Loves Us to End

And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
— John 17:26

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
— John 15:9-10

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
— Matthew 28:20

But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
— Hebrews 3:6

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
— 1 Peter 1:13

Jesus Loves HIs Own and Loves Us to the End and Forever, by Thomas Goodwin. The following contains the Introduction to his work, “The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth. The Gracious Disposition and Tender Affection of Christ in His Human Nature Now in Glory, Unto His Members Under All Sorts of Infirmities, Either of Sin or Misery.”

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
— John 13:1

Introduction

Having set forth our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in all those great and most solemn actions of his—his obedience unto death, his resurrection, ascension into heaven, his sitting at God’s right hand, and intercession for us, which of all the other has been more largely insisted on—I shall now annex (as next in order, and homogeneal thereunto) this discourse that follows, which lays open the heart of Christ, as now he is in heaven, sitting at God’s right hand and interceding for us; how it is affected and graciously disposed towards sinners on earth that do come to him; how willing to receive them; how ready to entertain them; how tender to pity them in all their infirmities, both sins and miseries. The scope and use whereof will be this, to hearten and encourage believers to come more boldly unto the throne of grace, unto such a Saviour and High Priest, when they shall know how sweetly and tenderly his heart, though he is now in his glory, is inclined towards them; and so to remove that great stone of stumbling which we meet with (and yet lies unseen) in the thoughts of men in the way to faith, that Christ being now absent, and further exalted to so high and infinite a distance of glory, as to “sit at God’s right hand,” they therefore cannot tell how to come to treat with him about their salvation so freely, and with that hopefulness to obtain, as those poor sinners did, who were here on earth with him. Had our lot been, think they, but to have conversed with him in the days of his flesh, as Mary, and Peter, and his other disciples did here below, we could have thought to have been bold with him, and to have had anything at his hands. For they beheld him before them a man like unto themselves, and he was full of meekness and gentleness, he being then himself made sin, and sensible of all sorts of miseries; but now he is gone into a far country, and has put on glory and immortality, and how his heart may be altered thereby we know not. The drift of this discourse is therefore to ascertain poor souls, that his heart, in respect of pity and compassion, remains the same it was on earth; that he intercedes there with the same heart he did here below; and that he is as meek, as gentle, as easy to be entreated, as tender in his bowels; so that they may deal with him as fairly about the great matter of their salvation, and as hopefully, and upon as easy terms to obtain it of him, as they might if they had been on earth with him, and be as familiar with him in all their needs—than which nothing can be more for the comfort and encouragement of those who have given over all other lives but that of faith, and whose souls pursue after strong and entire communion with their Saviour Christ.

Now the demonstrations that may help our faith in this I reduce to two heads: the first more extrinsic and outward; the second more intrinsic and inward: the one showing that it is so; the other, the reasons and grounds why it must be so.

I. First, for those extrinsic demonstrations (as I call them), they are taken from several passages and carriages of his, in all those several conditions of his; namely, at his last farewell before his death, his resurrection, ascension, and how he is sitting at God’s right hand. I shall lead you through all the same heads which I have gone over in the former treatise (though to another purpose), and take such observations from his speeches and carriages, in all those states he went through, as shall tend directly to persuade our hearts of the point in hand, namely this, that now he is in heaven, his heart remains as graciously inclined to sinners that come to him, as ever on earth. And for a ground or introduction to these first sort of demonstrations, I shall take this Scripture that follows; as for those other, another Scripture, as proper to that part of this discourse.

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