December 25 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Rom. 8:35).

Devotional

Of whose love does the apostle speak? The believer's love to Christ? On the contrary, it is Christ's love to the believer.

And this view of the subject makes all the difference in its influence upon our minds.

What true satisfaction and real consolation can the believer derive from a contemplation of his own love to Christ? It is true, when aware of its glow, and conscious of its power, he cannot but rejoice in any evidence—even the smallest—of the work of the Holy Spirit in his soul. Yet this is not the legitimate ground of his confidence. This is not the proper source of his comfort. No, it is Christ's love to him!

And this is just the truth the Christian mind needs for its repose. To whom did Paul originally address this letter? To the saints of the early and suffering age of the Christian church. And this truth—Christ's love to his people—would be just the truth calculated to comfort, and strengthen, and animate them. To have declared that nothing should prevail to induce them to forsake Christ would have been but poor consolation to individuals who had witnessed many a fearful apostasy from Christ in others, and who had often detected the working of the same principle in themselves. Calling to mind the strong affirmation of Peter, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away" (Matt. 26:33), and remembering how their Master was denied by one, betrayed by another, and forsaken by all his disciples, their hearts would fail them.

But let the apostle allure their minds from a contemplation of their love to Christ to a contemplation of Christ's love to them—assuring them that whatever sufferings they should endure, or by whatever temptations they should be assailed, nothing should prevail to sever them from their interest in the reality, sympathy, and constancy of that love—and he has at once brought them to the most perfect repose.

The love of which the apostle speaks, then, is the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

The love of Christ! Such is our precious theme. Can we ever grow weary of it? Can we ever fully know its greatness? Can we ever fully contain its plenitude? Never. Its depths cannot be fathomed, its dimensions cannot be measured. It "passes knowledge."

All that Jesus did for his church was but the unfolding and expression of his love. Traveling to Bethlehem—we see love incarnate. Tracking his steps as he went about doing good—we see love laboring. Visiting the house of Bethany—we see love sympathizing. Standing by the grave of Lazarus—we see love weeping. Entering the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane—we see love sorrowing. Passing on to Calvary—we see love suffering, bleeding, and expiring. The whole scene of his life is but an unfolding of the deep, awful, and precious mystery of redeeming love.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come:
let earth receive her King;
let every heart prepare him room,
and heaven and nature sing.

(Isaac Watts, 1749)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.