# “Jesus Christ was never more cheerful in all His life on earth than when He was going to lay down His life” by John Bunyan

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2025/06/29/jesus-christ-was-never-more-cheerful-in-all-his-life-on-earth-than-when-he-was-going-to-lay-down-his-life-by-john-bunyan/
- Published: 2025-06-29T08:00:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“The love of Christ appears to be wonderful by the death He died: In that _He_ died,
in that He died _such a death_.

‘Twas strange love in Christ that moved Him to die for us: strange, because not 
according to the custom of the world. Men do not use, in cool blood, deliberately
to come upon the stage or ladder to lay down their lives for others.

But this did Jesus Christ, and that too for such, whose qualification, if it be 
duly considered, will make this act of His far more amazing, He laid down his life
for his enemies (**Rom 5**), and for those that could not abide Him; yea, for those,
even for those that brought Him to the cross: not accidentally, or because it happened
so, but knowingly, designedly, (**Zech 12:10**), He knew it was for those He died,
and yet His love led Him to lay down His life for them.

I will add, that those very people for whom He laid down His life, though they by
all sorts of carriages did what they could to provoke Him to pray to God His Father
that He would send and cut them off by the flaming sword of angels (**Matt 26:53**),
He would not be so provoked but would lay down His life for them!

We never read that Jesus Christ was more cheerful in all His life on earth than 
when He was going to lay down His life for them: now He _thanked_ God (**Luke 22:
19**), now He _sang_ (**Matt 26:30**).”

–John Bunyan, “_[The Saint’s Knowledge of Christ’s Love](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851515983?tag=toletaupanre-20)
__,_in _[The Works of John Bunyan, Volume 2](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851515983?tag=toletaupanre-20)_(
Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1692/1991), 2: 17.

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