The Love of Christ

                                           "And I pray that you, being rooted and
                                            established in love, may have power,
                                            together with all the saints, to grasp
                                            how wide and long and high and deep
                                            is the love of Christ, and to know this
                                            love that surpasses knowledge -- that
                                            you may be filled to the measure of
                                            all the fullness of God."
                                                                             Ephesians 3:17b-19



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          J.I. Packer writes of Christ's great love for His people:

                       "Christ's love was free, not elicited by any goodness in us

     (Ephesians 2:1-5); it was eternal, being one with the choice of sinners

     to save that the Father made 'before the foundation of the world'

     (Ephesians 1:4); it was unreserved, for it led him down to the depths

     of humiliation and, indeed, of hell, itself on Calvary; and it was

     sovereign, for it has achieved its object - the final glory of the

     redeemed, their perfect holiness and happiness in the fruition of

     his love (Ephesians 5:26-27), is now guaranteed and assured

     (Ephesians 1:14; 2:7-10; 4:11-16, 30).


                      It is these things that make up 'his glorious grace'
     (Ephesians 1:6); only those who know them can praise the name
     of the triune Jehovah as they should."