Untitled article by A. H. HULBERT

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, September 24, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 15

THE LOVE OF GOD.

By A. H. HULBERT

“BEHOLD what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” But how shall I speak of that infinite love which the Father hath bestowed upon us, wretched mortals that we are; what height, what depth, what power to save. Oh, that I could describe it, but language fails in the attempt. God saw the human family in one vast congregation, all sinners, entirely depraved, rebels against his throne, hateful and hating one another, whose thoughts and feelings were only evil continually. As transgressors of his holy law they deserved to die; they asked no favor, they expected none, and yet in all their untold depravity God loved them as his creatures, and in the exercise of his exceeding love, brought forth a ransom.

With his Son’s consent, he stripped him for a time of his majesty and glory, took away his crown and scepter, and veiled his divinity in a body of flesh. God saw his Son for our sakes despised and persecuted, and cast out by the Jews; yet his infinite love endured it. He beheld him in his bloody agony in the garden, and saw him betrayed by a disciple, forsaken by his friends, and arrested by a band of soldiers; he heard him reviled and falsely accused at the bar of Pilate, and saw the Jews spit in his face, and in derision smite him with the palms of their hands, and his love for us endured it. He saw him bearing his cross to the place of execution and consent to be nailed to it by his merciless oppressors. Oh, it was love to sinners which Heaven could not contain, nor earth comprehend, that enabled him to sustain the awful pressure of a world’s iniquities until he bowed his head in death, and gave up the ghost. This was love at which the sun hid his face in midnight darkness, the earth quaked, the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and darkness covered the land at noon-day.

Oh, dear reader, I am speaking to you of the dying love of Jesus, and can you not feel it? It dimmed the blessed light of the sun, and can you gaze upon it without emotion? It shook the earth to its center, and will not your spirit tremble and bow before it? It rent asunder the flinty rocks of Judea, and will not your heart yield to its mighty power? It wakened to life the sleeping saints, and will you not receive from it the impulses of spiritual life? It covered the land with mourning, and have you no tears to shed, no heart to mourn for those sins which crucified the Son of God?

Look upon Jesus in his dying agony; what sympathy, what melting tenderness, are there. The Son of God in tears, in death. Here is love that melts and moves the soul; love that wept, and bled, and died, to save the lost. Here is love that invites the guilty: Look unto me and be ye saved; Come unto me and I will give you rest. Here is love that expostulates with the wanderer: Behold my hands and my feet; Turn ye, for why will ye die. Here is love that heals the wounded, pouring in the oil and the wine, binding up the broken in heart. Here is love that proclaims liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prisons to them that are bound. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to die, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

“Oh, for such love, let rocks and hills, Their lasting silence break, And all harmonious human tongues The Saviour’s praises speak.”

Dear brethren and sisters, in view of the solemn and momentous scenes through which we shall soon be called to pass, it is of the utmost importance that we should have our lamps trimmed and burning that we may all be ready to meet the Lord in peace. Keep the day of Judgment, and the glorious and fearful realities of eternity steadily in view, and I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

A. H. HULBERT.

Faribault Co., Minn.