Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
March 28
MORNING
ÒThe love of
Christ which passeth knowledge.Ó —
Ephesians 3:19
The love of Christ in its sweetness,
its fulness, its greatness, its faithfulness, passeth all human comprehension. Where shall language be found which shall describe
His matchless, His unparalleled love towards the children of men? It is so vast
and boundless that, as the swallow but skimmeth the
water, and diveth not into its depths, so all
descriptive words but touch the surface, while depths immeasurable lie beneath.
Well might the poet say,
ÒO love, thou fathomless abyss!Ó
for this love of Christ is indeed measureless and
fathomless; none can attain unto it. Before we can have any right idea of the
love of Jesus, we must understand His previous glory in its height of majesty,
and His incarnation upon the earth in all its depths of shame. But who can tell
us the majesty of Christ? When He was enthroned in the highest heavens He was
very God of very God; by Him were the heavens made, and all the hosts thereof.
His own almighty arm upheld the spheres; the praises of cherubim and seraphim
perpetually surrounded Him; the full chorus of the hallelujahs of the universe
unceasingly flowed to the foot of his throne: He reigned supreme above all His
creatures, God over all, blessed for ever. Who can
tell His height of glory then? And who, on the other hand, can tell how low He
descended? To be a man was something, to be a man of sorrows was far more; to
bleed, and die, and suffer, these were much for Him who was the Son of God; but
to suffer such unparalleled agony — to endure a death of shame and
desertion by His Father, this is a depth of condescending love which the most
inspired mind must utterly fail to fathom. Herein is love! and
truly it is love that Òpasseth knowledge.Ó O let this
love fill our hearts with adoring gratitude, and lead us to practical
manifestations of its power.
EVENING
ÒI will accept you with your sweet savour.Ó —
Ezekiel 20:41
The merits of our great Redeemer are as sweet savour to the Most High. Whether we speak of the active or
passive righteousness of Christ, there is an equal fragrance. There was a sweet
savour in His active life by which He honoured the law of God, and made every precept to glitter
like a precious jewel in the pure setting of His own person. Such, too, was His
passive obedience, when He endured with unmurmuring
submission, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and at length sweat great
drops of blood in Gethsemane, gave His back to the smiters,
and His cheeks to them that plucked out the hair, and was fastened to the cruel
wood, that He might suffer the wrath of God in our behalf. These two things are
sweet before the Most High; and for the sake of His doing and His dying, His
substitutionary sufferings and His vicarious obedience, the Lord our God
accepts us. What a preciousness must there be in Him
to overcome our want of preciousness! What a sweet savour
to put away our ill savour! What a cleansing power in
His blood to take away sin such as ours! and what
glory in His righteousness to make such unacceptable creatures to be accepted
in the Beloved! Mark, believer, how sure and unchanging must be our acceptance,
since it is in Him! Take care that you never doubt your acceptance in Jesus.
You cannot be accepted without Christ; but, when you have received His merit,
you cannot be unaccepted. Notwithstanding all your doubts, and fears, and sins,
JehovahÕs gracious eye never looks upon you in anger;
though He sees sin in you, in yourself, yet when He looks at you through
Christ, He sees no sin. You are always accepted in Christ, are always blessed
and dear to the FatherÕs heart. Therefore lift up a song, and as you see the
smoking incense of the merit of the Saviour coming
up, this evening, before the sapphire throne, let the incense of your praise go
up also.