- Here see the love of Christ in its most distinguishing glory. For the deeper He was debased and the lower He humbled Himself, the higher He rose and the more clearly did He manifest His love. What heart can conceive, what tongue can express, the greatness of this love? It is love without a precedent or parallel. It passes knowledge.
- Here see the awful and tremendous severity of divine justice, which nothing could satisfy except the Son of God humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The resentment of this justice against sin swelled so high that nothing could appease it, or move it to let go the criminal offenders, till the Son of God fell an expiatory sacrifice to it. And when the time came for justice to act thus upon the Redeemer, it would not forego or abate one tittle of its demands. It would not spare Him one degree of suffering which it could exact of Him.
- See here the prodigious evil of sin. Though the generality of men look upon it with a very light and easy eye; though they account it a very small matter to break God’s law, and to transgress the bounds which the great God has fixed in His law, yet whoever duly reflects upon the deep humiliation and sorrowful sufferings of Christ will entertain quite different thoughts about it. Of all evils, sin is infinitely the worst. Though a holy and just God has given many severe and terrible testimonies of His displeasure against sin, yet none of them appear with such amazing awe as that which appears in the humiliation, death and sufferings of His dear Son.
- Let this rebuke the pride of our hearts and let us think no state too low for us if thereby the glory of God and the good of others may be advanced. For Christ humbled Himself deeper and lower than anyone ever did or can do to procure the favour of God to sinners, to magnify the divine law and make it honourable. And in this He has left us an example, that we should follow His steps.
- Let this teach you to prize highly the salvation purchased by Christ and offered to sinners in the gospel. Do not say of the sufferings of Christ, by your slighting the redemption they procured: What need for all this waste? Surely sin must be of a more malignant nature, the justice of God more exact and rigorous, souls more precious, and salvation and mercy more difficult to obtain, than is ordinarily imagined. Take a view of Christ in His amazing humiliation and heavy sufferings, and see if you can entertain those thoughts.
- Let impenitent sinners and rejecters of Christ tremble. Was this done in the green tree? Then what shall be done to the dry? If, when Christ became a sinner only by imputation, He was exposed to such heavy sufferings as would have sunk millions of men and angels, what shall be the fate of those who spurn His love, reject the offers of His grace and mercy, and refuse to accept His salvation? What can they expect but that the wrath of God shall come upon them and that they shall undergo the sorest punishment that God’s incensed and insulted justice can inflict?
- Accept Jesus Christ as He offers Himself in the gospel. He is willing to receive sinners – indeed the very worst and most abandoned of them – or He had not swam through a sea of blood to catch them. O do not be despisers, but cheerful and willing receivers, of Him who has written His love and good will to you in letters of blood.
- Believer, revenge the death of Christ on your lusts and idols. Give no quarter to, nor suffer to live, them that were the cause of His most humiliating and ignominious death. To cherish any sin or lust is a high indignity to the Son of God and, as it were, to crucify Him afresh. Flee then from every sin, account it your enemy and Christ’s enemy. And show your love to the Redeemer, who humbled Himself so deeply for you, by doing whatever He commands you and by avoiding all appearance of evil.
- Do not grudge to part with anything for Christ. He came from the bosom of His Father, laid aside the robes of His glory, and exposed Himself to the severest hardships and most intolerable sufferings, that you might not perish for ever. And will you refuse anything for His sake? You have no reason to shift His cross or decline to take on His yoke, when He suffered on the accursed cross to procure your deliverance from everlasting wrath and burnings.
An edited extract from Boston’s Works, vol 1.