Introduction
The Scriptures speak to us of the
love of God, the
love of the Father, and the
love of Christ. They also
speak of the
love of the brethren, for it is the same love that is found in
those who are born of God as that which is found in the Godhead.
Believers are, as the recipients of the greatest and most precious
promises, “partakers of [the] divine nature” (2 Pet. 1: 4), and the
divine nature is love, for “God is love” (1 John 4: 8). All these
affections then, are divine. However, the direction that Scripture
describes each as taking is not the same. Neither the Father nor the
Son are said to love the world, but God is. The Father is not said
to love the Church, but Christ is. And although believers are spoken
of as loving God and loving Christ, it is love to the brethren that
is the most frequent thought in the NT. All this is full of interest
and instruction.
God’s Love in the
OT
God does not change (see Mal. 3: 6), but God’s
love is not said to have been
manifested in the OT.
Not until the death of Christ was the heart of God fully told out:
“Herein as to us has been manifested the love of God, that God has
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 a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:
9, 10). Some of the expressions of affection for Israel by Jehovah
are extremely touching (see Jer. 31: 3; Hos. 11: 4 etc.) but love is
not the dominant feature of the OT. The way into the holy of holies
had not yet been made manifest (see Heb. 9: 8), and the worshippers
knew nothing of a perfect love that had cast out all fear (see 1
John 4: 18). Certainly the children of Israel were commanded to
“love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy strength” (Deut. 6: 5) but they were “not able to bear
what was enjoined” (Heb. 12: 20), “for the law perfected nothing”
(Heb. 7: 19). What was needed was “the introduction of a better hope
by which we draw nigh to God”. This, in essence, is the Gospel.
The Love of God
John 3: 16 tells us that “God so loved the
world, that he gave his only–begotten Son, that whosoever believes
on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. Here we get God’s
love presented in all its universality and greatness. Elsewhere we
learn that he loved Jacob and hated Esau (see Rom. 9: 13), but here
His heart is towards the kosmos—the world of people—and anyone, “whosoever” who believes, may
enter into blessing. Indeed, God
so loved that He gave
all that divine love
could give: “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered
him up for us all” (Rom. 8: 32). The more we examine these things,
the more wonderful they become. Thus we were loved when we were
unlovable, for “God commends
his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died
for us” (Rom. 5: 8). Again, though “dead in offences” we have been
quickened with Christ, and made to “sit down together in the
heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. Why? Because of God’s “great love
wherewith he loved us”. No wonder that Paul can speak of “the
surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ
Jesus” (Eph. 2: 4–7)!
Once we have “known and have believed the love
which God has to us”, we come to the further realisation that “God
is love” (1 John 4:
16, my emphasis). The statement “God is light” is set against a
background of “in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1: 5), but “God
is love” stands by itself in all its absoluteness. Nor are these
mere abstract thoughts for “he that abides in love abides in God,
and God in him” (1 John 4: 16). All this is very simple, but
profound beyond measure. The believer both dwells in the
immeasurable vastness of God’s love, and has that same love filling
and animating his innermost being. Indeed,
nothing, “shall be
able to separate us from the love of God, which [is] in Christ Jesus
our Lord” (Rom. 8: 38, 39). Unlike earthly relationships, there is
to be no parting from God’s love—it is with us forever. God will see
that it is so, because “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by [the] Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5: 5).
From our side, however, we constantly need to
be reminded of the fountain of our happiness as children of God.
“Bad and evil men” may prevail in the world around us, and it is
easy to become occupied with such things. How necessary then is the
apostle’s prayer “the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God”
(2 Thess. 3: 2, 5) and the later injunction to “keep yourselves in
the love of God” (Jude v21)! Keep in the sunshine, and you will stay
elevated and bright in spirit.
The Love of the
Father
We do not find the thought of sovereignty
connected with the Father’s love like it is with the love of God.
The Father’s love is confined to that in which He finds pleasure.
Pre–eminently, that love is
centred on the Son, the One who was ever the delight of the
Father’s counsels: “For thou lovedst me before [the] foundation of
[the] world” (John 17: 24). Nor do we always find the Father’s love
set upon the same objects as God’s love: God is said to have loved
the world (see John 3: 16)—that is never said of the Father. The
Father has a sphere of His own outside of
which His affections are not said to travel, and which
this present world system
is the antithesis. Hence: “If any one love the world, the love of
the Father is not in him; because all that [is] in the world, the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2: 15, 16). The
Father’s world is centred in the “Son of His love” (Col. 1: 13).
Thus we read that “The Father loves the Son, and has given all
things [to be] in his hand” (John 3: 35). Why was this? It was
because “I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love”
(John 15: 10). Again, “on this account the Father loves me, because
I lay down my life that I may take it again” (John 10: 17). Now if
we can see no further than Christ as God manifest in flesh (see 1
Tim. 3: 16) we really lose what was of delight to the Father in
Christ. What is presented in the Gospels is a dependant
man here fulfilling
the will of God, whose ear was opened morning by morning “to hear as
the instructed” (Is. 50: 4). It was
that man in which the
Father found His delight and satisfaction. There was nothing in the
world that
caused God to love it
apart from the love in His own heart, but there was a reason for the
love of the Father to the Man Christ Jesus. Hence: “This is my
beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” (2 Pet. 1: 17).
Yet there is more: wonder of wonders,
we also are objects of
the Father’s love. It is not merely that we are called to
contemplate the love which the Father has to the Son, but we are to
know
ourselves as objects
of that love: “see what love the Father has given to us, that we
should be called [the] children of God” (1 John 3: 1). But even as
regards us, though so unworthy, this love is not presented in its
sovereign character. If the Father loves us there is a reason why:
“He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me;
but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will
love him and will manifest myself to him” (John 14: 21, my
emphasis). Now God loved you when there was nothing lovable about
you—He loved you because of what was in Himself. But the Father
loves you because He has found something in you in which His heart
has unbounded delight. Here, where His Son has been rejected, you
are found on the Lord’s side, lifting up a feeble testimony in His
favour. And, as thus loving Christ, the love that rests upon Him,
rests upon you: “that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and
[that] thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me” and “And I have
made known to them thy name ... that the love with which thou hast
loved me may be in them and I in them” (John 17: 23, 26). It is thus
a poor representation of the sphere of blessing into which we are
brought as Christians to limit it to being saved from sin and from
judgment. The testimony of Scripture is that the Father chose us in
Christ “before [the] world’s foundation, that we should be holy and
blameless before him
in love” and has
“taken us into favour in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:
4, 6, my emphasis). Furthermore, “If any one love me, he will keep
my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and
make our abode with him” (John 14: 23). What a test! We may know
forgiveness, and, like Martha, we may be busy in what is apparently
service, but what do we know about entertaining in the secret of our
own souls the Father and the Son? And yet this is the Gospel in all
its fullness and reality!
The Love of
Christ
Only once does the Bible say that that the Son
loves the Father, and that, significantly, is in the context of
obedience to His Father’s will: “but that the world may know that I
love the Father,
and as the Father has
commanded me, thus I do” (John 14: 31, my emphasis). A
similar thought is suggested by the Hebrew bondman of Exod. 21: 5
and by what is said prophetically of the Lord in Ps. 40: 8: “To do
thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my
heart”. The overwhelming majority of Scriptures, however, speak of a
love directed towards His own. Yes, He was “moved with compassion”
(Matt. 9: 36) for the crowds, and “loved” the rich young ruler (Mark
10: 21), but the love of Christ, as presented in Scripture, is
predominantly directed towards those who belong to Him. Thus “even
as the Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up
for it” (Eph. 5: 25). The assembly belongs to God (see Gal. 1: 13;
etc.), but it is Christ who is said to
love it.
The Lord Jesus has proved His love for His own
by dying in their place. It was a love that would do
all for its objects, for “no one has greater love than this,
that one should lay down his life for his friends” (John 15: 13). No
wonder the same writer can later exclaim “To him who loves us, and
has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom,
priests to his God and Father: to him [be] the glory and the might
to the ages of ages. Amen” (Rev. 1: 5, 6)! This supreme act of love
is frequently used as a lever on the hearts of those for whom He
died in order to cause them to love one another, for we are to “walk
in love, even as the Christ loved us, and delivered himself up for
us” (Eph. 5: 2). Again: “Hereby we have known love, because
he has laid down his life for us; and
we ought for the brethren to lay down [our] lives. But whoso may
have the world’s substance, and see his brother having need, and
shut up his bowels from him, how abides the love of God in him?
Children, let us not love with word, nor with tongue, but in deed
and in truth” (1 John 3: 16–18).
Paul makes the love of Christ intensely
personal when he speaks of “the Son of God, who has loved me and
given himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20). Indeed, it is “the love of
Christ” itself which “constrains us” to be active here for Him, for,
as conscious of that love, we “no longer live” to ourselves, “but to
him who died” for us (2 Cor. 5: 14, 15). And this love is made all
the more remarkable when we consider how much there is in each of us
to test it. Among His twelve disciples there was dull–wittedness,
ignorance, rivalry, desertion and denial. Would His love bear such a
strain? Yes, for “having loved his own who were in the world” He
“loved them to the end” (John 13: 1).
The “love of the Christ” is beyond our
comprehension for it “surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3: 19), and yet it
is our privilege as Christians to be
consciously in the
enjoyment of it. Certainly, nothing can ever separate us from His
love (see Rom. 8: 35), but the way to full blessing is through
obedience, and in this, the model, as ever, is the Lord:
“As the Father has loved me, I also have
loved you: abide in my love. If ye shall keep my commandments, ye
shall abide in my love, as I have kept my Father’s commandments and
abide in his love.
I have spoken these things to you that
my joy may be in you, and your joy be full” (John 15: 9–11). This
joy is not dimmed by adverse circumstances. Whatever the
tribulations and trials of the Christian pathway—“for whom [the]
Lord loves he chastens” (Heb. 12: 6)—“we more than conquer through
him that has loved us” (Rom. 8: 37).
The Love of the
Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is never presented in Scripture
as exercising love, nor is He ever brought before us as a
distinct object of our
love. Some may be perplexed by this, but it is entirely in keeping
with the subjective position He has taken up in relation to the
believer. Thus the fruit of the Spirit in the believer is “love,
joy, peace …” (Gal. 5: 22). Again, Paul commends the Colossians for
their “love
in” (not to) “[the]
Spirit” (Col. 1: 8, my emphasis), and he beseeches the Romans “by
the love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15: 30)—that is, by the animating
power given to the Christian. It is the Holy Spirit that works in
the saints through God’s Word so that they are “taught of God to
love one another” (1 Thess. 4: 9). Indeed, it must be so, because
“the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by [the] Holy Spirit”
(Rom. 5: 5).
The Love of the
Brethren
This love of the saints to one another is no
less divine than is the love of the Father and the Son, and is one
of the great distinguishing marks of
true Christians (hence
the emphasis in John’s writings, who wrote late, when sham
Christianity was expanding rapidly): “This is my commandment, that
ye love one another, as I have loved you … These things I command
you, that ye love one another … He who says he is in the light, and
hates his brother, is in the darkness until now. He that loves his
brother abides in light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in
him … Whoever does not practise righteousness is not of God, and he
who does not love his brother. For this is the message which ye have
heard from the beginning, that we should love one another …
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the
brethren. He who does not love [his] brother abides in death ... And
this is his commandment, that we believe on the name of his Son
Jesus Christ, and that we love one another … Beloved, let us love
one another; because love is of God, and every one that loves has
been begotten of God, and knows God. He that loves not has not known
God; for God is love … If any one say, I love God, and hate his
brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has
seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment
have we from him, That he that loves God love also his brother”
(John 15: 12, 17; 1 John 2: 9, 10; 3: 10, 11, 14, 23; 4: 7, 8, 20,
21). Love in this context is not mere natural affection, but what is
produced in the heart by divine working. It is just as
unnatural to love God’s people in this way as it is not natural
to love God and to love Christ. Thus “Every one that believes that
Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God; and everyone that loves him
that has begotten
loves also him that is
begotten of him” (1 John 5: 1, my emphasis). This is not
mere amiability, for the apostle then goes on to say that “Hereby
know we that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep
his commandments” (v2). We
do not serve our brethren well when we sacrifice truth for
friendship or fellowship. Thus “whoever keeps his word, in him
verily the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2: 5). Again, “this is
love, that we should walk according to his commandments” (2 John v6)
There are remarkably few references that speak
of our love to Christ (for example, Eph. 6: 24; 1 Pet. 1: 8; 1 John
4: 19), and the reason is that our love
to Him is demonstrated
by our love
to His brethren. Hence
all shall “know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love among
yourselves” (John 13: 35). Again, when the Lord questions Peter’s
love for Him (see John 21: 15–17), He puts all on the basis of how
Peter will care for those of the Lord’s flock. Nor is it sufficient
to love
some of God’s people,
for our love is to extend to “all the saints (Eph. 1: 15, my emphasis; see also Col. 1: 4;
Philemon v 5). Indeed, it cannot be otherwise, for it is “the whole
body” that must be built “up in love” (Eph. 4: 16). I do not deny
that there are practical difficulties associated with this, but
nonetheless, the fact remains that this is what Scripture enjoins.
Again, our love is not to be half–hearted or desultory but fervent
(see 1 Pet. 1: 22; 4: 8), abounding and abundant (see 2 Cor. 2: 4;
8: 7; 1 Thess. 3: 12; 2 Thess. 1: 3). Indeed, we are instructed “Let
all things ye do be
done in love” (1 Cor. 16: 14, my emphasis), to be “rooted and
founded in love” (Eph. 3: 17), to “follow after love” (1 Cor. 14:
1), and even to pursue it (see 1 Tim. 6: 11; 2 Tim. 2: 22). There
may be much to try us in our brethren, but we are to bear “with one
another in love” (Eph. 4: 2) for “love covers a multitude of sins”
(1 Pet. 4: 8), and we are to hold the truth “in love” (Eph. 4: 15).
Indeed, following the apostle’s example, we ought to spend and be
utterly spent for their souls, even if in loving them we are less
loved (see 2 Cor. 12: 15). Of course it is easy to put on a pious
show when the reality is otherwise, but our love must be unfeigned
and genuine (see Rom. 12: 9; 2 Cor. 6: 6; 8: 8), and instead of
biting and devouring one another, we need to “consider one another
for provoking to love and good works” (Heb. 10: 24).
Conclusion
The subject of divine love is a vast one, but
our space is limited, and we must close. Soon faith will give way to
sight, and hope will be realised, but divine love will roll on
unchanged and unchanging. It has been active
towards us, and active
in us, and will
animate us forever in that scene to come where God will rest in His
love (see Zeph. 3: 17).
Beloved brethren, may
our heads be bowed in worship, our hearts stirred in love, and our
hands moved into activity for Him as we consider these wonderful
things!
