Depth and height, as I said at the beginning of these remarks, are but
two ways of expressing the same dimension. For the one we begin at the
top and measure down, for the other we begin at the bottom and measure
up. The top is the Throne; and the downward measure, how is it to be
stated? In what terms of distance are we to express it? How far is it
from the Throne of the Universe to the manger of Bethlehem, and the
Cross of Calvary, and the sepulchre in the garden? That is the depth of
the love of Christ. Howsoever far may be the distance from that
loftiness of co-equal divinity in the bosom of the Father, and radiant
with glory, to the lowliness of the form of a servant, and the sorrows,
limitations, rejections, pains and death--that is the measure of the
depth of Christ's love. We can estimate the depth of the love of Christ
by saying, 'He came from above, He tabernacled with us,' as if some
planet were to burst from its track and plunge downwards in amongst the
mist and the narrowness of our earthly atmosphere.
A well-known modern scientist has hazarded the speculation that the
origin of life on this planet has been the falling upon it of the
fragments of a meteor, or an aerolite from some other system, with a
speck of organic life upon it, from which all has developed. Whatever
may be the case in regard to physical life, that is absolutely true in
the case of spiritual life. It all originates because this
heaven-descended Christ has come down the long staircase of Incarnation,
and has brought with Him into the clouds and oppressions of our
terrestrial atmosphere a germ of life which He has planted in the heart
of the race, there to spread for ever. That is the measure of the depth
of the love of Christ.
And there is another way to measure it. My sins are deep, my helpless
miseries are deep, but they are shallow as compared with the love that
goes down beneath all sin, that is deeper than all sorrow, that is
deeper than all necessity, that shrinks from no degradation, that turns
away from no squalor, that abhors no wickedness so as to avert its face
from it. The purest passion of human benevolence cannot but sometimes be
aware of disgust mingling with its pity and its efforts, but Christ's
love comes down to the most sunken. However far in the abyss of
degradation any human soul has descended, beneath it are the everlasting
arms, and beneath it is Christ's love. When a coalpit gets blocked up by
some explosion, no brave rescuing party will venture to descend into the
lowest depths of the poisonous darkness until some ventilation has been
restored. But this loving Christ goes down, down, down into the
thickest, most pestilential atmosphere, reeking with sin and corruption,
and stretches out a rescuing hand to the most abject and undermost of
all the victims. How deep is the love of Christ! The deep mines of sin
and of alienation are all undermined and countermined by His love. Sin
is an abyss, a mystery, how deep only they know who have fought against
it; but
'O love! thou bottomless abyss,
My sins are swallowed up in thee.'
'I will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.' The depths of
Christ's love go down beneath all human necessity, sorrow, suffering,
and sin.