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Observe, 1. That God doth not only bestow love upon his people, but it is good pleasure to manifest that love.
Quest. Wherein has God manifested his love towards us?
Ans. 1. In our creation, making us out of nothing in such a wonderful manner; our bodies curiously wrought as with a needle, our souls beautified with understanding, will, and judgment.
2. In our apostacy and degeneration, when no eye pitied us, and when we had no hearts to pity ourselves, then were his bowels of love and compassion yearning toward us; then he said unto us, Live, when he might have said, Die, and be damned.
3. In our redemption, recovery, and restitution, in sending his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live though him.
Observe, 2. A threefold evidence of God's love to mankind in the work of redemption, that great and glorious work.
1. It was a wonderful instance of the love of God, that he should be pleased to take our case into consideration, and to concern himself for our happiness; as nothing is more obliging to human nature than love, so no love obliges more than that which is exercised with great condescension after a provocation; such was God's love to offending man.
2. That he should design so great a benefit to us, as is here expressed, even life, That we might live through him.
3. That God was pleased to use such a mean for the obtaining and procuring of this benefit for us. He sent his own Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Where note, 1. The person sent, his own Son, and only begotten Son.
2. The persons sent to, the men of the world, who were spiritually dead, and judicially dead.
3. The manner of his being sent, voluntarily and freely, not constrained by necessity, not prevailed upon by importunity, not obliged by benefit or kindness from us; but out of his mere pity and goodness towards us, he sent him into a wicked world, and into an ungrateful world, that we might live through him.
From the whole learn, That God's bestowing his Son upon a lost world, was a manifest evidence of his great and wonderful love unto them: In this was manifest the love of God towards us, &c.