answering love ? "