“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:9,10).
The final verse of Oswald J. Smith’s touching hymn, “Deeper and Deeper,” enjoins us to enter into God’s love, and sing of it throughout eternity.
Into the love of Jesus, deeper and deeper I go, Praising the One who brought me out of my sin and woe; And through eternal ages gratefully I shall sing; “Oh, how He loved! Oh, how He loved! Jesus, my Lord and my King.”
The word “deep” or “depth” in Scripture comes from the Greek word bathos from which is derived several English nautical terms, and includes the concept of the deep ocean. Thus probing “deeper and deeper” into the heart, the will, the cross, the joy, and now the love of Jesus takes on proper proportion. Each is immense, beyond our conception.
We should continually acknowledge, as does the song, that His love brought us out of our sinful condition, which had totally separated us from Him. “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 [i.e. made us alive] together with Christ, (for) by grace ye are saved” (Ephesians 2:4,5). “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. . . . We love Him, because He first loved us” (I John 4:9,19).
We will have the opportunity to sing of that love throughout eternity, because “in the ages to come He (will) shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). May God grant us an ever deepening love of Jesus. JDM
