We found that the way to measure the depth was to begin at the Throne,
and go down to the Cross, and to the foul abysses of evil. The way to
measure the height is to begin at the Cross and the foul abysses of
evil, and to go up to the Throne. That is to say, the topmost thing in
the Universe, the shining apex and pinnacle, glittering away up there in
the radiant unsetting light, is the love of God in Jesus Christ. Other
conceptions of that divine nature spring high above us and tower beyond
our thoughts, but the summit of them all, the very topmost as it is the
very bottommost, outside of everything, and therefore high above
everything, is the love of God which has been revealed to us all, and
brought close to us sinful men in the manhood and passion of our dear
Christ.
And that love which thus towers above us, and gleams like the shining
cross on the top of some lofty cathedral spire, does not flash up there
inaccessible, nor lie before us like some pathless precipice, up which
nothing that has not wings can ever hope to rise, but the height of the
love of Christ is an hospitable height, which can be scaled by us. Nay,
rather, that heaven of love which is 'higher than our thoughts,' bends
down, as by a kind of optical delusion the physical heaven seems to do
towards each of us, only with this blessed difference, that in the
natural world the place where heaven touches earth is always the
furthest point of distance from us: and in the spiritual world the place
where heaven stoops to me is always right over my head, and the nearest
possible point to me. He has come to lift us to Himself, and this is the
height of His love, that it bears us, if we will, up and up to sit upon
that throne where He Himself is enthroned.
So, brethren, Christ's love is round about us all, as some sunny
tropical sea may embosom in its violet waves a multitude of luxuriant
and happy islets. So all of us, islanded on our little individual lives,
lie in that great ocean of love, all the dimensions of which are
immeasurable, and which stretches above, beneath, around, shoreless,
tideless, bottomless, endless.
But, remember, this ocean of love you can shut out of your lives. It is
possible to plunge a jar into mid-Atlantic, further than soundings have
ever descended, and to bring it up on deck as dry inside as if it had
been lying on an oven. It is possible for men and women--and I have them
listening to me at this moment--to live and move and have their being in
that sea of love, and never to have let one drop of its richest gifts
into their hearts or their lives. Open your hearts for Him to come in,
by humble faith in His great sacrifice for you. For if Christ dwell in
your heart by faith, then and only then will experience be your guide;
and you will be able to comprehend the boundless greatness, the endless
duration, and absolute perfection, and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge.