Octavius Winslow on the Incarnation: Jesus Wept!

Meditate often upon the sensibility of Jesus––it will quicken, sanctfy, and soothe your own. If you are an artist––study it. If you are a poet––chant it. If you are an orator––extol it. If you are a divine––preach it. If you are a disciple––imitate it. If you are a mourner––bring to it your keenest, loneliest, deepest grief. “Jesus wept!” “Was there ever a more interesting portrait than what the evangelist has here drawn of the Son of God ? If the imagination were to be employed for ever in forming an interesting scene of the miseries of human nature, what could furnish so complete a picture as these words give of Christ at the sight of them––’Jesus wept!’ Here we have at once the evidence how much the miseries of our nature affected the heart of Jesus, and here we have the most convincing testimony, that He partook of all the sinless infirmities of our nature, and was truly and in all points man, as well as God. We are told by one of the ancient writers,(Chrysostom) that some weak and injudicious Christians, in his days, were so rash as to strike this verse out of their Bibles, from an idea that it was unsuitable and unbecoming in the Son of God to weep. But we have cause to bless the overruling providence of God, that though they struck it out of their Bibles, they did not from ours. And why those groans at the grave of Lazarus, if tears were improper? Precious Lord! how refreshing to my soul is the consideration that forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, Thou likewise didst take part of the same; that in all things it behoved Thee to be made like to Thy brethren. Hence, when my poor heart is afflicted, when Satan storms, or the world frowns, or Thy waves and Thy billows go over me, oh, what relief is it to know that Jesus looks on and sympathises! Then do I say, ‘Will not Jesus, who wept at the grave of Lazarus, feel for me? Shall I look up to Him, and look in vain? Did Jesus, when upon earth, know what these exercises were, and was His precious soul made sensible of distress even to tears, and will He be regardless of what I feel, and the sorrows under which I groan? Oh no! The sigh that bursts in secret from my heart is not secret to Him; the tear that is my meat day and night, And drops unperceived And unknown, is known And remembered by Him. Though now exalted at the right hand of power, where He hath wiped away all tears from off all faces, yet He himself still retains the feelings and the character of the “Man of sorrows, and of one well acquainted with grief.” Help me, Lord, thus to look up to Thee, And thus to remember Thee’ “(Hawker). Precious And holy is the divine precept, illustrated and enforced by so divine an example-”Weep with them that weep.” Oh, it is the richest luxury on earth to share by sympathy the sorrow, to soothe by gentleness the grief, to wipe away by kindness the tears of another. This Christ did, and we are to prove our discipleship to Him by imitating His example. “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them “-sharing their chain; ” and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body”-exposed to like weaknesses and assaults, calamities and griefs. Oh, aspire, beloved ! to be a drier of human tears; to have a hand always ready to wipe them away! Who can estimate its worth? To have soothed one human sorrow, to have met one pressing want, to have unbound one crushing load, to have dried one tear of grief, to have shed one beam of light upon a dreary path, to have reclaimed one wanderer, to have made the widow’s heart to sing for joy, to have befriended and soothed an orphan, oh! It is a work to be measured in its importance and its blessedness only by a life. Again, we repeat, let your life be an out flowing sympathy with the distressed and the needy, the widow and the fatherless. Be Christ-like, “who went about doing good;” raise the fallen, strengthen the weak, comfort the feeble-minded; and if tears of compassion and sympathy will soothe and mitigate the tears of penitence and adversity, then be it your mission and your privilege to “weep with them that weep!”

Bathe in it brothers!

"The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from every sin." 1 John 1:7

"It "cleanses us." Oh, this is what you do so deeply need, my soul! Sin-forgiving, guilt-removing, heart-cleansing, conscience-purifying blood. All this is the blood of Jesus to you. Wash in it, and you shall be whiter than snow. "He that is washed is clean, every whit." And mark the tense of the wonderful words on which this meditation is based--it is the present tense. The blood "cleanses." It has cleansed, it will cleanse, but, as touching our daily walk as believers in Jesus, we have to do with its present cleansing. In our Christian travel through a sinful world the feet are apt to slide, prone to wander, and are constantly contracting fresh defilement, needing the daily washing in the blood. What a sweet thought, O my soul! that the fountain is open, and the blood cleanses, even now cleanses us, from all sin." O. Winslow

You've gotta read this!

“We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is of him. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects, that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.”

John Calvin, Institutes, 2.16.19.

Battle with indwelling sin

This from our friend Octavius Winslow:

"Beloved, you have to battle with indwelling sin, and
to conflict with outward temptation. But never forget
that you are to live upon Christ as much for your
sanctification as for your justification; that His grace
is pledged to subdue your iniquities, to arm you in
the conflict, to give you skill in the holy fight, and
the final victory over all your enemies. And in
proportion as Christ grows in you, you will grow
in a true hatred of sin, in a deepening love of
holiness, and thus in real, gospel sanctification."

The Christian Life - Spurgeon

The Christian life

by Spurgeon

Believers, as they grow in grace, are made
to feel more and more acutely the evil of
their old nature. You will find that those
who are most like Christ have the deepest
knowledge of their own depravity, and are
most humble while they confess their sinfulness.

I think, throughout eternity, if we had this
problem to solve, "Why did he save me?",
we should still go on making wrong guesses,
but we never could arrive at the right conclusion,
unless we should say, once for all, I do not know.
He did as he willed. He will have mercy on whom
he will have mercy. He will have compassion on
whom he will have compassion.

There is nothing in life worth living for but Christ.
“Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is
none upon earth that I desire beside you!”
Christ is the cream; the rest is mere skim
milk and curds fit to be given to the swine.
The Lord Jesus is the pure flour; all else is but
the husk and bran, and coarse gritty meal, all
that remains is the chaff; fan it, and the wind
shall carry it away, or the fire shall burn it,
and little shall be the loss.
Christ is the golden grain, the only thing worth having.

I would give nothing for your religion
if you do not seek to be like Christ.
If your heart is truly wedded to the Lord
Jesus, and lives in near fellowship with
him, it must grow like him.
There will be a similarity of spirit, temper,
motive, and action; it will not be manifest
merely in great things but in little matters
too, for even our speech will betray us.

Fullness of God - Winslow

Eph 3:19 "and to know the love of Christ fthat surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
"There is no other solution to the marvelous mysteries of His Incarnation and Sacrificial Death but this- Christ has loved us. Love originated all, explains all, illustrates all- love is the interpreter of every Divine mystery. There is not a circumstance of our Lord's history which is not another form or manifestation of love. His incarnation, is love stooping; His sympathy, is love weeping; His compassion, is love succouring; His grace, is love acting; His teaching, is the voice of love; His silence, is the repose of love; His patience, is the restraint of love; His obedience, is the labor of love; His suffering, is the travail of love; His cross, is the altar of love; His death is the burned offering of love; His resurrection, is the triumph of love; His ascension into heaven, and His sitting down at the right hand of God, is the enthronement and the intercession of love."
"Do not limit your heart-experience of Christ's love, for it is infinite in its nature and boundless in its extent. The prayer of the apostle for the Eplhesian saints was, that they might "know the love of Christ which passes knowledge." As yet, how many of us stand but upon the shore of this ocean! How little do we know, experimentally, of the love of Christ in our souls, disloding slavish fear, a bondage spirit, unbelieving doubt, and so enlarging our hearts that we may run the way of the Lord's commandments. Bring your heart with its profoundest emptiness, its most startling discovery of sin, its lowest frame, its deepest sorrow, and sink it into the depths of the Savior's love. That infinite sea will flow over all, erase all, absorb all, and your soul shall swim and sport amid its gentle waves, exclaiming in your joy and transport, "Oh, the depths!" The Lord direct your heart into the love of God! Just as it is, hard, cold, fickle, sinful, sad and sorrowful. Christ's love touching your hard heart, will dissolve it!  Christ's love touching your cold heart will warm it!  Christ's love touching your sinful heart will purify it!  Christ's love touching your sorrowful heart will soothe it!  Christ's love touching your wandering heart will draw it back to Jesus. Only bring your heart to Christ's love. Believe in its existence, its reality, its fulness, and its freeness. Believe that He loves you, and just as love begets love, so the simple belief in the love of Jesus will inspire you with a reflected, responsive affection; and your soul, like the chrysalis, will burst from its captivity and bloom, and, soaring in life, liberty, and beauty, will float in the sunbeams of Gods full, free, and eternal love, and, in a little while, will find itself in heaven- where all is love!"Octavius Winslow

Octavius Winslow - Marriage

"Jesus sustains no association to His Church more expressive, than that of the marriage relationship. From all eternity, He forever betrothed her to Himself. He asked for her at the hands of her Father — and the Father gave her to Him. He entered into a covenant that she would be His. The conditions of that covenant were great, but not too great for His love to undertake. They were, that He should assume her nature, discharge her legal obligations, endure her punishment, repair her ruin, and bring her to glory! He undertook all, and He accomplished all — because He loved her! The love of Jesus to His Church, is the love of the most tender husband. It is single, constant, affectionate, matchless, wonderful. Jesus . . .
sympathizes with her,
  nourishes her,
  provides for her,
  clothes her,
  watches over her, and
  indulges her with the most intimate and endearing tenderness!" O. Winslow