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God so loved—The Father’s love was so great, that it led Him to give the most valuable gift in His possession, that men might be saved—if each would accept the Gospel on the conditions prescribed in the Gospel—repentance and faith in Christ.—Worrell’s New Testament. This spontaneous love of the Father for the sinful world is not incompatible with the wrath and the threatenings of judgment; for here is not the love of communion, which unites the pardoned sinner to God; but a love of compas sion, like that which we feel towards the unfortunate or enemies. The intensity of this love results from the Very greatness of the unhappiness which awaits him who is its object.-—Godet. The World—Mankind at large-—the human world, con sidered as an organized whole existing apart from Him.— Whitelaw. He gave—In Jesus, He gave us of His very Self—His one, His only Son—the Companion of His intimate glory— an astonishing sacrifice that would be inconceivable if it were not for verses like “John-Three-Sixteen.” For there are certain dramas that cannot be invented. If they are told, they must have occurred. The gift of Christ could not have been imagined, it was revealed; for by revelation only could it have got into our language.—P. Whitwell Wilson. Think of the sacrifice it cost Him to take us from our ruin and make us joint heirs with His Son.—Marcus Rams- ford. To me this is the profoundest of all truths,—that the whole of the life of God is the sacrifice of self. God is love: love is sacrifice—to give rather than to receive,—the blessedness of self-giving. If the life of God were not such, it would be falsehood to say that God is love; for, even in our human nature, that which seeks to enjoy all, instead of giving all, is known by a very different name from that of love. All the life of God is a flow of this divine self giving charity. Creation itself is sacrifice,—the self-im- partation of the Divine Being. Redemption, too, is sac rifice, else it could not be love; for which reason we will not surrender one iota of the truth that the death of Christ was the sacrifice of God.—F. W. Robertson. The world, that fallen humanity of which God in the Old Testament had left the largest part outside of His theocratic government and revelation, and which the Pharisees de voted to wrath and judgment, Jesus presents to Nicodemus as the object of the most boundless love. Every Pharisee divided mankind into the saved and the judged,-f|that is to say, into circumcised and uncircumcised, into Jews and Gentiles. Jesus, who has just revealed the redeeming love towards the whole world, unfolds now to Nicodemus the nature of the true judgment. And this revelation also is a complete transformation of the received opinion. It will not be between Jews and Gentiles, it will be between believers and unbelievers, whatever may be their nation ality, that the line of demarcation will pass.—r-Nicodemus must hear in such a way as no more to forget that the divine benevolence embraces all humanity.—Godet. Sent not—to judge the world—The Son of God did not come to condemn the world. We had reason enough to ex pect that he should, for it is a guilty world; it is convicted, and what cause can be shown why judgment should not be given, and execution awarded, according to law? That one blood of which all nations of men are made (Acts 16:26) is not only tainted with an hereditary disease, like Gehazi’s leprosy, but it is tainted with an hereditary guilt, like that of the Amalekites, with whom God had war from genera tion to generation; and justly may such a world as this be condemned. But if the Lord had been pleased to kill us, He would not have sent His Son amongst us. He came with full powers indeed to execute judgment (ch. 5:22, 27), but did not begin with a judgment of condemnation, did not proceed upon the outlawry, nor take advantage against us for the breach of the covenant of innocency, but put us upon a new trial before a throne of grace. He came that the world through Him might be saved, that a door of salvation might be opened to the world, and whoever would might enter in by it. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and so saving it.—Matthew Henry.
“God had only one Son, and He gave him to be a for eign missionary.” - We do well to frequently call to re membrance this familiar quotation. As in all other phases of the character and work of our Lord Jesus, none can compare with DEVOTIONAL Him as a missionary. No other mis- COMMENT sionary ever made so long a journey,— John A. Hubbard from heaven to earth. No other ever left so much behind,—He left the glory of the Father (John 17:5). “Existing in the form of God, He counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (slave)” (Pliil. 2:6, 7, R. V.), and He had not where to lay His head (Matt. 8:20). No other was ever as lonley as He, no other so thoroughly misunderstood. Even His friends thought him demented, (Mark 3:21). No other has ever suffered as He suffered. And when the end of His earthly life came, did any other seem to have so completely failed? One of the twelve betrayed Him; another cowardly denied Him; “all forsook Him and fled” (Mark 14:50). His enemies bore false witness against Him, mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him. Even the Father forsook Him. How complete seemed the failure! But, blessed be His Name, no other ever did, because no other ever could, ac complish what He accomplished. “He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). “The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “He is the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins; and not for ours only (as believers), but also for the sins of THE WHOLE WORLD” (1 John 2:2), thus making possible the world wide missionary program of this age. And what was back of all this? The love and compassion of the Father, who “so loved the world that he gave” ; the love and compassion of the Son, who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal. 2:20), “When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with,compassion on them” (Matt. 9:36). "How do the multitudes affect you?” Most Christians have never really seen the distressed, scattered, sheperdless multitudes. They are blind—blinded by the things of the world, by selfish ambitions, selfish plans. When we really see, we are moved with compassion. No parent thus moved can withhold even an only son or an only daughter; no son or daughter thus moved can refuse to go, at His bidding, to the hardest, darkest, remotest part of the earth. “Our Lord Jesus a Missionary.” “Who follows in His train?” 1 1 Jesus Preaching in City and Country. Matt. 9 : 35 - 38 ; Luke 8:1-3. Memory Verse.—“The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10. Approach.—Last week we had such a beautiful story about people praising God, and being thankful for the won derful gifts and blessings we are receiving from God our heavenly Father every day. Now I wonder if you think
real hard, you can tell me the greatest gift that ever came to this world. (With the tiny folk you may have to assist them a little.) Let us say together this verse from the Bible, and then
ELEMENTARY Mabel L. Merrill
see who can tell me. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” George, you tell us. Yes, the greatest gift in the world, is God’s Son, the Lord Jesus. O how much God loved us to send
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