Sin and Pain
"Behold, What Manner of Love"
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” 1 John 3:1.
“It is from the Father's heart that the streams of divine compassion, manifest in Christ, flow out to the children of men. . . . God permitted His beloved Son, full of grace and truth, to come from a world of indescribable glory, to a world marred and blighted with sin, darkened with the shadow of death and the curse. He permitted Him to leave the bosom of His love, the adoration of the angels, to suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death. . . . It was the burden of sin, the sense of its terrible enormity, of its separation of the soul from God--it was this that broke the heart of the Son of God. . . .
God suffered with His Son. In the agony of Gethsemane, the death of Calvary, the heart of Infinite Love paid the price of our redemption. . . . Nothing less than the infinite sacrifice made by Christ in behalf of fallen man could express the Father's love to lost humanity. . . .
The price paid for our redemption, the infinite sacrifice of our heavenly Father in giving His Son to die for us, should give us exalted conceptions of what we may become through Christ. As the inspired apostle John beheld the height, the depth, the breadth of the Father's love toward the perishing race, he was filled with adoration and reverence; and, failing to find suitable language in which to express the greatness and tenderness of this love, he called upon the world to behold it. . . . What a value this places upon man! Through transgression, the sons of man become subjects of Satan. Through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the sons of Adam may become the sons of God. By assuming human nature, Christ elevates humanity. Fallen men are placed where, through connection with Christ, they may indeed become worthy of the name, "sons of God."
Such love is without a parallel. Children of the heavenly King! Precious promise! Theme of the most profound meditation! The matchless love of God for a world that did not love Him!”
How Long Must Heaven Suffer?
“ I and my Father are one.” John 10:30.
“God Himself was crucified with Christ; for Christ was one with the Father.
Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator. All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him. When there came upon Israel the calamities that were the sure result of separation from God--subjugation by their enemies, cruelty, and death--it is said that "his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." "In all their affliction he was afflicted: . . . and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old" (Judges 10:16; Isaiah 63:9).
His Spirit "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." As the "whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together" (Romans 8:26, 22), the heart of the infinite Father is pained in sympathy. Our world is a vast lazar house, a scene of misery that we dare not allow our thoughts to dwell upon. Did we realize it as it is, the burden would be too terrible. Yet God feels it all.
Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father's heart.
He who knows the depths of the world's misery and despair, knows by what means to bring relief. . . . Although human beings have abused their mercies, wasted their talents, and lost the dignity of godlike manhood, the Creator is to be glorified in their redemption.
In order to destroy sin and its results He gave His best Beloved, and He has put it in our power, through cooperation with Him, to bring this scene of misery to an end.
With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world! How soon might the end come--the end of suffering and sorrow and sin!”
AG 188-189