And for his suffering, God delighted in him for that, as it is in John 10:17, ‘My Father loves me, because I lay down my life;’ and so in Isa. 53:12, ‘He shall divide him a portion with the great, because he poured out his soul unto death;’ and in Phil. 2:9, ‘Because he abased himself to the death of the cross, ‘God gave him a name above all names:’ therefore God loves and delights in him for his suffering and abasement.
... Is it possible that he should delight in the head, and refuse the members? that he should love the husband, and mislike the spouse? O no; with the same love that God loves Christ, he loves all his. He delights in Christ and all his, with the same delight.
...This is our comfort and our confidence, that God accepts us, because he accepts his beloved; and when he shall cease to love Christ, he shall cease to love the members of Christ. They and Christ make one mystical Christ. This is our comfort in dejection for sin. We are so and so indeed, but Christ is the chosen servant of God, ‘in whom he delighteth,’ and delights in us in him.
It is no matter what we are in ourselves, but what we are in Christ when we are once in him and continue in him. God loves us with that inseparable love wherewith he loves his own Son.
Sibbes, R. (1862). The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes. (A. B. Grosart, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 11-12). Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson.
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