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Yet the Lord Jesus laid down his life for his enemies; for "scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die; but God commendeth His love toward us," etc. He makes no mistakes.
'God commendeth' not 'commended. The majestic present tense suggests that time and space are nothing to the swift and all-filling rays of that great Light. That love is 'towards us, you and me and all our fellows. The Death is an historical fact, occurring in one short hour. The Cross is an eternal power, raying out light and love over all humanity and through all ages.
These various phases of the love of Christ as manifesting the divine love, may not be capable of perfect harmonising in our thoughts, but they do blend into one, and by reason of them all, 'God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We have to think not only of Abraham who gave up, but of the unresisting, innocent Isaac, bearing on his shoulders the wood for the burnt offering, as the Christ bore the Cross on His, and suffering himself to be bound upon the pile, not only by the cords that tied his limbs, but by the cords of obedience and submission, and in both we have to bow before the Apocalypse of divine love.
If our Creator was full of wrath and vindictive vengeance towards sinners, the manifestation of such a truth would by no means reconcile sinners to God; but when God commendeth his love towards the sinner through the mission, ministry, or dispensation of Jesus Christ, such truth when revealed, naturally reconciles the sinner to God.
For I see well by your shield that you are a Christian, and, so you may conquer him, then ought I at last to be assured that your law availeth more than doth ours, and that God was born of the Virgin." Right joyous is Perceval of this that he heareth her say. He crosseth and blesseth him, and commendeth him to God and His sweet Mother; and is pricked of wrath and hardiment like a lion.
Thereupon it followeth that tribulation is one cause of comfort unto a man's heart, in that it dischargeth him of the discomfort that he might of reason take of overlong-lasting wealth. Another is, that the scripture much commendeth tribulation as occasion of more profit than wealth and prosperity, not only to those who are therein but to those who resort unto them too.
Acharya Genshin, the Great Teacher, considering one of the Sutra with the commentary of Ekanzenji, hath made plain the attributes of the Land of Outermost Places. For he said: "Not one man is there of thousands who may not be born into the Land of Purity." And thus saying, he commendeth the followers of the Right Practice.
If the apostle had said, "Christ commendeth His own love towards us, in that He died for us," we could have understood him; but how, I ask again, does Christ's death prove God's love? The question is answerable, as indeed the whole of the New Testament is intelligible, only on the assumption of the Trinitarian doctrine of Christ.
The gospel commendeth the same to us which the law did to them: “Be not ye unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols,” &c. “Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing,” 2 Cor. vi. 14-17. “If any man worship the beast, and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,” Rev. xiv. 9.
Now, it is a very illuminating thought for the reading of the New Testament that there are the three sets of teaching, roughly, the Pauline, Petrine, and Johannine, and you cannot find the distinctions between these three in any difference as to the fundamental contents of the Gospel; for if Paul rings out, 'God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, Peter declares, 'Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, and John, from his island solitude, sends across the waters the hymn of praise, 'Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. And so the proud declaration of the Apostle, which he dared not have ventured upon in the face of the acrid criticism he had to front unless he had known he was perfectly sure of his ground, is natural and warranted 'Therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach.
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