Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
The Father loves the Son because as the good Shepherd He freely lays down His life for the sheep to take it up again in resurrection. No one forces this death upon Him, for He surrenders it by His own choice and power in obedience to His Father's command, and the powers of earth and hell cannot take it or hold Him in the grave. He can do this because as one with God He has life in Himself, underived and infinite, so His humanity truly died while His deity held power over death to rise again. That death was covenanted before the world began, when He pledged to become man, bear human guilt and punishment as Substitute and Surety, and satisfy the claims of God's unchanging law so God can be just in justifying the believer. The Father's love for fallen people is so great that He loves the Son more for dying to redeem them, and the risen Saviour now gives the life He resumed to all who believe, that they may have immortality and victory over Satan and death.
Words and Setting
The saying belongs to the picture of Jesus as the good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep in self-giving care for those who believe in Him. The sheep are helpless and dependent, and the faithful Shepherd knows them and is known by them even as the Father knows Him. In that same discourse He is the door, and any who enter by Him will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture, for He came that they might have life more abundantly. This is set in contrast to thieves and robbers who enter not by the door, and to the hireling who flees because he cares not for the sheep. He also lays down His life for other sheep not of this fold, whom He must bring to hear His voice, so that there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
The shepherd-and-sheep illustration teaches immortal truth adapted to every hearer, with something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. It lifts the daily task from mere toil by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen, and it shows the love and wisdom of God, so that things seen become interpreters of the unseen and events of life become means of divine teaching. These words were spoken to cavilling scribes and Pharisees, and in them He declared that He Himself would rise and appear again. Those who heard understood the claim as a promise of His own resurrection on the third day. The prospect of its fulfillment filled the priests with trembling fear that the crucified Christ would stand alive before them, and with the rulers this fear was sharpened because they had seen Him raise Lazarus.
At Passover time, by entering Jerusalem in public triumph, He set Himself apart on purpose as the true Passover Lamb, an offering for the sins of the world. He clearly knew this public presentation of Himself as Redeemer would bring Him to the cross. He did it to call the attention of all people to the sacrifice that would crown His mission to a fallen world, so that His death would be studied and remembered with certainty by His church in all later ages. He bore the burden of humanity until His life was given for the life of the world. He was crucified at Jerusalem at Passover before assembled representatives, princes, kings and noblemen from all nations.
Father's Love Explained
The Father loves the Son because the Son lays down His life that He might take it again, giving His life for the sheep and for the life of the world. That laying down is the act of the good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep, in contrast to thieves and robbers who enter not by the door and to the hireling who flees because he cares not for the sheep. He is the door by whom if any enter in he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture, for He came that they might have life more abundantly, and He knows His sheep and is known of them as the Father knows Him. He lays down His life also for other sheep not of this fold whom He must bring to hear His voice, so there shall be one fold and one shepherd. No one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down of Himself, having power to lay it down and power to take it again by the commandment received from His Father, and His death is wholly voluntary and not imposed or compelled by anyone.
In laying it down He gives Himself as a sacrifice in exchange for the human family to make eternal life possible, giving His sinless life for the life of the human family who had sold themselves to Satan by breaking God's law, to buy them as His own possession so that by sharing the divine nature they might have eternal life. He was both the offering and the priest who offered it, and the prince of this world had no power to take His life from Him. He could have saved Himself and come down from the cross, but doing so would have left the world under the control of the great apostate, and His rising from the dead with a multitude of captives proved His triumph over the prince of this world. The Father loves the Son more because the Son lays down His life to redeem people, and the Father's love for fallen people is so great that He loves His Son more for dying for them.
By becoming their substitute and surety and surrendering His life and taking their liabilities and transgressions upon Himself, the Son is endeared to the Father. In giving His life to redeem fallen people Christ fulfills God's will and vindicates God's law of justice, bearing its full penalty so they may receive life in Him, and through His sacrifice God can be just while justifying the person who believes in Jesus. Jesus manifested the Father's name by spotless perfection of character and by a life of unselfish service from unchanging compassion, crowned by laying down His life for the sheep. He said this to prove to man how large and unbounded toward man that love is, without parallel and unmeasured.
The unity and love between Christ and His Father testifies to the world of Christ's divinity, and God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son, withholding nothing however costly, even heaven itself, to complete redemption and flood the world with mercy and love. Christ's willing sacrifice reveals how deeply the Father desires sinners to be saved and displays heaven's great love for humanity.
Voluntary Death and Power
No one takes His life from Him; He lays it down wholly voluntarily, of His own choice and by His own power, not imposed or forced by anyone, not compelled, and not laid upon Him as a required obligation to undertake the work of atonement. This voluntary authority to lay down His life and take it again He exercises under and in obedience to the command He received from His Father, and the prince of this world had no power to take His life from Him. His death was not forced upon Him by His executioners, who could not prove the charges against Him. Roman guards and arms could not keep Him in the tomb.
On the cross His offering was voluntary and complete, so that at any moment He could have saved Himself and come down. He stayed under the mocking taunt that He saved others but could not save Himself, because if He had saved Himself the world would have been given over to the control of the great apostate and left under that control. He has in Himself power to lay down His life and power to take it up again as He chooses, because as the Word and the I AM He possesses infinite divine nature and inherent, underived life as one who is one with God. As a member of the human family He was mortal, but as God He was the fountain and source of life for the world, so He could have withstood the advances of death and refused to come under its dominion.
Only Deity could make this claim, since all created beings from the highest seraph to the humblest living creature live only by the will and power of God as dependent recipients replenished from the Source of life. When called from the grave He rose through the life and power He possessed in His divinity. His humanity died, but His deity did not, for He controlled the power of death and had life in Himself. Hence His rising was no marvel to the heavenly host; the marvel was that He died for rebellious people.
The humanity He voluntarily took was taken into union with Deity when He clothed divinity with humanity. That union, with conscious power to surrender life and resume it, made it possible for Him to become a ransom. Being without sin, His life in human flesh and His death have value to procure grace beyond the death of any other man.
Covenant and Atonement
In fulfillment of an engagement made before the foundations of the world were laid, Christ withdrew from the heavenly universe and set Himself apart to offer Himself as a living, complete sacrifice. Having surveyed all that would be required, He summed up the guilt to be cancelled, gathered the entire responsibility to His heart, and bent His whole being to the task. He clothed His divinity with humanity and prepared Himself for the sword that would smite Him as substitute and surety, exhausting God's wrath against sin and the punishment for sin. He was wounded and bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement that brings peace and the stripes that bring healing.
In counsel with the Father He pledged Himself to secure the salvation of every human being, and an irrevocable covenant was made between the Father and the Son that He must go forward and finish the work He had undertaken, or all the world would perish. He could have avoided the suffering and death He endured and left the human race to the consequences of apostasy, but He entered covenant with God the Father to represent the love of God in His humanity for the fallen race, knowing all things. Nothing less than giving His own Son to save the guilty sinner could represent that infinite love, and only His infinite capabilities that made Him equal with the Father could express it unless He became one with humanity.
That laying down of life required Him, who was equal with the Father, to take the nature of man, bear all temptations as man, and die that man might live through faith in His redeeming power. By this He secures salvation and assurance of pardon for the guilty race fallen under Satan's falsehoods and intrigues.
As humanity's Substitute and Surety He takes its liabilities and transgressions, accepts the transgressor's liability, and bears its full penalty and the punishment for sin. He gives Himself as a sacrifice in exchange for the human family who had sold themselves to Satan by breaking God's law, giving His sinless life for the life of the human family to buy them as His own possession. By sharing the divine nature they might have eternal life, and so eternal life is made possible.
Through His sacrifice God can be just while justifying the person who believes in Jesus, fulfilling God's will and vindicating God's law of justice with its holy, unchanging character. His death removes Satan's argument that the law must be abolished or changed, government relaxed, and sin tolerated or allowed to remain for sinners to be saved. Through Christ God's love reaches the fallen world with grace and power given to those who come to Him in repentance.
No human being or angel could pay sin's penalty in His place, and as the divine Son of God, equal with God and not amenable to law like sinless created angels, His life alone was of sufficient value to fully satisfy the claims of God's perfect law and rescue fallen man. His combined and united divinity and humanity made His offering effective, and at the cross mercy and truth, righteousness and peace met. His sacrifice was wholly voluntary, with no obligation laid upon Him to undertake the work of atonement, yet His divine perfection and worth made it sufficient to atone for human sin.
He was both the offering and the priest who offered it, Himself the Offerer serving as both priest and victim, offering Himself without spot to God to purchase the world for the sins caused by Adam's transgression. His death was the sacrifice that fulfilled the offerings that pointed to the Lamb of God, paying the ransom for redemption. His atonement sealed forever the everlasting covenant of grace.
Resurrection and Victory
To take it again means to rise and to live now as Saviour in the heavenly courts as Intercessor pleading His merits for people. He laid down His life of His own free will in the battle fought on this earth between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness, where He conquered in behalf of humanity because people could not reach heaven by their own efforts. This was proved true when He came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself at the call of His Father, when the voice of the mighty angel at the tomb declared that the Father was calling Him. He possesses inherent, underived life as one who is one with God, and in His divinity He had power to break the bonds of death, whereas all created beings from the highest seraph to the humblest living creature live only by the will and power of God as dependent recipients replenished from the Source of life, so only Deity could make this claim about laying down life and taking it again. By doing so He fulfilled His prophecy to the priests and rulers to raise the destroyed temple of His body in three days and vindicated His triumph-word that He is the resurrection and the life.
His rising from the dead with a multitude of captives proved His triumph over the prince of this world. His laying down of life as the royal Sufferer for the sin of the world on the cross of Calvary was followed by His rising from the dead. In rising He paid the full ransom for humanity, conquered death by divine power, demonstrated His divine power, and showed His power over Satan. Through Christ people can overcome Satan in Christ's name, and His resurrection showed Satan that his death and his kingdom's end are certain and that he must finally die.
Satan triumphed at His burial and hoped He would not live again and that the plan of redemption would fail. He claimed His body and set a guard about the tomb to hold Him prisoner. But Christ coming forth in triumph broke that hold and broke asunder the bars of death, defeating Satan's hope. That coming forth sealed the doom of Satan and his host and proved that Satan's kingdom will have an end.
Life Given and Applied
He laid aside His life in humanity and took it again in order to give that life to humanity. In Him the life lost through sin is restored, for He has life in Himself to give life to whom He will. He is invested with the right to bestow immortality, so that to the believer He is the resurrection and the life.
By His own choice He surrendered His life as a sacrifice, though as God He was the fountain and source of life who could have withstood the advance of death and refused to come under its dominion. As a member of the human family He was mortal, yet He voluntarily bore the sin of the world and endured its curse and its penalty. He did this to bring life and immortality to light, so that men might not die eternally but might receive life. His willing suffering, humiliation, and gift reveal the great love that moved and inspired Him.
Through Him the way of repentance and faith is open, for His death was the sacrifice fulfilling the offerings that pointed to the Lamb of God, and as Substitute and Surety He paid the ransom for redemption. He calls people to give Him their sins and receive His righteousness. Through Him as risen Saviour and Intercessor in the heavenly courts pleading His merits, they can resist the temptations of the enemy, receive help when tempted, be delivered out of temptation, and be more than conquerors, since He conquered on their behalf because they could not reach heaven by their own efforts. His willing death is sufficient evidence of His love, and He will not die a second time to make men believe, but belief in Him and His power to save frees them from Satan's dominion.
This self-sacrifice is the pattern of love that should stir intense desire to love one another as He has loved, calling for practical carrying out of the principle of love. The cross teaches the lesson of self-sacrifice, and as men behold Him by faith conviction comes to them that death is the sure result of sin. His self-denying sacrifice in dying freely and willingly on the cross that He might save all who come to Him is the pattern for ministers of the gospel and for physicians. They must not set the highest price on their work for souls or follow a worldly standard of high charges, but serve in His meekness and lowliness.
The Father loves the Son because as the good Shepherd He freely lays down His life for the sheep to take it up again in resurrection. No one forces this death upon Him, for He surrenders it by His own choice and power in obedience to His Father's command, and the powers of earth and hell cannot take it or hold Him in the grave. He can do this because as one with God He has life in Himself, underived and infinite, so His humanity truly died while His deity held power over death to rise again. That death was covenanted before the world began, when He pledged to become man, bear human guilt and punishment as Substitute and Surety, and satisfy the claims of God's unchanging law so God can be just in justifying the believer. The Father's love for fallen people is so great that He loves the Son more for dying to redeem them, and the risen Saviour now gives the life He resumed to all who believe, that they may have immortality and victory over Satan and death.
Words and Setting
The saying belongs to the picture of Jesus as the good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep in self-giving care for those who believe in Him. The sheep are helpless and dependent, and the faithful Shepherd knows them and is known by them even as the Father knows Him. In that same discourse He is the door, and any who enter by Him will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture, for He came that they might have life more abundantly. This is set in contrast to thieves and robbers who enter not by the door, and to the hireling who flees because he cares not for the sheep. He also lays down His life for other sheep not of this fold, whom He must bring to hear His voice, so that there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
The shepherd-and-sheep illustration teaches immortal truth adapted to every hearer, with something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. It lifts the daily task from mere toil by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen, and it shows the love and wisdom of God, so that things seen become interpreters of the unseen and events of life become means of divine teaching. These words were spoken to cavilling scribes and Pharisees, and in them He declared that He Himself would rise and appear again. Those who heard understood the claim as a promise of His own resurrection on the third day. The prospect of its fulfillment filled the priests with trembling fear that the crucified Christ would stand alive before them, and with the rulers this fear was sharpened because they had seen Him raise Lazarus.
At Passover time, by entering Jerusalem in public triumph, He set Himself apart on purpose as the true Passover Lamb, an offering for the sins of the world. He clearly knew this public presentation of Himself as Redeemer would bring Him to the cross. He did it to call the attention of all people to the sacrifice that would crown His mission to a fallen world, so that His death would be studied and remembered with certainty by His church in all later ages. He bore the burden of humanity until His life was given for the life of the world. He was crucified at Jerusalem at Passover before assembled representatives, princes, kings and noblemen from all nations.
Father's Love Explained
The Father loves the Son because the Son lays down His life that He might take it again, giving His life for the sheep and for the life of the world. That laying down is the act of the good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep, in contrast to thieves and robbers who enter not by the door and to the hireling who flees because he cares not for the sheep. He is the door by whom if any enter in he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture, for He came that they might have life more abundantly, and He knows His sheep and is known of them as the Father knows Him. He lays down His life also for other sheep not of this fold whom He must bring to hear His voice, so there shall be one fold and one shepherd. No one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down of Himself, having power to lay it down and power to take it again by the commandment received from His Father, and His death is wholly voluntary and not imposed or compelled by anyone.
In laying it down He gives Himself as a sacrifice in exchange for the human family to make eternal life possible, giving His sinless life for the life of the human family who had sold themselves to Satan by breaking God's law, to buy them as His own possession so that by sharing the divine nature they might have eternal life. He was both the offering and the priest who offered it, and the prince of this world had no power to take His life from Him. He could have saved Himself and come down from the cross, but doing so would have left the world under the control of the great apostate, and His rising from the dead with a multitude of captives proved His triumph over the prince of this world. The Father loves the Son more because the Son lays down His life to redeem people, and the Father's love for fallen people is so great that He loves His Son more for dying for them.
By becoming their substitute and surety and surrendering His life and taking their liabilities and transgressions upon Himself, the Son is endeared to the Father. In giving His life to redeem fallen people Christ fulfills God's will and vindicates God's law of justice, bearing its full penalty so they may receive life in Him, and through His sacrifice God can be just while justifying the person who believes in Jesus. Jesus manifested the Father's name by spotless perfection of character and by a life of unselfish service from unchanging compassion, crowned by laying down His life for the sheep. He said this to prove to man how large and unbounded toward man that love is, without parallel and unmeasured.
The unity and love between Christ and His Father testifies to the world of Christ's divinity, and God Himself suffered in the suffering of His Son, withholding nothing however costly, even heaven itself, to complete redemption and flood the world with mercy and love. Christ's willing sacrifice reveals how deeply the Father desires sinners to be saved and displays heaven's great love for humanity.
Voluntary Death and Power
No one takes His life from Him; He lays it down wholly voluntarily, of His own choice and by His own power, not imposed or forced by anyone, not compelled, and not laid upon Him as a required obligation to undertake the work of atonement. This voluntary authority to lay down His life and take it again He exercises under and in obedience to the command He received from His Father, and the prince of this world had no power to take His life from Him. His death was not forced upon Him by His executioners, who could not prove the charges against Him. Roman guards and arms could not keep Him in the tomb.
On the cross His offering was voluntary and complete, so that at any moment He could have saved Himself and come down. He stayed under the mocking taunt that He saved others but could not save Himself, because if He had saved Himself the world would have been given over to the control of the great apostate and left under that control. He has in Himself power to lay down His life and power to take it up again as He chooses, because as the Word and the I AM He possesses infinite divine nature and inherent, underived life as one who is one with God. As a member of the human family He was mortal, but as God He was the fountain and source of life for the world, so He could have withstood the advances of death and refused to come under its dominion.
Only Deity could make this claim, since all created beings from the highest seraph to the humblest living creature live only by the will and power of God as dependent recipients replenished from the Source of life. When called from the grave He rose through the life and power He possessed in His divinity. His humanity died, but His deity did not, for He controlled the power of death and had life in Himself. Hence His rising was no marvel to the heavenly host; the marvel was that He died for rebellious people.
The humanity He voluntarily took was taken into union with Deity when He clothed divinity with humanity. That union, with conscious power to surrender life and resume it, made it possible for Him to become a ransom. Being without sin, His life in human flesh and His death have value to procure grace beyond the death of any other man.
Covenant and Atonement
In fulfillment of an engagement made before the foundations of the world were laid, Christ withdrew from the heavenly universe and set Himself apart to offer Himself as a living, complete sacrifice. Having surveyed all that would be required, He summed up the guilt to be cancelled, gathered the entire responsibility to His heart, and bent His whole being to the task. He clothed His divinity with humanity and prepared Himself for the sword that would smite Him as substitute and surety, exhausting God's wrath against sin and the punishment for sin. He was wounded and bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement that brings peace and the stripes that bring healing.
In counsel with the Father He pledged Himself to secure the salvation of every human being, and an irrevocable covenant was made between the Father and the Son that He must go forward and finish the work He had undertaken, or all the world would perish. He could have avoided the suffering and death He endured and left the human race to the consequences of apostasy, but He entered covenant with God the Father to represent the love of God in His humanity for the fallen race, knowing all things. Nothing less than giving His own Son to save the guilty sinner could represent that infinite love, and only His infinite capabilities that made Him equal with the Father could express it unless He became one with humanity.
That laying down of life required Him, who was equal with the Father, to take the nature of man, bear all temptations as man, and die that man might live through faith in His redeeming power. By this He secures salvation and assurance of pardon for the guilty race fallen under Satan's falsehoods and intrigues.
As humanity's Substitute and Surety He takes its liabilities and transgressions, accepts the transgressor's liability, and bears its full penalty and the punishment for sin. He gives Himself as a sacrifice in exchange for the human family who had sold themselves to Satan by breaking God's law, giving His sinless life for the life of the human family to buy them as His own possession. By sharing the divine nature they might have eternal life, and so eternal life is made possible.
Through His sacrifice God can be just while justifying the person who believes in Jesus, fulfilling God's will and vindicating God's law of justice with its holy, unchanging character. His death removes Satan's argument that the law must be abolished or changed, government relaxed, and sin tolerated or allowed to remain for sinners to be saved. Through Christ God's love reaches the fallen world with grace and power given to those who come to Him in repentance.
No human being or angel could pay sin's penalty in His place, and as the divine Son of God, equal with God and not amenable to law like sinless created angels, His life alone was of sufficient value to fully satisfy the claims of God's perfect law and rescue fallen man. His combined and united divinity and humanity made His offering effective, and at the cross mercy and truth, righteousness and peace met. His sacrifice was wholly voluntary, with no obligation laid upon Him to undertake the work of atonement, yet His divine perfection and worth made it sufficient to atone for human sin.
He was both the offering and the priest who offered it, Himself the Offerer serving as both priest and victim, offering Himself without spot to God to purchase the world for the sins caused by Adam's transgression. His death was the sacrifice that fulfilled the offerings that pointed to the Lamb of God, paying the ransom for redemption. His atonement sealed forever the everlasting covenant of grace.
Resurrection and Victory
To take it again means to rise and to live now as Saviour in the heavenly courts as Intercessor pleading His merits for people. He laid down His life of His own free will in the battle fought on this earth between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness, where He conquered in behalf of humanity because people could not reach heaven by their own efforts. This was proved true when He came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself at the call of His Father, when the voice of the mighty angel at the tomb declared that the Father was calling Him. He possesses inherent, underived life as one who is one with God, and in His divinity He had power to break the bonds of death, whereas all created beings from the highest seraph to the humblest living creature live only by the will and power of God as dependent recipients replenished from the Source of life, so only Deity could make this claim about laying down life and taking it again. By doing so He fulfilled His prophecy to the priests and rulers to raise the destroyed temple of His body in three days and vindicated His triumph-word that He is the resurrection and the life.
His rising from the dead with a multitude of captives proved His triumph over the prince of this world. His laying down of life as the royal Sufferer for the sin of the world on the cross of Calvary was followed by His rising from the dead. In rising He paid the full ransom for humanity, conquered death by divine power, demonstrated His divine power, and showed His power over Satan. Through Christ people can overcome Satan in Christ's name, and His resurrection showed Satan that his death and his kingdom's end are certain and that he must finally die.
Satan triumphed at His burial and hoped He would not live again and that the plan of redemption would fail. He claimed His body and set a guard about the tomb to hold Him prisoner. But Christ coming forth in triumph broke that hold and broke asunder the bars of death, defeating Satan's hope. That coming forth sealed the doom of Satan and his host and proved that Satan's kingdom will have an end.
Life Given and Applied
He laid aside His life in humanity and took it again in order to give that life to humanity. In Him the life lost through sin is restored, for He has life in Himself to give life to whom He will. He is invested with the right to bestow immortality, so that to the believer He is the resurrection and the life.
By His own choice He surrendered His life as a sacrifice, though as God He was the fountain and source of life who could have withstood the advance of death and refused to come under its dominion. As a member of the human family He was mortal, yet He voluntarily bore the sin of the world and endured its curse and its penalty. He did this to bring life and immortality to light, so that men might not die eternally but might receive life. His willing suffering, humiliation, and gift reveal the great love that moved and inspired Him.
Through Him the way of repentance and faith is open, for His death was the sacrifice fulfilling the offerings that pointed to the Lamb of God, and as Substitute and Surety He paid the ransom for redemption. He calls people to give Him their sins and receive His righteousness. Through Him as risen Saviour and Intercessor in the heavenly courts pleading His merits, they can resist the temptations of the enemy, receive help when tempted, be delivered out of temptation, and be more than conquerors, since He conquered on their behalf because they could not reach heaven by their own efforts. His willing death is sufficient evidence of His love, and He will not die a second time to make men believe, but belief in Him and His power to save frees them from Satan's dominion.
This self-sacrifice is the pattern of love that should stir intense desire to love one another as He has loved, calling for practical carrying out of the principle of love. The cross teaches the lesson of self-sacrifice, and as men behold Him by faith conviction comes to them that death is the sure result of sin. His self-denying sacrifice in dying freely and willingly on the cross that He might save all who come to Him is the pattern for ministers of the gospel and for physicians. They must not set the highest price on their work for souls or follow a worldly standard of high charges, but serve in His meekness and lowliness.