And did my Sovereign die! Would he devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?”
For God so loved the world – you and me – and all of humankind, He sent His Son, Jesus.
We are loved by God. Each of us is fully known and loved, perfectly made by God alone.
Known. Seen. By God, Whose fingerprints are on our being and Whose breath is in our lungs.
He sent Jesus, His Son, to remove all barriers that might prohibit our full reception of His Love…
Barriers, the things that hurt us, the things He took into Himself and into death to free us into His Love… He frees us from things like sin and the dark things in the world, deception, and disbelief… He removes those things from us when we believe. He also gives us the belief in His time.
Believe we are loved by Him… That Jesus came to bring us God’s Love, and in Him we possess the very Life of God, Who is Love.
Jesus resurrected in the Life of the Father. He sent His Spirit to live in us. Our Father brings us into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love. “…so that in ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
This painting shows the Lamb of God, the angels escorting His Spirit into the open Door in the heavens, the transfer of His Life. “Father, receive My Spirit.”
As Jesus is Freedom, and He releases us from anything that prohibits our following Him, I modeled this painting after the Liberty statue, with Emma Lazarus’ poem…” Give Me your tired, your poor,…” and Jesus is the Lamp, the Light, lifted up for all to come to Him.
I painted this in 1996 or 97? using oils on canvas, and bits of gold leaf embedded into the trail of the angels and Spirit. It isn’t as convincing of a work as Nickolai Ge’s “Crucifixion”, but I believe it tells His Story.
Praise the Lord for His loving Grace.
“Taste the goodness of the Lord: welcomed home to His embrace,
all His love, as blood outpoured, seals the pardon of His grace.
Can I doubt His love for me, when I trace that love’s design?
By the cross of Calvary, I am His and He is mine.
His forever, only His – who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what a rest of bliss, Christ can fill the loving heart.
Heav’n and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline,
but while God and I shall be, I am His and He is mine.”
-Wade Robinson (1890)
BOHLENDER ART 