“For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that
sent me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the
Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at
the last day,” (John 6:38-40).
None of the Evangelists or Apostles speak so much of the
Father as John, who knew most of his Son Jesus Christ, and leant upon his bosom.
The reason is, John felt that the mind of the Father and the mind of the Son
were the same—entirely the same. He was; therefore, engaged in the same topic
when he unfolded the Father’s love.
It is remarkable that it is this apostle who records what
Jesus revealed concerning the Father, and how Jesus delighted to point his
disciples to him. Thus, he shows us in the context, (v. 37), that Jesus went
into the secret of his pavilion when his soul was grieved by the perverse
unbelief of men. In that hour, when Jesus could find no refreshment in the men
around him, he turned back for a moment’s joy to the Father’s love. “All that
the Father giveth me shall come to me!” He bathes his soul in that depth of
eternal love. He surveys those given to him—Abel, and the saints of his
age—Abraham, and his faithful ones—Peter, John, Mary, Lydia—the few in
Sardis—the souls under the altar—and, as he surveys them, he sees his Father’s
love sparkle from each one, for these are his Father’s gift; and forthwith his
own love overflows on all that stand by. He flashes out his own love when he in
the same moment cries, “And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”
It seems that in that hour he thought upon the future. He saw, as he uttered the
words, “All whom the Father giveth me,” how man would be prone to take this
reference to the Father’s love as indicating a difference between the grace of
the Father and of the Son. He saw that many would say, that Jesus damped the
rising hope of the coming sinner when he said, “All that the Father giveth me,”
and therefore does he forthwith cast out that other cord of love, “And him that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” So great is my Father’s love to me
and to perishing men, that assuredly there shall be souls that come to me; and
so great is my love and his love alike, that no coming one shall on any account
be cast out.
Dear brethren, if the snow had never
lain on the tops of
I. The Father’s amazing
love appears in his sparing this guilty world, though he spared not the angels
that sinned:
You know that it is the Father’s part to arrange, and
purpose, and decree—it is his to decide and appoint whatsoever cometh to pass.
Now, in a past eternity, he had the case of this fallen world under
consideration. He might have decreed immediate woe as soon as sin should be
committed by men. For sin deserves not only eternal, but immediate curse; and he
had seen meet so to determine in regard to those angels who should leave “their
first habitation.” But the barren fig-tree was spared—this most guilty world
received a day of grace. It became the very theatre for the display of
long-suffering; so that our text exhibits to us the Son of God walking on a
spared world, digging at the roots of its barren trees. “Herein is love!” For to
spare this whole world for a time, implied the intention of enduring man’s
rebellion and man’s unceasing provocations, for at least six thousand years. It
was equivalent to the Father saying, “Lo! I will submit to bear man’s
apostasy—to allow him to provoke the eyes of my glory—to wag his head at me and
say, “Can he see through the dark cloud “?” —to cast up mire and the very filth
of hell upon my pure white throne—nay, to aim at “erasing my love from my own
heart, and even strike at my own being!” O did it not require love ineffable ere
this could be resolved upon! This guilty world’s day of grace is a most
marvelous proof and manifestation of Jehovah’s depth of love. And, thou wicked
and slothful servant, who sayest, “He is an austere master,” shalt be confounded
for ever. The Father needs do no more than point to this time of most undeserved
long-suffering. You speak of mercy; and some of you say, He could not be a God
of mercy if be cast away so many souls; but already has his treatment of you
displayed his mercy. Your day of grace proves him to be a loving God. 0 man, see
to it before you are summoned to the Judgment Seat; for your plea, drawn from
his mercy, is already dismissed. “What will you do in the day of visitation ?”
You abuse your day—you sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play—you dance
before your golden calf—and then complain of a long-suffering God, because his
mercy bears with you only for a lifetime, and will not wink at your sin to all
eternity!
II. The Father’s amazing
love appears in choosing some of this guilty world, who should certainly be to
the praise of his glory:
Our text refers to this in the expression, “All that the
Father hath given me.” And so at other times—“Thou gavest them me,” (John 17:6);
and “The men whom thou hast given me;” “Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise
of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved,”
(Eph. 1:5, 6).
Now, there was a mystery of love in this election. It lies in
the fact that, but for this further determination of the Father, none of our
world would after all have been saved. To give men full liberty to come and be
saved is love indeed. To procure and provide a ransom available for all who do
come, whatever they be, is love yet higher still. But love can ascend to a
height beyond this—far beyond it. It has ascended infinitely higher, for it has
resolved to draw many, many thousands to itself, who otherwise would not have
come at all. The Lord saw, dear brethren, that none in all this world would have
come—not one shipwrecked man would ever have swam to shore, for he hated the
shore more than the very waves that lashed him. No manslayer would have crossed
the threshold of the city of refuge; he would rather linger in the open plain
and risk the blow of the avenger. No debtor would have deigned to accept the
payment—no captive to receive the ransom; even though all was free—even though
entreated to do so by God himself—even though hell was behind, and heaven
before.
The world’s corruption was deep beyond conception. Earth was
an open sepulcher; and each man hated his God. It was in reference to what he
saw of this fearful enmity that Jesus said, in melancholy pity, “No man can come
to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” (John 6:44). They are so
totally depraved, they are so wedded to their lusts, they are so gross, and
sensual—so truly dead in sin—they do not wish to be freed from their
covetousness, their envy, their lust, their power to draw draughts of pleasure
from ungodly revelry, or from intense engrossment with the lawful occupations of
life. They hide among the trees of the garden at the first sound of the voice of
the Lord, even when he comes with grace on his lips, and goodwill to men in his
heart.
O brethren, to be able to love any of such a race, argues
strange and mysterious depth of love in God the Father. And he did fix his love
on many of these; he did it freely, and he did it determinedly. So deliberate,
decided, determined was this eternal love of the Father, that it made success
certain in the case of each on whom it was fixed. It was such a love, that its
plans and purposes implied the operation of each person of the Godhead. The
Spirit must go forth and draw, and the Son go forth and die. This was the
Father’s plan! O what amazing love is here! What thoughts are in his heart to
usward! He will not let go his purpose of having some of our fallen race
standing round his throne.
1. Anxious souls! Surely the God that would do this from all
eternity, is a God of infinite grace. What a bosom is this to lean upon what an
inducement to draw near! Does it not confirm you in the belief of that
declaration, “Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out!” He who makes
such provision to ensure that many shall come, is one who will in nowise reject
any that are coming!
2. Unawakened men! There is nothing in the character of God
that can account for your treatment of him; —there is nothing in him or his ways
that can excuse your hatred. It is the fearful depravity of your own souls that
alone can account for your utter ungodliness. Your blood is on your own heads!
Your heart may be as deceitful as it is wicked, so that you may not believe your
own deplorable state of enmity; but Jehovah has said by the lips of his Son
concerning all that thus resist him, “Ye have hated me without a cause!”
III. The Father’s amazing
love appears in his giving Christ to be the sinner’s way of salvation:
It was he who made a new and living way for a sinner’s return
to him. “This is the will of him that sent me, that every one who seeth the Son
and believeth on him may have everlasting life,” (v. 40). “God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should
not perish,” (John 3:16). And hence the name given him in 2 Corinthians 1:3,
“The Father of mercies;” and in Romans 8:32, “He that spared not his Son.”
Had he for once caused one ray of the inaccessible light to
shoot down to this earth in order to teach us our state of darkness—had he shown
us one crown worn above, or one triumphal palm—had he caused us to hear one note
of heavenly melody—all this would have left us inexcusable, if we did not ever
after covet earnestly the things above. But he took the best gift in all his
treasures; nay, he took the Son that was in his bosom, and gave him to man.
Angels saw it done, and rapturously sang, “To you is born a Saviour, who is
Christ the Lord!” and all men that have had anointed eyes have responded as they
gazed, “To us a child is born unto us a son is given!” It is by this
measuring-line that you must fathom the depth of the ocean. It is by this fact
that you must try to measure the unsearchable love of the Father. You test your
fellow-creatures” love by the sacrifices they would make for you. You judge of
Abraham’s love to his God by his sacrifice of Isaac. Now judge of the love of
the Father by his gift of his Son.
It was the Father saying, “I cannot give up my law and my
holiness for that would be ceasing to be God. I cannot hide my righteousness and
resign its demands; for that would ruin all. I cannot put the burden on my
angels; for they could not bear it one hour. I cannot leave it on man; for then,
not one of them should ever stand before me. But this is my will. Awake, O
sword, against my shepherd; let man be dipped in the blood of the Almighty’s
fellow!” He not only gave him, but substituted him in the room of the guilty—
“the just for the unjust to bring us unto God.”
O brethren, the Father resolved that all salvation shall be
found in the Son. He carefully avoided leaving any of the details of salvation
for us to perform. The Father was he who provided that the chastisement of our
peace should be laid upon another; and no atoning tears left for us to shed—no
atoning suffering left for us to endure—not one atoning sigh left for us to
heave. Therefore, “it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he put him to grief,” (Is.
53:10); and this he did with such calm, decided love, that the appeal of his
beloved Son to him, “Father if it be possible, let this cup pass,” served only
to manifest his long-settled and unchanging plan.
He had resolved that he should have children and sons from
among men; but he had further resolved, that their way of becoming his children
and sons should all express his love. It was to be free; they were to come to
him from the far country “in a chariot paved with love.” All he asked of them
was, that they should ascend the chariot and be carried home; for as many as
received Jesus were at once to receive the privilege of sons of God. “Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called
sons of God,” (John 3:1); but equally amazing that we should become sons in a
way so free. It costs Jesus all; it costs us nothing. Every drop of the vial
falls on Jesus, and not even the dregs are left. Every arrow that was needed to
express the Lord’s hatred of sin and vindicate his law, sinks into the heart of
Jesus, and is aimed at him by the Father’s hand! All penalties are exacted of
him; all obedience is rendered by him; and all this is done according to, and in
exact fulfillment of, the Father’s purpose of love to us. These are just the
thoughts of the Father toward us, carried out into accomplishment.
Now, brethren, the Father, having given us this way and
warrant for coming to him, manifests his love yet more by shutting you up to the
necessity of taking this one way, this only warrant. “Every one that hath heard
and learnt of the Father cometh unto me,” (John 6:45), said Jesus; and “no man
cometh unto the Father but by me,” (John 14:6). You are reduced to the necessity
of being saved by a free salvation. It is written, “Him hath God the Father
sealed,” (John 6:27). He has made Jesus to be your Joseph; he has given him the
royal signet. When you cry for bread, he says to all, “Go to Joseph,” (Gen.
41:55). Jesus has the seal of the Father. O with such a warrant, and going to
one whose love is such that it planned this way, one whose bosom is filled with
calm, determined, eternal love, can you hesitate as to duty? Can you hesitate as
to the way of safety? Nothing but enmity on your part, and deep-rooted dislike,
can account for your resting contented without possession of the Father’s gift.
What more will you venture to say the Father ought to have given? See what he
has already given, and given without any claim on your part. If you are lost,
your ruin will lie on yourself. Will ever your blasphemous lips dare to lay your
damnation to the charge of such a God? Oh, fall in with his plan of grace! The
plan that such a God proposes, must be one worthy of such a sinner’s immediate
acceptance. And immediate acceptance is the only manner in which such a sinner
can show any due sense of the free grace of his God.
You who do already believe, be reminded that it is to the
Father you owe all your peace, and joy, and blessed assurance of eternal life.
You were once far off; and once you were only anxiously wishing to find his
favor. But he showed your anxious souls his economy of grace—he brought you to
drink of his living waters that are without price—he spread out the warrant
before your eyes, and you were made to see that there was nothing left for you
to complete. The Father’s plan was so gracious, that, in seeing the Son, you saw
a finished salvation. Oh, give glory evermore at once to “Him that sitteth on
the throne, and to the Lamb.”
IV. The amazing love of
the Father appears in his revealing himself to us.
He does not act through an interpreter only, but he makes
himself known. He gives us, as it were, the means of searching and trying his
heart, that we may be quite sure of his whole mind towards us, and that his
matchless character may draw our souls to himself.
He does this through the incarnation of Jesus. For we are
told in our text, “I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will
of him that sent me,” —that is, not to exercise any separate will of mine as
man, but as man to exhibit and to do the Father’s will. All, therefore, that is
in Christ, expresses the mind of his Father also. “I am in the Father, and the
Father in me,” (John 14:10). “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” (John
14:9).
O brethren, there is manifold love in his revelation to us of
the Father. It is not only that our suspicious hearts would never have been
quite at rest unless we had thus known the Father also; but it gives us a view
of his willingness to condescend to us in any way that may more fully draw us,
or be more likely to induce us to love “the Lord our God with all our heart, and
all our soul and all our mind, and all our strength.” He seems herein to come
out of his “light inaccessible,” that he may become known to his fallen
creatures. This is like humiliation; it is the Father’s condescension. If
Solomon, in order to engage the confidence of some loathsome leper, had come
forth in all his glory, in his royal apparel, and with his golden sceptre, then
would all the land have rung with the story of his condescending kindness. And
it is not less that our God has done. He has come forth that we might know him.
He has put on the robe of humanity, wherein he could be best looked upon by our
mortal eye, and he has shewn himself in all his grace and attractive love to a
fallen world.
Herein is love! the Father will go to the utmost length in
order to draw you back from the pit. Like the Grecian mother who, by her song,
drew back her willful child from the edge of the awful precipice, and brought it
to her bosom secure; so the Lord, by the discovery of his infinitely glorious
and gracious nature, would draw you from your sin. He would present to your
idolatrous and adulterous eyes a sight more attractive than earth, in its
softest forms, can furnish. He would keep you back from hell, O sinner, by
manifesting himself to you as altogether lovely! O how deep is your corruption!
How strong your enmity! How unconquerable your perversity! You hate God, after
seeing him revealed in Jesus! Every exhibition of greatness, mingled with grace
in Jesus, was the revelation of the Father also! Every discovery of patience,
long-suffering, and grieved love—every time Jesus went apart to weep in secret
places for the pride of men, it was the Father’s feeling also. When Jesus beheld
Jerusalem, and wept over it, O there was a tender pity there that just pictured
forth the Father’s yearning compassion—as if the Father himself had come forth
from the “light inaccessible,” and had spoken in the hearing and sight of men,
“How shall I give thee up, Ephraim; how shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall
I make thee as Admah, and set thee as Zeboim?”
Nor is it less the Father’s mind, when Jesus cries in your
ears, “Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out.” This is the Father’s
will who has sent him. As if he knew that you might say, on hearing that it is
certain that all shall come who are given to Christ, “Ah, then, perhaps though I
were to come, I would not be welcomed,” the Saviour says, and the Father speaks
by his lips, “Him that cometh I will in nowise cast out.” You shall never be
rejected, if you come—never on the ground that you were too great a sinner—never
on the ground that, though you come, you were not given to Christ. “You shall in
nowise be cast out.” Any question regarding the Father’s secret purposes, or the
Father’s accurate foreknowledge of who are his own—any question of this sort is
quite out of your province. It is friends who get acquainted with the secrets of
another’s heart; it is not strangers. You are to come on the strength of the
warrant alone; and so you will become a friend and a child of his family, and be
no more cast out.
V. The Father’s amazing
love appears in appointing the eternal reward for redeemed sinners:
Our text says, “I came down to do the will of him that sent
me,” and “this is the Father’s will that hath sent me, that of all which he hath
given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day,”
(John 6:39.) Therefore, says Jesus, “I will raise him up at the last day,” (v.
40).
It is remarkable how the Father delights to honor the Son
while wearing our nature. It is of him in our nature, nay, in the act of bearing
away, like the scapegoat, our sins on his person, that it is written, “Therefore
doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, and take it up again,”
(John 10:17). It is in our nature that he is to judge, and to him every knee
shall bow and every tongue confess when he appears, clothed in our nature, and
wearing the many crowns of this earth’s dominion. Now, love to him in our nature
is love to us. O, then, brethren, read here the Father’s delight in our race. He
takes our nature, in the person of Jesus, to his nearest presence; he sheds
round it, in the person of Jesus, his brightest beams; he places it on his right
hand in majesty.
But farther, it is written here, that the rising of the
believers in the resurrection of the just is appointed of the Father— “that he
should raise it up again at the last day.” It is he who has purposed the
glorious triumph over death, which believers gain in the resurrection morn. It
is he who planned that they should live and reign with Christ, blessed and holy,
children of the first resurrection, and never subject to the second death. It is
he who blesses them; for the King shall say, “Come ye blessed of my Father,”
(Matthew 25:34). It is he who bestows the kingdom upon them; “I appoint unto you
a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed me,” (Luke 22:29). It is he who gives
them power over the nations; for Christ in giving his power says, “Even as I
received of my Father,” (Rev. 2:27). It is the Father who introduces them to the
glory of Christ, (John 17:24). It is in the Father’s house they dwell—in his
many mansions, (John 14:2). And even as Jesus went to the Father so do they; for
they are “with him where he is,” in the immediate presence of the Father.
Thus, brethren, every token of love, in that blessed kingdom,
bears the impress of the Father’s grace. Every glory there sparkles with beams
of the Father’s love. O what a God of love is our God. And it is to his bosom
the returning sinner comes. Sweet and blessed hope! to be near him, to try the
depths of his heart—to have access through Jesus in our nature to his bosom—and
so to be able to pour out our heart to him, and feel him pour out his to us.
This is life eternal.
A child of God once asked, in meditating on the words—“Where
thou causest thy flock to rest” —where this resting-place might be thought to
be? One said, “In Jesus.” But the other replied, “It is even in the Father’s
bosom.” And truly this is a believer’s deepest rest. “By him we believe in God,”
(1 Pet. 1:21), that is, the Father; and “we come unto God by him,” (Heb. 7:25).
It is your place of rest, believer. It is the inner apartment of the
pavilion—the secret of the tent. It is the farthest off spot from earth, it is
out of sight of its pleasures, joys, gain, ambition. “Love not the world,
neither the things of the world; if any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him,” (1 John 2:15). “Little children, ye have known the
Father,” (v. 13).
O beloved, before I conclude, let me
once more cast out the cords of love to draw the rebellious among you. This God
is our God. This is he who assures you of his desire for your salvation, “I have
no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, but rather
that he turn from his ways and live,” You are the worm that tried to crawl up to
his throne, and to sit down as sovereign, and yet he has not crushed you! Your
bosom is the seat of fearful sin, hatred of the holy one, dark suspicions of his
sincerity, fond plans of self-exaltation, selfish schemes for present
indulgence, ungodly fancies, sensual, earthly, devilish desires. Yet still our
God, even the Father, laments over you. He takes no blame to himself for your
wretched degradation; for, on the contrary, he has at every step cast hindrances
in your way to hell. He laments over you, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself, but in me is thy help found!” He loved Jesus all the more for dying and
rising again (John 10:17), because it opened up the channel of love; it gave
vent to his love to man. Only draw near and see this ocean. It is the same ocean
of love which is seen when you look on a dying Saviour; but it is the same ocean
seen from another point of view. And what can exceed the power of the appeal
which God hereby makes to you, when he declares, “That it is not the love of the
Son alone, but the unbought, free, eternal love of Godhead!” It is the Father
who lays down Jesus for a foundation stone, and cries to a careless world,
“Behold! I lay in
