From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention this morning to the words which are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the second chapter and the seventh verse. The seventh verse in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians.

"That in the ages to come, he might show forth the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus."

Now, this is the end of this mighty and magnificent statement, which the Apostle makes here and which begins at the fourth verse. Let us read it again, we can never read it too frequently.

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show, display, manifest, the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus."

Now I want particularly this morning to consider those last three words with you, "through Christ Jesus." For there, of course, you have the whole gospel. And there you have the whole essence of the Christmas message.

But let us take it in its setting, because these great and glorious things are always to be seen at their best in their setting and in their context. You will remember that we have seen that the Apostle here is primarily concerned that these Ephesians should know, in particular, the exceeding greatness of God's power to us-ward that believe.

That's the thing he's concerned about. He's been praying for these people. They're Christians. They've believed the gospel, they've been sealed by the Spirit. He's reminded them of these things that are true of them. And yet he doesn't leave them at that.

He prays for them. He prays that the eyes of their understanding may be enlightened. That they may know what is the hope of his calling, and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And this third thing, the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward that believe.

Then he goes on, you remember, to describe it. It's to be seen, he says, in terms of what our, what God did to our Lord when he brought him again from the dead and raised him and set him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come, and has set him over all things, and has put all things under his feet and so on.

And then you remember that he comes on in this second chapter to apply all this spiritually. It is that, that very thing, in a spiritual way, which has happened to us. There we were, that appalling description in the first three verses, then, "but God." And introducing his statement of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And you remember, we've been working it out, and we have seen that we have been quickened with Christ, we've been raised again with Christ, and we have been made to sit in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. That is Christianity. That's the Christian. Nothing less than that.

And then he takes up here in this seventh verse, what is ultimately God's object in doing all this? What's his purpose? He introduces it with this word, "that," "in order that." This is the purpose.

And the purpose is that God might, in the ages to come, all future ages, from the point at which Paul was writing. Not only the future in the sense that it's the end of this age and the coming of the eternal, but from that moment that he was writing onwards, that God might display, might show, the exceeding riches of his grace.

That's what God is concerned to do. God in this whole plan of salvation is vindicating himself. He's manifesting his glory. Now last Sunday morning, we saw that God does this in and through us. In his kindness toward us. He's displaying his glory through the church.

He takes it up again, you remember, in the tenth verse of the next chapter, the third chapter, that the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might know through the church the manifold wisdom of God. And it is, as we were agreeing last Sunday morning, one of the most astounding things we can ever discover and realize about ourselves.

Oh, that we were given grace to view the whole of our Christian life and all its attendant circumstances in the light of that conception. Let us cease to look at ourselves and other people so much, but rather regard ourselves as being the proofs of the glory of God.

He's doing it in us and through us. But not only that. God is displaying in this, this glory of his and the wonders of his grace, not only by what he has done and will do in us and upon us and through us, but still more in the way in which he's done it.

"In his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus." Now Paul can never leave that out. I fear that many of us could leave it out. Paul never leaves it out. This name, you find it everywhere, in all his epistles. Watch them, read them. He keeps on repeating it.

The name of Jesus Christ, if ever a man could use the words and appropriate them, it was this Apostle. "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear." Notice how he keeps on repeating it here all along, "in him, together with Christ, in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus."

And having used it so often, you'd have thought he might have ended by saying that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us. No, no. He must say it again. "In his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus."

Ah, here, I think we come to the point at which of all points we can really begin to measure this exceeding riches of God's grace. Some people would translate this in this way, that he might show the immeasurable riches, or to use the phrase that the Apostle uses, the term he uses in the next chapter, in the eighth verse, "the unsearchable riches."

It's here, I say, we begin to have some conception of that. But before we come to that, let us emphasize this point. It is through Christ Jesus that we derive every benefit. Isn't it astonishing that it's still necessary to say that and to emphasize that?

But it is, because people still think of the blessings that come from God apart from Christ Jesus. There are thousands of people, probably more in the world today, who are worshipers of God as they think and are anxious to be blessed by God and believe that they are being blessed by God.

But they seem to be able to speak about all that without mentioning Christ Jesus. They talk about praying to God, they talk about being blessed by God, being healed by God, being led by God and so on, and they don't mention the name of Jesus Christ.

You see, the Apostle was aware of that danger, that's why he never misses an opportunity, "through Christ Jesus." The whole essence of Christianity is to say this, that God deals with men and blesses men only in and through Christ Jesus. Everything comes through him.

Now, it'll be a very simple matter to prove that by endless quotations. But take our Lord's own word, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me." Surely that ought to be enough in and of itself.

We can't pray without him. We pray in his name. We pray for his name's sake. We have nothing to plead but him. How can we therefore approach God without him? How can anything come to us apart from him? John, you remember, in the prologue of his gospel, he puts it in exactly the same way.

He says, "and of his fullness," referring to the Lord Jesus Christ, "have we received, and grace for grace." It is all in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God was in Christ, through Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

That's how he does reconcile the world. And all blessings from God come to us and flow into us through him. Well now, I needn't stay with this because those who attend here regularly will have been established in that particular truth beyond any question by the doctrine at the end of the first chapter, where the Apostle teaches that every blessing really comes to us because we are incorporated into Christ.

He is the head of the body, which is the church, which is the fullness of him that filleth all in all. The church is his body. And therefore, we derive all our life and every blessing and every sustenance and every power, it all comes to us because we are members of him.

He is the head, we are members, in particular, in the body. So that everything comes from the head, as we saw. And we enjoy therefore every blessing that we possess through Christ Jesus. Can I assume therefore that we're all clear about this?

That we are absolutely, as Paul puts it elsewhere, shut up unto Christ. The very law itself was the schoolmaster, the pedagogue to bring us to Christ, to shut us up unto Christ, to make us see that we cannot know God or derive any blessing from God except in and through Christ Jesus.

He is the only channel, the one and only mediator between God and men. There it is everywhere. "Through Christ Jesus." But it, the thing to which I want to advert particularly this morning and to emphasize, is rather the way in which God has done all this through Christ Jesus.

And it is here, I say, we most especially see something of the unsearchable character, the immeasurable character of the riches of God's grace. And I say that for this reason, that here we are looking at it from the God-ward side. Now we've been looking at it from our side last Sunday morning and elsewhere. But here now, we are looking at it from the God-ward side.

Let me put it to you like this. The way in which we do things is often times much more significant than the thing itself which we do. And that is the whole truth about the way in which God blesses mankind through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it would be a wonderful thing and an amazing thing and would be indicative of exceeding riches in God's grace, that he should bless us at all. Let's imagine that God had blessed us as it were directly from the heavens, that he had looked upon us and that he had done certain things for us.

That in itself would be wonderful because we deserve nothing. We've seen our character in the first three verses. Paul put it there again in a still more blunt form in that third chapter of the Epistle to Titus, a portion of which we read just now. There we were, hateful and hating one another.

There is nothing too bad that can be said about men in sin. Nothing. He is as vile a creature as is imaginable. But in spite of that, God has looked upon us and blessed us. And the very fact that he even looks upon us is indicative, I say, of unsearchable riches of grace.

Ah, yes, but we have something here that goes beyond that. You see, it's possible for us sometimes to do a kindness for other persons without sacrificing anything ourselves at all. You may be a multimillionaire and you see some poor pauper. You don't know him, you've got no interest in him, and he may be an offensive person to look at even.

Well, it's a very fine and a very generous and a very noble thing for this multimillionaire to give that man something, especially if the man has done something against him. But he gives him say a thousand pounds. It's very generous, but it really doesn't cost that multimillionaire anything.

He's hardly aware of the fact that he's given anything at all. In and of itself, it's great generosity. It's very great kindness, especially, I say, if that poor fellow had done something unworthy or wrong with respect to this wealthy man. The act in and of itself is wonderful.

Yes, but you see, what would greatly add to that act is if somehow or another this man could sacrifice something and give at the same time. In other words, the ultimate measure of our actions is what they cost us. Now, I don't want to detract for a moment from the intrinsic value of generosity.

It's all right, but I say that when it involves personal suffering or personal need in order to help another, well then it becomes infinitely greater. Well now then, it's something like that that we are considering. I, I speak carefully because I must speak carefully.

But I want to try to suggest to you that it is as, as we look at it from this aspect, that we really begin to have some kind of a measure of the immeasurable riches of God's grace. It's paradoxical, and yet it's all right. We never will be able to measure it.

It's beyond that, it's so wonderful that men's measures are totally inadequate. And yet the scriptures exhort us to try to measure it. Go on climbing, you've reached a million mark, well very well, go on, there's another million beyond it. And when you get there, you'll still go on, but let's go on.

Let's go as far as we can go. Now that's the sort of thing the Apostle, it seems to me, is exhorting us to do here. He prays that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened, that we may try to measure the immeasurable and try to scale these heights, the topmost level of which can never be reached.

And therefore, I say, we are looking at it in terms of what God has really done. This is how he's really going to display the exceeding riches of his grace in all those future ages by his kindness toward us. Yes, but the way he did it, "through Christ Jesus."

What does it mean? Well, I say that I speak guardedly for this reason, that we are obviously looking into the mystery. Not only the mystery of God's love, but into the mystery of God's being. And it's here that we cease to understand and we walk carefully.

But let us observe what the scriptures say. If you want to measure the unsearchable riches or the exceeding riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Well, you can start by looking at it from the standpoint of the Father himself. Now here's the question, can God suffer?

Does God suffer? The theologians have argued on this great and important question, the passibility of God, or the impassibility of God. Is God passible or is God impassible? A tremendous subject. We'll never decide it. We can't decide it.

I say, it's at this point, our minds won't go, we begin to speculate, we don't understand. And perhaps we shouldn't. And yet it seems to me that we must be careful on the other hand that we don't ignore scriptural statements, or that we don't detract from them.

And there are certain things which are said in the scripture, which at any rate I'd like to put before you. Think about them, meditate upon them. At any rate, we surely must say this, that what God has done for us through Christ Jesus has cost God. Has cost God.

Look at it, I say, from the standpoint of the Father. These are the terms that are used. "When the fullness of the times was come, God sent forth his own Son, made of a woman, made under the law." I'm interested in the sending forth. You may say that's an anthropomorphism, that's a condescension to our human inability.

God is representing himself. Ah, yes, but there's a truth in the representation. There was a sending forth. He was in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, dwelling eternally with God, coequal and coeternal. God the Father sends him forth.

I don't understand fully what it meant to God, but I do know that we are meant to think of it in these human terms, that God did send him forth. And that is where, I say, you ask your question, what did that mean to God the Father?

"It is through Christ Jesus," he's going to show the unsearchable riches of his grace. It is through this action that all the principalities and powers in the heavenly places are going to admire the manifold wisdom of God. Not only what they see in the church but the way God has done it and brought the church into being, "through Christ Jesus."

Takes another verse. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." What a pregnant word, "he gave." He gave his only Son. Now we are familiar with these terms, are we not? We talk about people giving their lives for their country.

We talk about parents giving over their children to be foreign missionaries or something. They gave them. They sent them forth. They let them go. Giving, but it costs. Very well, I say, take this whole idea, and these are the terms that are used about God, but take another one.

A still more striking one. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not also with him freely give us all things?" Look at that great word in the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Notice the terms, "he didn't spare him."

Is God passible or impassible? What does that word "spare" mean? God the Father knew what was necessary before the way of salvation could be made, what was necessary before he could still be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

He knew what it would involve for the Son in suffering, and he didn't spare him, but delivered him up to all that was meant in that death, that cruel, agonizing death. He knew it all, he didn't spare him. He delivered him up for us all.

Now, these are the terms with which we have to grapple as we consider this great question of the passibility of God. But there are others. "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Now that's 2 Corinthians 5:21. God the Father hath made his own Son to be sin. Not a sinner, he has made him to be sin, with which he was going to deal for us. Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And that of course, points back to some of those extraordinary statements in the 53rd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Did God do that without feeling? Did God do that without suffering?

Oh, it's a great mystery, I say. But my dear friends, if we want really to understand what happened on that first Christmas, we must look into these things. We take it so much for granted. We take it so easily. God sent his own Son, John 3:16, we all know all about it.

Do we? Do we know anything about it, I wonder? We talk so glibly about the love of God. Have we ever considered what it means to God? He has laid on him the iniquity of us all. "It hath pleased the Father," we have read it again, "it hath pleased the Lord, to bruise him."

It was his pleasure. Not that it gave him pleasure, but it was his pleasure, his will that he should bruise him. He bruised his own Son for us, and that's where you get a measure of the exceeding riches of his grace. He hath put him to grief.

Verily, he God hath put him, his only begotten Son, to grief in order that you and I might become his children. And in order that we might enjoy the exceeding riches of his grace. But, you see, you don't begin to measure it, do you, until you take these three words, "through Christ Jesus."

That's how he has done it. And there it is, at any rate, just a glimpse into it from the standpoint of the Father. The thing itself which has taken place as it was and is in God himself. The unsearchable riches of his grace.

Who can measure this? Who can understand this? But that is our gospel, that God the Father hath sent him forth, and has given him, and has laid upon him the iniquity of us all, "through Christ Jesus."

But come, let us just look at it for a moment from the standpoint of the Son, the one who came and to whom all this happened. And here again, we are involved in what Carlyle would call infinities and immensities, which baffles and causes the very brain to boggle.

How can we measure this? Well, we know something like this the Apostle teaches us, particularly in writing to the Philippians, in that second chapter. We know that it meant this for the Son. There he was in the eternal glory, in the bosom of the Father, coequal, coeternal.

Sharing the glory of God in all its fullness. Do you know what your salvation meant first of all to the Son? It meant this, it meant a decision not to hold on to all the privileges and the signs of that eternal glory.

He counted it not robbery to be equal with God, says this authorized version, and that is what that means. You read that second chapter of Philippians, starting at verse 5 and going through to verse 11, and there you'll get it all. He counted it, he was in the form of God, though he was, he counted it not robbery to be equal with God.

That means he did not regard that as a prize to be held on to at all costs. He didn't say, "Now, I'm not going to leave all this behind in order to save those people who've rebelled against you." That's what it means. "Ah, I'm anxious to help them, and I'm ready to do anything I can, but I can't do this. I, I can't as it were leave aside for the time being the insignia of my glory, the marks of my eternal Godhead. I can't do that. I'm prepared to do anything, but I can't."

He did the, he said the exact opposite. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. He regarded it not as a prize to be held on to, to be clutched. He deliberately decided that he would for the time being lay that aside, not lay the Godhead aside, he couldn't do that.

He didn't lay the Godhead aside, but he did lay the signs of the Godhead aside. And then, you see, after that first initial decision, the second followed and of necessity, "he made himself of no reputation." Now how superior the old authorized version here is to the revised and others who say, "he emptied himself."

No, he didn't empty himself. He didn't empty himself at all. He made himself, still remaining what he was, of no reputation. There is no kenosis, there is no evacuating himself of his Godhead. It's impossible. It's something much more wonderful than that.

It is this, that he decided to make himself of no reputation. Though he is still the eternal Son of God. He came down on Earth, and he was born as a babe, and he lived as a man. He was still the same, but he made himself of no reputation.

We've got stories, haven't we, of great kings putting on ragged clothing and going to work with their hands. Nobody knew them, nobody recognized them. What had happened? The king had made himself of no reputation. He pretended to be an ordinary man.

He didn't take with him the trappings and the insignia of his regal position, but he made himself of no reputation. And you know, that's the very thing that's happened in the incarnation. That's what happened when the Son of God came down on Earth to dwell amongst men.

Though he remains exactly what he always was, he came as a man, and took upon him the form of a servant. He took it upon him. Now, there you see we are beginning to measure all this, aren't we? That is what your salvation and mine has meant and has cost.

We are interested in the exceeding riches of his grace, and we are just measuring something of it. How easy it is to sentimentalize about the babe of Bethlehem. But my dear friend, go back, go back into eternity. Consider what it meant for him to come there, and what it involved.

How vital it is to be theological and doctrinal in all our thinking concerning him. You think with your mind, and only then do you feel with your heart. You don't start with your heart. You start with your head, with your mind, with your understanding.

The Apostle has already prayed that the eyes of our understanding may be enlightened. You're Christians, he says, but have you realized what it's, what has happened? What was involved? What it has meant? Very well, he made himself of no reputation.

And he had to arrive at those two decisions initially before the incarnation could take place, and then it did take place. And so he came and was born of the virgin's womb in a stable, in a little place called Bethlehem. He had taken unto himself human nature.

As I've said, he hadn't evacuated the Godhead out of himself in order to become men, remaining still very God of very God. He took unto himself human nature, so that he was real man as well as real God. And there we see him lying in the manger.

And as I understand this statement of the Apostle that God in all this was showing forth the exceeding riches of his grace, and even getting the principalities and powers and the angels in the heavenly places to be amazed. I imagine that when the angels looked down over the ramparts of heaven, they said something like this.

"Who is this so weak and helpless child of lowly Hebrew maids?" That's what they said. "Who is this?" You remember we saw last Sunday morning that these same powers, looking at the glorified church and at people like ourselves with our white robes and the palms in our hands, say, "Who are these?"

You see, this is how God is giving his display. "Who are these?" But there the question was, "Who is this so weak and helpless child of lowly Hebrew maids?" And there's one answer and one answer only, "This is the King of glory."

That's the wondrous story. Or listen to Charles Wesley answering the question. "Look into that manger, what are you seeing?" Well, this is what you see. "Veiled in flesh, the Godhead, seen. Hailed, incarnate deity." What paradoxes! There are your measures.

There is the immeasurable riches of God's grace. There is this exceeding riches, this unsearchable riches, "veiled in flesh." There's one end. "The Godhead, seen." There's the other end. Can you measure it? "Hailed, incarnate." Yes, he's a child, he's a babe, he's moving, he's crying like every other child.

"He's incarnate, he's in the flesh, but deity." There's the other end. The immeasurable riches of God's grace. It is through Christ Jesus, through doing things like this, that God has blessed us and shown his kindness toward us. And then go on and look at his life.

Have you ever stopped to think and to meditate about this? What must it have been like for the eternal Son of God to live in a world like this, a world of sin? Have you sometimes felt a feeling of utter disgust as you've walked about the streets of this city of London and have seen certain manifestations of sin?

The ugliness, the foulness, the bestiality of it all. You've felt a sense of physical revulsion, you've been revolted. And there's nothing wrong in feeling that. It is foul, it's terrible. But my dear friend, multiply that by millions, by eternity, and try to understand what it must have been like for the Son of God to have lived and dwelt in a world like this and to have mixed with people like that, the one who is described as the friend of publicans and sinners.

This is part of the measure, you see, "through Christ Jesus." That's where you see the unsearchable riches of his grace. He endured against himself the contradiction of sinners for 33 years. And do you know that while he was here, he never possessed a home of his own?

"Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests," he says, "but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." Have you noticed a statement like this at one point in the Gospel of John, "Every man went unto his own house, Jesus went into the mount of olives."

He never had a house. He never owned a home. The one through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that is made, hadn't a place where to lay his head, hadn't a home of his own, "through Christ Jesus."

And then think of all the buffeting, and all the plotting against him, the spitting in his face, the arguing, the attempts to trip him. These are all facts, my friends. And we must concentrate on the facts. We must come right back to them. We are not saved by a philosophy, not by some beautiful idea, not by some marvelous fantasy or some poetic conception.

No, no, these are literal, hard, solid facts. He came down to Earth and he went through all this for us men and for our salvation. It is all, I say, literal fact. And then in the garden, secretly, sweating great drops of blood.

The unsearchable riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, "through Christ Jesus." There he is, sweating in an agony. Great drops as it were of blood. And then the cross. The pain and the suffering, we may not know, we cannot tell what pains he had to bear.

But we know that he was there again in a great agony. He cried out saying, "I thirst." And then towering over it all, the sense of desertion, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us, "through Christ Jesus."

Bearing the crushing load of the world's sin. Bearing the wrath of his holy Father, being made sin. That's the measure. And while he was enduring it all, he was still the eternal Son of God as well as Son of Man. Such suffering we cannot imagine.

But he suffered enough to bear the full penalty of sin. It is through Christ Jesus the blessings come to us. And he dies, and they take him, and they buried him in a grave. Well, you remember Peter put this again in his address to certain unbelieving Jews in a perfect manner when he said, he said, "You put to death the author of life. You put to death the Prince of life," which means the author of life.

You see, there again you've got the absolute measure. Death, the author of life. The author of life was put to death. There is the measure of the exceeding riches of God's grace. They put him to death, they took down his body, and they buried him in a grave and rolled that stone over the grave.

That's the measure of it all. And then God raised him, as Paul tells us here, and again brought him forth from amongst the dead, and took him into heaven, and has glorified him, and has exalted him. There's the whole movement. The span of it all, the measure of the exceeding riches of his grace.

Now the Apostle's point is that God has done all that in order that he might show forth to all future ages his own glory and greatness, and especially the exceeding riches of his grace. And let me emphasize as I close, to show it not only to men.

It is indeed the theme of men, but not only of men, it is the thing that amazes the angels. That's why that hymn which we sang just now was perfectly right. "Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight through all the Earth." The angels that sang in the morning of creation, sang again on the morning of his birth.

Never had heaven seen such a thing as this. Never had heaven such a theme as this. As this astounding thing, that babe that was born, whom they knew as the Lord, the only begotten Son of the Father, the one through whom all was created. There he is lying as a helpless babe.

It's not surprising that they sang and hailed Messiah's birth. And they still go on surprising because the Apostle Peter tells us in his first epistle and in the first chapter and in the 12th verse, he says this, that not only had the prophets under the Old Dispensation who prophesied of these things, namely, the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.

He says the prophets didn't quite understand it. As they wrote about it, they were given the word, the message, and they faithfully wrote it. They didn't understand it. They didn't know what manner of time all this was going to happen. But not only were they surprised and astonished, according to Peter, this is also true, "Which things," he says, "the angels desire to look into."

What an amazing statement. These things are the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. The whole movement of the incarnation, the life, the atoning death, the burial, the resurrection, the glorification. "Which things," says Peter, "the angels desire to look into."

Now, he uses a very interesting word there. That word "desire" it means a very intense and a very strong desire. Indeed, it includes a further idea, which is this, that they stoop down in order to look into it. Do you remember the accounts which we have of the resurrection?

We are told that Peter and Peter and John, says another evangelist, they went to the grave, having been given the report by the women that the Lord had risen, they went to the grave, and we are told that they stooped down in order to look into the grave. That's the very word that Peter uses here.

"Which things the angels are stooping down to look at." The incarnation of the Son, the death of the author of life, the burial of the Creator. It is the most astonishing thing. The angels are amazed, and they worship and they praise God as they see this manifestation, this display, this showing of the exceeding riches of God's grace.

Not only that rebels, miserable sinners such as you and I should be quickened with a new spiritual life, and raised again, and made alive unto God, and to be glorified, and to spend our eternity in his presence. That's amazing, and they are marveling at that.

But it's when they consider the way that God has done it, that even the expression of angels fails and becomes inadequate. This is something surpassing everything. That God should have so loved the world as to give even to the shameful, cruel death of the cross his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him without any works at all should not perish but have everlasting life.

"That in the ages to come, he should show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus." Amen.