It is a peculiarity of Paul that the most ordinary of facts suggest to him the sublimest of truths. There is not an event he observes but he can find a road from it up to the cross. The love and the sacrifice of Christ form the focus to which every line of experience converges, the center on which every meditation rests. That is why in his writings you find those sudden and impassioned allusions which at first sight seem to have no direct connection with the subject. They are the utterances of a man whose heart was on fire with love to the Master, for whom life had no meaning apart from Him.
In the instance before us (2 Cor. 9:15), the apostle is encouraging the Corinthians to liberality towards poorer saints, and in so doing he plies them with a variety of arguments. They had been generous before; he was hopeful they would be generous again, so fulfilling the character he had already ascribed to them and proving his boasting to be warranted. He reminds them of the grace that God promises in the exercise of giving and the reward He bestows on the cheerful giver. He bids them think of the blessedness of those that partook of their gifts, and the thanksgiving of the Church at large on behalf of them. And then comes this text.
From the thought of man’s best bounties, he turns to the great liberality of God, of which man’s liberality is at best but a faint reflection. He says, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.” Such, as I take it, is the meaning and connection of the text. Why, then, is this gift of God an unspeakable one?
Because it Possesses Unspeakable Worth
Putting aside the thought of the suitability of the gift, the majesty of the ends it is meant to subserve, the needs it is fitted to supply, the object given is unspeakably precious in itself. To compute that preciousness, analyze its elements, and reckon its sum, is a task at which reason staggers for to do so would be nothing less than to estimate the value of the person of Christ.
He is the God-Man. What do we mean when we say that? For one thing, that He is the embodiment of a perfect humanity. Does not that stamp the gift as incalculably precious? He is precious as perfect purity is precious amidst universal pollution, as perfect peace is precious amidst constant commotion, as perfect obedience is precious amidst abounding rebellion, as perfect love is precious where all seek their own.
When we add to the preciousness of a sinless humanity the preciousness of indwelling deity, what shall be said of Christ’s worth then? Those human hands were the hands of Him who fashioned the worlds at the first, and still keeps them rolling in space. The eyes they looked into were the eyes of Him from whose glances there is nothing hid, and who searches the eternities behind and before. The voice they listened to was the voice of Him whose authority the hosts of heaven obeyed and whose power called the dead from their graves. Rich in infinite holiness, rich in infinite wisdom, rich in infinite power, He is very God of very God, the Beginning and the End.
But why should we darken counsel with many words? “Canst thou by searching find out God?” When our arithmetic can reckon the wealth of omnipotence, when we have scales that can weigh the treasures of the Godhead, then and not till then can we estimate the worth of Christ. Whatever the views men conceive of it, whatever the uses they make of it, the gift is unspeakably worthy in itself.
As a picture may be valuable though the person that possesses it cares nothing for the scenes it portrays, so with the gift of God in Christ. He is unspeakably precious in the picture He displays of God, whether men feel the need of the God He reveals to them or not. He is unspeakably precious—as the pearl of great price—whether men seek the riches He conveys to them or not. But there was a need for all this, and not till we consider it does the pricelessness of Christ become manifest. Why is this gift unspeakable?
It Meets and Provides for Unspeakable Needs
And what are these needs?
i. Unspeakable guilt, for one thing. Are there none of us who have wakened to a sense of that? It may have come to us suddenly, before our conversion experience took place, or it may have come to us gradually, when conversion experiences were over, for repentance may tarry till regeneration is past, and sorrow for the old life be delayed till the new life has begun. But however it comes, the sense will assuredly be there—a consciousness of deep ill-dessert which only those who have experienced it can explain.
At times such as these—when to look back means remorse and to look forward means despair—God’s gift of a crucified Christ is revealed to us in all its unspeakable value as the one thing that meets our unspeakable need! For once let the eye of faith be opened to see Him and the hand of faith be stretched forth to grasp Him. What have I then? The consciousness of union with Himself, with all the blessings it conveys, with all the prospects it unfolds: “the end of sin,” the bringing in of “an everlasting righteousness,” peace by Christ’s blood, acceptance in Christ’s person.
Thus when the soul sees how in Christ God can be just and the Justifier of the unjust—when it is able to say, “Surely He has borne my griefs, He has carried my sorrows” then for the first time we truly echo the words, “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!”
But this is only the first need for which God has provided.
ii. We pass from the thought of guilt to remind ourselves of the thought of unspeakable weakness, another of the wants for which God has provided in Christ. The poverty of those without pardon is one misery of which the saved must know something; but there is another—the poverty of those without strength.
There is a law to obey, high as heaven, broad as life, deep as the human heart; and we have neither the power nor the will to fulfill it. Sin is wound about us, embracing us so closely that in affection and desire, and all that is most and best in us, we are inextricably interwoven in its poisonous folds. And there is no influence within or around us that may help us to shake it off! Trials to endure, perhaps, pressing us in the present, and certainly awaiting us in the future!
But the gift of God through His Son means that provision has been made, not only for unspeakable guilt, but for unspeakable weakness. And he who accepts it discovers that a new tide of vigor flows through his being till life opens up for him in its fullness. That is a possession which not only wraps up in it the warrant of pardon, but conveys at the same time the secret of power. That is a treasure which contains both the key that unlocks the prison doors and the medicine that restores the released man’s health, sending him forth not only free but whole. Well may we say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul…who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases” Thanks be to Him for His “unspeakable gift.”
iii. But besides the needs of unspeakable guilt and unspeakable weakness, there is the need of unspeakable loneliness. For man by nature is not only without pardon and without strength, he is without friendship, or at least without such a friendship as he really needs. For, not to disparage the friendships of earth, there are wants for which the richest cannot provide, there are times when the strongest and most willing cannot help. Circumstances happen when man, however loving his friends may be, must feel alone.
There are the terrible isolations of individual sorrow, when the soul finds that, close as its fellows may come to it, and willing as they may be to help, it must bear its own burden alone. Then the heart knows its own bitterness and a stranger cannot help. And there is the last and most utter isolation of all—the isolation of death, when human scenes vanish, human interests fade. Grasp the hands of our friend as we may, we cannot draw them with us where we go. In utter solitude we must travel the path by which we shall not return.
Not till you promise companionship in experiences such as these will life’s course be a matter I can manage with composure or its end be a prospect I can think of with hope. Give me the presence of One who is wise enough to say, “This is the way, walk ye in it” in my hours of doubt; gracious enough to say, “I have seen thy tears, behold I will heal thee,” in my hours of remorse; loving enough to say, “Cast thy burden upon Me,” in my hours of trial; near enough and strong enough to say, “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee.” Give me the presence of a Comforter like this; then, and not till then, will the heart be satisfied, and the life amidst dangers and changes be calm.
You know where the need is supplied. There are not only pardon and strength—there is companionship in Christ—a companionship whose offices no length of time can weary, whose care and whose interest no depths of unworthiness can chill, and whose riches no frequency of application can exhaust. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!”
It Conveys Unspeakable Blessings
Perhaps it may seem as if this thought were merely a repetition of the last one, for if a gift meets unspeakable needs, it must certainly convey unspeakable blessings. Yet it may be best to keep them separate for the fact is, that in this case, large as the wants are, the provisions that supply them are larger. Great as man’s poverty is, greater still is God’s grace. It is one thing to take a vessel and to fill it; it is another to place it in a boundless sea, where it may ever float, ever brimming. So with God’s great bounty towards sin-emptied man. There is not only sufficiency, but plenitude—broad as God’s mercy, deep as God’s heart. The cup is not only supplied, it runs over. God’s thoughts in this matter are not as on our thoughts, nor are His ways our ways. He not only does all we might conceive to be necessary, if the choosing were left to us: He does exceeding abundantly, far above all that is asked or thought.
i. Have we exhausted God’s provision for infinite guilt when we say that for infinite guilt He gives infinite pardon? That would be much, but it is not all. For not as the offense is, so is the free gift. Where sin has abounded, there grace has abounded much more. Those whom God favors with infinite pardon, He raises to infinite dignity. The king in his clemency may give a pardon to rebels, restoring them the liberty they had forfeited, presenting them with the privileges they had lost, but what king on earth ever translated those rebels from the prison-house straight to the palace, making them members of his own royal family, giving them a share in the children’s heritage? Yet this is what happens in grace. They who have Christ, have not only the seal of forgiveness, they have also the security of adoption. All whom God makes freedmen, He makes at the same time sons, and if sons, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
We are possessors, even as Christ is possessor, of the world, of life and death, of things present and things to come. Thus God restores that which He took not away. So does God fetch from disaster the possibility of a higher blessing. So does He bring from the ravages of evil a better good than existed before the evil had entered, to the praise of His fathomless wisdom, to the glory of His infinite grace.
ii. Or again, have we described God’s provision for weakness when we say that for weakness He discloses a sufficiency of strength? No, for in Christ there is more than mere strength. There is the pledge of unspeakable victory. It would be much to stand in the evil day; but the promise for those who have Christ is that they shall be “more than conquerors.” They shall be as warriors who are not only victorious but actually enriched by the contest, who, besides repulsing the foe have made themselves masters of the spoil.
No, we have not exhausted God’s bounty in Christ, when we say that for feebleness He brings might; He assures us of mastery, mastery in its fullness and mastery in its fruits. “Thanks be unto God who always causeth us to triumph in Christ!”
iii. Or, once more, have we exhausted God’s vision for loneliness, when we say that for loneliness He proffers companionship? That would be much, but there is more. There is unspeakable sympathy. For in Christ there is a fellow-feeling so wide that it sweeps the range of every emotion which the Christian can experience. What are the circumstances in which a believer may be placed when he cannot trace the footsteps of a Saviour before him? When can he not know that His heart, as the heart of a brother that is born for adversity, throbs along with him?
Not the infirmities of a weary frame, for He fainted in the heat of the sun on His way to the well of Samaria, and staggered beneath the weight of the cross on His path to the hill of Calvary. Not the bitterness of bereavement, for He wept at Lazarus’ grave. Not the solicitations of mistaken friends, not the fiery darts of the Evil One, for in all these points He was tested Himself. Not the loneliness of desertion; for He saw one after another fall off from Him till at the last, in the uttermost of His need, His nearest companions all forsook Him and fled.
We will not be alone in the solemnities of death, with all the novelty of its mysterious experiences—the gathering darkness, the loosening frame, the passing spirit. For He who says, “In the valley of the shadow of death I will be with thee” has died Himself.
Had we been told in our loneliness that God would be our companion, there are some things we might possibly have looked for: wisdom to discern our case, and strength to bear it. But the ability to enter into our case, enabling Him to deal with it as on our level, so bearing a second time in sympathy what He has already borne in experience, who could have thought of this? Well may we speak of the Captain of our salvation as One “made perfect through suffering.” Well too may we join in the gratitude of Paul: “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.”
It is the Embodiment of Unspeakable Love
We have now reached the spring and origin of all. For back of the gift itself, with all the value it possesses, with all the needs it supplies, and with all the blessings it conveys, we have pierced to the heart of the Giver Himself and its impulse of unspeakable love.
Herein is manifested the love of God, not in creation with its large and most liberal bounty, not in Providence with its minute and unfailing care, but in the dispensation of His grace—the all-including, all-sanctifying, and all-crowning disclosure He has made to us in His Son. How, then, can we embrace such love?
i. This gift is the evidence of unspeakable love because for one thing it was provided at unspeakable cost. You measure the love in a gift not merely by the worth it possesses, but by the sacrifice which the giving entails. You say of it, “I know there is love here—for toil has been spent in preparing it; pain has been borne in surrendering it!”
Here we enter the region of mystery and I am not going to ask how far, or in what sense, it was possible for the Father, as a distinctive person in the Trinity, to suffer in the giving of His Son. Human types are inadequate. Human analogies fade. For after all we are dealing not with what is human, but what is divine. To suppose a wrench such as that which Abraham endured when he surrendered Isaac is to forget that sacrifice, as it exists in man, must be a different matter from sacrifice as it exists in God—conditioned by other elements, sustained by other motives. Let us remember that in this case there was no separation between Father and Son at all. The Gift and the Giver are one.
This gift will be sacred for this among other reasons: it comes charged with the memories and stamped with the evidence of an infinite cost—the toil and the travail, the agony and sweat, the strong crying and tears of the Son of God. Precious was the drink of cold water to David which brave men fetched for him from the well of Bethlehem. So precious was it that he refused to partake of it, but poured it out as a sacrifice to God. So the living water which is offered to you and me will be sacred for the same reason—it is the price of blood. He who comes bringing it is red in His apparel, and His garments are as those who have trodden the winepress. In His hands and His feet and His side are the wounds He has gotten in obtaining it.
It is a gift which proclaims to us infinite love, for this among other reasons, that it was purchased at infinite price. Only in this case we best show our gratitude to the Giver, we best prove our estimate of the gift—not by setting it aside, as a thing too sacred for common lips, too costly for common need, but by accepting and by using it freely. “What shall I render to the Lord, for His benefits? I will take the cup of salvation” Freely it is offered me, and freely I receive it—to drink of the life-giving draught and be satisfied.
ii. That brings me to touch on the last thought. This gift is the evidence of unspeakable love because bestowed with unspeakable freedom. It is true the very idea of a gift is exclusive of thoughts as to debt. A gift is something gratuitous, not to be earned, not to be toiled for, but simply taken. Yet there are degrees as to freedom, even in the matter of a gift.
There may lie some constraint in the heart of the giver; there may lie some limitation as to the character of the receiver; there may be some inaccessibility, as to the position of the gift. But herein God has commended His love to us. The gift He has provided at unspeakable cost is bestowed with unspeakable freedom. There is unspeakable freedom as to motive. For when He gives, He gives heartily and liberally, without reserve, without regret, and without upbraiding.
There is unspeakable freedom as to offer. For to sinners who need repentance, yes, and to the righteous who think they have need of none; to those who have defied Him by open hostility, yes, and to those who have mocked Him by hypocritical profession—to those who are burdened with guilt that He may give them the pardon they need, yes, and to those whose main burden is that they feel their burden so little, that He may give them the sorrow they miss—to rebels who have never yet bowed to Him, and to wanderers who have bowed to Him, and then forsaken Him—to one and to all, whatever their circumstances and whatever their character, God in His grace makes an offer of His Son. There is unspeakable freedom as to the accessibility and supply of the gift.
God might have provided a gift, and yet might have placed it where effort alone would have grasped it, or searching alone might have found it. But “Behold,” He has said, “I bring My righteousness near.” This gift is near as the Bible is near. It is near as a Throne of grace is near. It is near as the strivings of God’s Spirit are near. Be your circumstances what they may, you are never so far from it that faith’s faintest sigh will not fetch it, and its finger-tip touch it where you stand. Here is unspeakable love indeed, for the gift it has granted us is not only purchased at an infinite cost, it is offered and bestowed with an infinite freedom.
Such are some of the thoughts that spring up in connection with this illimitable text. Poor as all human speech seems, as it grapples with a subject like the present, its very inadequacy has a lesson. It teaches us that God’s blessing to man in His Son is a matter forever unspeakable.
Have you received that blessing? Free as the scattered glories of the earth’s circling sun, free as the crystal wealth of its running streams, there are those who choose to live in disregard of God’s greatest bounty—men who, though the light of Life shines above them, will not see, and though the River of Life sparkles past them, will not drink.
But think! The greater the value of the gift, the greater your loss if you finally reject it. The richer the love that has prompted its bestowal, the deeper the wrath that shall visit its neglect. You have no right to anything in this wide world of His till you can use and enjoy it in union with Christ. Before all gifts comes this gift—the gift of a Saviour. The sunshine is not yours, nor the rain, nor the fruitful seasons, nor the joys of home, nor the refreshments of sleep. If granted at all, they are a grant upon sufferance, not an evidence of approval. You participate in them on your own responsibility, you use them at your own peril.
O poverty most pitiful of those who are destitute both of a hope for eternity, and of true life in time, who have a claim neither to the food that they eat nor the air that they breathe! O wealth most immense of those who, in Christ, have a title to all things, to whom earth lies open with its bounties, and life is sanctified through its manifold experience, and who, when earth is dissolved in the judgment fires, and life has vanished like a dream at waking time, have an exceeding weight of glory assured them in an eternity beyond! “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.”