Man can show no greater love than to die for his friends. No mortal, however, will think of giving up his life for outright enemies. What shall we say, then, of this wonderful love of God, who spared not His only-begotten Son, but gave Him into death that His enemies, we sinners might live? Verily such divine love passes all human understanding.

How sad, however, when we hear infidels declare that they cannot believe in this love of God or in the atonement of Christ because it goes against their ideas of justice! "How can God be just if He can sentence His holy and innocent Son to death in place of sinners?" They ask. "If this is not the worst kind of injustice, to punish the innocent instead of the guilty, what, then, is injustice? No human judge would do such a wicked thing. How much less, then, a just and holy God!"

But these poor, blind people only betray their woeful ignorance as regards both God's justice and God's love. Because something is impossible for man, does it follow that it must also be impossible for God? What does love, true love, mean? It means sacrifice. What sacrifices will not a loving father or mother bring for their children, especially for their sick, even for their wayward children, who are breaking their parents' hearts with their sinful habits!

How often do our hearts beat with glowing admiration when we read of firemen or locomotive engineers or other heroic men who suffered death rather than leave their post of duty and thereby endanger the lives of utter strangers given into their charge. Now, if poor, sinful mortals can love to such an intense degree, why not God, the Source and Fountain of all love and mercy, in a much higher, in a truly Godlike degree, a degree that surpasses all the understanding of man? - Now God can pardon sinners because His divine justice is satisfied through His own divine, self-sacrificing love.

O thou wonderful, adorable God, who hast manifested Thy love in Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray Thee, draw our hearts to Thee through the story of our Savior's sufferings and death, and make us Thine in life, in death, throughout eternity. Amen.

[devotion text by Rev. F. W. Herzberger (1920) -
from the Family Altar - CPH (1957 edition)]
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