God Is Love: July 2012
Table of Contents
God Is Love
It is the will of God that we be a vessel of His love. He wishes to fill our hearts with His love, full to overflowing. We are to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that we may be filled even to all the fullness of God. He has, by new birth, imparted to us the divine nature that we may be able to know His love and that He may fulfill His heart’s desire to fill us with His fullness. He is the only source of His love; there is no other. All comes from Him. Our Lord Jesus lovingly exhorts us to abide in His love. We are to allow nothing of darkness to have a place in our heart and so hinder the constant inflow of God’s love. Sin interrupts communion; it stops the free flow of love to us. When this happens, the Spirit cannot occupy us with the love of God in Christ, but must deal with our conscience to judge and remove that which keeps us from abiding in His love. The love of God is profound, beyond understanding, but not beyond knowing. May each of us find that “joy in God” which takes our hearts above every present circumstance and gives us a present enjoyment of what is our eternal portion, dwelling in the love of God and God dwelling in our hearts.
Divine Love
Divine love is perfect — not our love to Him, but His love to us. “Not that we loved God, but that He loved us.” Yet we do love, because we are born of God, for “every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). Divine love embraced us in our worst and lowest state, when in our sins, rebellious and far from Him. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Let us never forget that His love then was first and the only source of love in us, for “love is of God.”
Love Met Us Where We Were
Divine love has come out in all its perfectness, in having most blessedly met us, in the deepest depths of our sinfulness, in the Person and work of His only-begotten Son. He not only came where we were and loved us as we were, but in His atoning work on the cross He did all that God’s righteousness demanded and all that such sinners of the Gentiles needed to make us forever happy in the presence of God. In unspeakable grace, He fully met the just judgment due to us as sinners, perfectly satisfied all the righteous requirements of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, purged our sins, glorified the Father, triumphed over our foes — death, Satan and the grave — and now gives us the victory. Thus are we set free forever by divine, perfect love.
Love Takes Us Where He Is
The love of God is perfect, too, in having given us Christ’s place in the heavenlies. Not only are we called unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, but He has given us now the highest possible standing, even in Him who is in the very glory of God. We are a new creation in Christ, accepted in Him, blessed in Him, in heavenly places, even in Him, in whom dwells “the fullness of the Godhead bodily” and who is “the Head of all principality and power.”
Love Makes Us Complete in Him
Divine love has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And in Him we are “complete” — filled to the full in Him. This God has done. It is our present standing as not in the flesh, but in Christ Jesus. Wondrous blessedness! We are in Christ, and Christ is in us, our hope of glory. While consciously standing in the full and changeless favor of God, we wait for His Son from heaven; we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. His perfect love encircles us in Christ. We are always seen by Him in all the acceptability and nearness of Christ Himself — the ascended, glorified man Christ Jesus. Thus we are loved divinely, perfectly, unchangeably. Divine love has given us the same place as Christ.
Loved As the Son Is Loved
We are also brought into the same relationship with the Father as Christ. We are sons of God and loved with the same love. Was He loved by the Father perfectly and unchangeably? Then are we; and this He would have us now enjoy. He said to the Father, “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). Again, He said, “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me” (John 17:23). Thus we can truly say, “The love wherewith He loves the Son, such is His love to Me.”
The Son’s Love to Us
And in sweet and precious harmony with the Father’s perfect love to us, we find the Son saying, “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you,” and with this all His ways toward us agree, both in His life and in His death. There was no selfishness in Him. We never find Him doing anything for Himself. He pleased not Himself. He so loved us that He desired that we should enjoy everything with Him, be where He is, and reign with Him. Even now He would have us participate in His own peace and joy. He said not only, “Peace I leave with you,” that is, peace of conscience as to sins and salvation, peace with God, but He added, “My peace I give unto you.” He would have us, while passing through this scene of sorrow and trial, share His own calm, unperturbed, unruffled peace in our hearts and thoughts and share His joy also, for, when commending His own loved ones to the Father, He said, “These things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). And as to glory, He will share that with us also, for He said to the Father, “The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one” (John 17:22).
The Holy Spirit
And wonderful as all these actions of divine love are, it is perfect also as to our present endowments. Besides the full revelation of the whole counsel of God in the written Word, the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter, has come, and that not as a transient visitor, but to abide with us forever. The same divine person who came down upon the spotless Son of God and abode upon Him, because of the perfectness of His person, has, consequent upon an accomplished redemption, indwelt forever those who have remission of sins and who thus become cleansed vessels in whom He could take up His abode. Thus, the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, is in us as the seal and earnest of the inheritance, to guide us into all truth, to glorify Christ and testify of Him, to make us know the things which are freely given to us of God, to shed abroad His love in our hearts, to produce in us thoughts, affections and feelings suited to children of God, and to raise the cry within us of “Abba Father” and also of “Come, Lord Jesus,” for “the Spirit and the bride say, Come!” It is by the Holy Spirit too that we know that the Lord Jesus is a divine person and that we are united to Him, as He said, “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). Having made us perfect as to the conscience, being purged by the blood of Christ, so that we might have no more conscience of sins, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and by Him united to Christ who is at the right hand of God, our life, righteousness and peace.
Christ Our High Priest
Nor does that blessed One who loved us and gave Himself for us love us less because He is gone to the Father, for there He sustains the most important offices for us, which only perfect love could. As our High Priest He sustains us in temptation, sympathizes with our infirmities, and ever lives to intercede for us according to our need, so that He may carry us through every difficulty and save us as saints right on to the end. As the Bishop or Overseer of our souls, nothing escapes His eye, and there is no emergency or difficulty for which He is not sufficient. As the great Shepherd of the sheep, each is an object of His constant interest and care. He feeds, He guards, He seeks, He finds, He keeps, He restores, and He heals! The feeble and burdened He specially cares for; the young and helpless He carries in His bosom. As our Advocate with the Father, He takes up our cause if we sin, so that our communion with the Father may be restored; so that, as His servants, we might have part with Him, He cleanses the defilement we may have contracted, with the washing of water by the Word.
Love Perfected in Us
Thus “perfect love” has met us in every respect; He could not love us more, and He will not love us less. His love is “perfected in us,” by the indwelling of God, for nothing could be greater in us than God. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” His love too is perfected with us, in giving us the same place, same relationship, same life, same standing, and same nearness as Christ Himself, “so that as He is, so are we in this world.” “Herein is our love made perfect [or has love been perfected with us] that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:17-19). Thus the Father loves us as He loved His Son, and when we are consciously in the circle of His love, dwelling in love, we dwell in God and God in us: “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).
Things New & Old, adapted
God Is Love
It is very important to enter into the truth, not only that love is of God and that He dwells in us who believe, but to understand that the love is the character of God Himself. “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). This is something exceedingly beautiful to those who know it, and “he that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:8).
What the Spirit of God speaks of in this epistle of John, as to our relationship with the Father, is surpassingly marvelous; God sent His Son that we might have life — a life that brings us into direct connection with the Father and the Son. Not only am I a son, but, being born of God, I have a new nature, and He tells me I am in His Son, who was before all worlds, and He in me. Think what a place He sees me in, and, mark, all God’s springs are in Himself. He saw nothing in man but hatred. It was love, divine love, that led Him to give His Son, and it was love that led that Son to come into this world. He puts this same love into the heart of him that tastes it. It is love that brings us into the presence of God Himself, a love that communicates the life of His Son to those dead in trespasses and sins, and they have a life that is locked up in the Son and never can be touched. Is it true that you can say, “That is the manner of life I have received — life hid with Christ in God”? If Christ Himself is my life, it links me up with Him, in whom is the whole bundle of life. The Head cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of thee.” It cannot say to the feeblest member, passing through the difficulties and sorrows of the wilderness down here, “I have no need of thee.” Why? Because it is bound up in the same bundle of life. Not only is that life brought out in all beauty in Him, who was with the Father, but that life has been communicated by the Father to us and is so in us that Christ cannot say He has no need of us.
Life With Him
Did you ever look up into the face of the Lord Jesus Christ with the consciousness of having one life with Him? If so, you cannot entertain a single question about the place you are in before God. In Eden all was very beautiful, and, looking around, man might have said, “What a large giver God is!” But surely we can say with deeper feeling, “What a blessed giver our God is!”
That life has flowed for over eighteen hundred years into the dead souls of sinners, and when we look, we find it has connected us with another scene altogether. We may say, I am very unlike Him whose life I have, but it is not a question of what you are, but of a portion that has flowed to you from the Father. Those whom God has given to Christ are so connected with Him, that the love wherewith He is loved is in them, and they are able to walk in the power of His life, unto His praise and glory, as dear children. Neither you nor I can say, “We love God with all our hearts and souls,” but we can say, “He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” If I begin with self, there is nothing but ruin. “Herein is love,” God says, “not your love to Me, but Mine to you; turn your eye to Christ, to see how I loved you and gave My Son for you.”
We Love Because He First
Loved Us
God cannot receive anything from a ruined creature, because it comes with a taint of sin and selfishness, but as accepted ones in the Beloved, is it not an expression of His love to put it into our heart to say, “We love Him, because He first loved us”? All the ruin and sin of the first Adam became the very occasion for all the love of God to flow out. If able to say, “I am a believer and a pilgrim,” I ought to be able to say, “I know what manner of love God has bestowed upon me.” The real claim of God’s love over them is never answered by the children of God, if they are not standing in it as the expression of it.
I am in a world where all are scrambling after what they can get for self. When Christ says, “I bought you with My own blood; I charged Myself with all your guilt,” are we to do or say anything that is not for the glory of that Christ? If God is working in us, having given us life in His Son, and says, “Now I am looking to see you walk like Christ,” are we never to think of His side? He alone is the channel by which God can bless you and answer every desire of your heart. “God is love,” but it is in and through Christ that He is this for us.
G. V. Wigram, adapted
God’s Nature
In 1 John 4:7-14, the three tests of true Christianity are distinctly laid down, developing the fullness and intimacy of our relationships with a God of love and maintaining that participation of nature in which love is of God. He who loves is born of God, partakes therefore of His nature, and knows Him as partaking of His nature. He who loves not does not know God. We must possess the nature that loves in order to know what love is. He then who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Such a person has not one sentiment in connection with the nature of God; how then can he know Him? He can do so no more than an animal can know what a man’s mind and understanding is when he does not have it.
The eternal life which was with the Father has been manifested and has been imparted to us; thus we are partakers of the divine nature. The affections of that nature acting in us rest by the power of the Holy Spirit in the enjoyment of communion with God, who is its source; we dwell in Him and He in us. The actions of this nature prove that He dwells in us. The first thing is the statement of the truth, that if we thus love, God Himself dwells in us; He who works this love is there. But He is infinite, and the heart rests in Him; we know at the same time that we dwell in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit. But this passage, so rich in blessing, demands that we should follow it with order.
Love Is of God
He begins with the fact that love is of God. It is His nature; He is its source. Therefore he who loves is born of God — is a partaker of His nature. Also, he knows God, for he knows what love is, and God is its fullness. This is the doctrine which makes everything depend on our participation in the divine nature.
Now this might be transformed on the one hand into mysticism, by leading us to fix our attention on our love for God, as if it were said, Love is God, not God is love, or to doubt, on the other hand, because we do not find the effects of the divine nature in us as we would like. But if I seek to know it and have the proof of it, it is not to the existence of the nature in us that the Spirit of God directs the thoughts of the believers as their object. God, He has said, is love, and this love has been manifested towards us in that He has given His only Son that we might live through Him. The proof is not the life in us, but that God has given His Son in order that we might live, and further to make propitiation for our sins. God be praised! We know this love, not by the poor results of its action in ourselves, but in its perfection in God, and that even in a manifestation of it towards us, which is wholly outside ourselves. It is a fact outside ourselves which is the manifestation of this perfect love. We enjoy it by participating in the divine nature; we know it by the infinite gift of God’s Son.
The Proof of Love
It is striking to see how the Holy Spirit, in an epistle which is essentially occupied with the life of Christ and its fruits, gives the proof and full character of love in that which is wholly without ourselves. Nor can anything be more perfect than the way in which the love of God is here set forth, from the time it is occupied with our sinful state till we stand before the judgment-seat. God has thought of all: love towards us as sinners (vss. 9-10), in us as saints (vs. 12), and perfect in our condition in view of the day of judgment (vs. 11). In the first verses the love of God is manifested in the gift of Christ; first, to give us life — we were dead; second, to make propitiation — we were guilty. Our whole case is taken up. In the second of these verses, the great principle of grace, what love is, where and how known, is clearly stated in words of infinite importance as to the very nature of Christianity. “Herein is love, not that we have loved God [that was the principle of the law], but in that He has loved us, and has given His Son to make propitiation for our sins.” Here then it is that we have learned what love is. It was perfect in Him when we had no love for Him; perfect in Him, in that He exercised it towards us when we were in our sins and sent His Son to be the propitiation for them. The Apostle then affirms, no doubt, that he who loves not knows not God. The pretension to possess this love is judged by this means, but in order to know love, we must not seek for it in ourselves, but we must seek it manifested in God when we had none. He gives the life which loves, and He has made propitiation for our sins.
The Enjoyment of Love
And now with regard to the enjoyment and the privileges of this love, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God dwells in us. His presence, Himself dwelling in us, rises in the excellency of His nature above all the barriers of circumstances and attaches us to those who are His. It is God in the power of His nature which is the source of thought and feeling, and diffuses itself among those in whom it is. One can understand this. How is it that I love strangers from another land, persons of different habits, whom I have never known, more intimately than members of my own family after the flesh? How is it that I have thoughts in common, affections powerfully engaged, a stronger bond with persons whom I have never seen than with the otherwise dear companions of my childhood? It is because there is in them and in me a source of thoughts and affections which is not human. God is in it; God dwells in us. His love is perfected in us. We know Him as love, and there is the enjoyment of divine love in our souls.
God Dwells in Us
The Apostle has not yet said, “We know that we dwell in Him.” He will say it now. But if the love of the brethren is in us, God dwells in us. When it is in exercise, we are conscious of the presence of God, as perfect love in us. It fills the heart and thus is exercised in us. Now this consciousness is the effect of the presence of His Spirit as the source and power of life and nature in us. He has given us, not “His Spirit,” the proof that He dwells in us, but “of His Spirit.” We participate in divine affections through the presence of the Spirit in us, and thus we not only know that He dwells in us, but the presence of the Spirit, acting in a nature which is that of God in us, makes us conscious that we dwell in Him. He is the infiniteness and perfection of that which is now in us.
The heart rests in this and enjoys Him and is hidden from all that is outside Him, in the consciousness of the perfect love in which (thus dwelling in Him) one finds oneself. The Spirit makes us dwell in God and gives us thus the consciousness that He dwells in us. Thus we, in the savor and consciousness of the love that was in it, can testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
J. N. Darby
Love and Grace
In the minds of many, these terms are interchangeable, but that is erroneous. Love is meant to be reciprocal, but grace is unilateral. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God is love; that is a description of what God is. It would be incongruous to say, “God is grace.” He is gracious, the God of grace, the giving God, but grace is not reciprocal; it acts only in one way, that is, from God to man. God was manifested as the God of grace in giving His Son, but obviously grace cannot flow in return from man to God, although there is a further transmission of grace to those around, from those receiving it. So the Epistle to the Ephesians closes with the invocation that grace (that of the Lord Jesus Christ) may be with every true Christian. Originally that grace flows from God, and after permeating the individual Christians, it overflows and forms the medium between them, but it does not stop there; it goes outside the Christian sphere to the strangers around! What proceeds out of the Christian’s mouth should be good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearer; that will reach farther than only to Christians (Eph. 4:29).
The love which subsisted reciprocally between the Father and the Son before time continued while the Son was here and is the same now in His place of exaltation. But grace could not be, until there was the need of man in consequence of the entrance of sin. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” The reign of sin unto death is superseded by the reign of grace unto eternal life, on account of righteousness having been accomplished by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5:20-21). The reign of grace has the object of bringing man into the enjoyment of the love of God. The reign of grace will terminate when righteousness becomes dominant in the world to come. Grace removes every hindrance to that end and breaks down all opposition to the authority of the Lord. Who could have predicted the reduction of Saul of Tarsus from the state of an overbearing Pharisee to that of a humble worker in God’s service? Grace will then have served its purpose, but love will continue. God will ultimately rest in His love. He will rejoice over a redeemed creation which He will have brought to rest in His love. But there is a present aspect for the Christian. The appropriation of that love is hindered by fear or apprehension! “Perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment.” “Herein is love [with us] made perfect [or complete] in order that we may have boldness [confidence] in [or in view of] the day of judgment, because as He is so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17-18). “As He is” implies being in the atmosphere of love which envelops the Father and the Son. It is not “so shall we be” but “so are we” in this world. If we realize that we are loved as Christ is loved, can we have any apprehension as to the present or the future?
T. Oliver, adapted
The Manner of the Love of Jesus
Throughout the years of the Old Testament, God was showing His rich mercy, but all this was done with a certain distance and reserve, God remaining still in His own sanctuary, though He was thus gracious. He met the need of a sinner, but He was still in the temple, in the holiest of all. He met the need of His people in the desert, but it was by remaining still in heaven. He met the disease of a poor leper, but it was only after such a leper had been separated, outside the camp. In each case there was a style in the action that spoke of distance from the object of His love and goodness.
God Near Us
The Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, is seen doing the same works of divine love and power, but there is altogether another style in those same actions; the reserve — the distance — is gone. We see God, not withdrawn into the holiest, but abroad in this ruined world. He pardons, but He stands beside the sinner to do it. He feeds, but He is at the very table with those that are fed. He heals, but He puts forth His hands on as many as were diseased. And there is in this a “glory that excelleth,” so that the former has no glory by reason of it. How we should bless Him for this display of Himself! It is the same God of love and power in both, but He has increased in the brightness of His manifestations.
The religious rulers tried to keep God and the people separate, for it was a great interference with them; it trespassed on their places. “Who can forgive sins but God only?” — and to them, God was in heaven. The Son of Man forgiving sins on earth was a sad disturbance of that by which they lived in credit and plenty in the world. But whether they received it or not, this was the way of the Son on earth. He encouraged the happy and confident approach of all needy ones to Him. He brought the blessing home to every man’s door.
Faith That Understood
He came into the world to be used by sick and needy sinners, and the faith that understood and used Him accordingly was its due answer. We see this in the action of those who, breaking up the roof, let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay “into the midst before Jesus.” There was no ceremoniousness in this — nothing of the ancient reserve of the temple. It was a strong expression of faith and according to the mind of Jesus, so that, on seeing their faith, without further to do, His heart uttered itself in an expression as full and strong: “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”
Happy faith which can thus break down partition walls! In the lively, happy impression of this truth through the Spirit, the soul tastes something of heaven. What blessedness to know that this is the way of God our Saviour! It is only divine love that can account for it. But the rulers did not like it. Their interest and credit in the world would keep the forgiveness of sins still in the hand of Him who was in heaven.
But even in our day, much occasion has been given for this principle to live and act just as vigorously. There may have been the assertion of grace and the presenting of the marvelous condescending grace of the dispensation, but those who have asserted it have not carried themselves towards it and in the presence of it, with that reverence, that holiness of confidence, which alone became them. And this has given man’s religiousness occasion to revive.
The Old Religion
Many are doing what they can to withdraw the Lord to that place which He has forever abandoned. They are making Him appear to build again the things which He had destroyed. While they would protect the holiness of Christ, they obscure His grace. They are seeking to do a service for Him that grieves Him most deeply. They are teaching man that He is an austere Master; they withdraw Him to the place where it is felt to be a fearful thing to plant one’s foot.
But religiousness is neither faith nor righteousness. With the Pharisees it was adopted as a relief for a bad conscience or a cover for evil; in them it was, therefore, opposed to faith. During His earthly ministry, the Lord sought to lead man away from their own reasonings and calculations, to Himself and His works. How simple! How precious! And on this hangs the grand distinction between faith and religiousness. Man’s religion gives the soul many a serious thought about itself and many a devout thought about God. But God’s religion gives the soul Jesus and the works and words of Jesus.
J. G. Bellett, adapted
The Present Love of God
“The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of the Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5 JND).
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” So runs the witness of Romans 5:5. It is God’s own love to us, not our love to Him — love that towers high above all earthly love, however great. The love of friend for friend may be wonderful, as was the love of Jonathan for David, and the love of a mother for her child is tender and unwearying, but the love of God to us — His own love — is incomparably greater and is all the more beautiful, in that there was nothing in us to call it forth. He loved us when we were sinners and gave His Son to die for us. Never can we doubt that love as we gaze upon the cross. Love emptied itself there. It gave its all for us — for you, for me.
Unbelief in God’s Love
What an answer is this to Satan’s lie in the Garden of Eden! There he succeeded in persuading Eve that God withheld something that would be for her good to have. Oh, what a harvest of sorrow and tears and anguish and death has followed that disbelief of God’s love! But that love, suspected and disbelieved in Eden, has displayed itself at Calvary. How? He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. There we learn the mighty, measureless love of God.
And this perfect love casts out fear. It must of necessity do so, for how could we be afraid of One who loves us with perfect love? Now God’s love is perfect, and withal holy, for He has taken cognizance of our sins and shown His love in the very thing that has put those sins away. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
We would not wish God to think lightly of our sins, nor would He, if such were our wish. God abhors sin, and it is our joy and rest to see that all that was due to us and to our sins has been borne by God’s own Son. The cross has put our sins away forever, and in accents solemn and yet clear and sweet it tells us God is light and God is love.
Ample Provision
But has that love which thought of our deep spiritual need and made such ample provision for it in Christ withdrawn its eyes from us, not caring to behold us more till we are seen in glory? Oh, no! The very hairs of our head are all numbered. And if not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, are we not of more value than many sparrows?
It is into the present love of God — the love that cares for us today — that our hearts need to be directed, for it is there they may find rest, and nowhere else. We know no yesterday but the cross and no tomorrow but the glory, but then there is today — the wilderness and the things that surely come upon us there.
The Power of God
The power of God, like His love, is infinite. He is able to make the rough places smooth and never to suffer a thorn to pierce our foot. And the knowledge of God’s power is the very door by which Satan often seeks to insinuate into the mind a doubt as to God’s love. The soul reasons thus: “If God loves me with a Father’s love, why does He not do this or that for me? Why do my prayers remain so long unanswered?”
Ah, it is not because God does not love you that the answer to prayer is sometimes slow in coming, and sometimes the answer is not what you wished for. God has lessons to teach, which would never be learned if our will guided His hand. How much the beloved family at Bethany would have missed if Lazarus had not been suffered to go down to the grave! And what a loss for Paul if the thorn in the flesh had been taken away in answer to his thrice-repeated prayer!
There are many things that may remain a mystery to us on earth. How often the life, which to our view seemed so necessary, is taken away, while one that might have been more easily spared, is left to linger on year after year. God does not explain all this to us. He does not tell us His reasons, but He asks us to confide in His wisdom and His love. Let us have patience. The night will soon be gone, and in the morning light of that endless day we will see what is now hidden from our eyes.
And if the past could be blotted out and we could begin life’s journey afresh and God were to ask us whether we would choose our own path and fill it up as it seemed best to us or whether He would choose for us, would we not put it into His hand for Him to choose and lead?
The Patience of God
This is the time of His patience. He is seated on His Father’s throne, but He does not yet have His bride. He waits in patience to see the fruit of the travail of His soul. Nor does He have the world kingdom now, but He who said, “Sit Thou on My right hand,” also said, “Till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). Hence He waits in patience now; this is now the “kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9). Soon it will be the kingdom and glory of Jesus Christ. And before then we shall be ushered into His presence in bodies of glory like unto His. What a scene of unutterable joy and delight!
Then from those cloudless heights we shall look back and remember “all the way the Lord thy God hath led thee.” Then thou shalt see that the hand that ordered everything was a Father’s hand and that His way was better than thy way. Rest in His love, lean on His bosom, till the day break and the shadows flee away.
Christian Truth, 13:326, adapted
Love Returned
It is a well-known truth that Scripture never occupies us with our love to Christ, but rather with His love to us. Some of us well remember an old brother, long since with the Lord, who used to remind us, “Never try to love the Lord any more than you do; just think of how much He loves you!” This is important, for occupation with self in any way, except to judge ourselves, does not honor God and is not the path of blessing.
However, there are a number of Scriptures that, while not occupying us with our love to Christ, would remind us of how much He appreciates any response in our hearts to His love. One very precious incident concerns Mary of Bethany, when she anointed the Lord before He went to the cross. The account is most explicit in John 12:1-9, but the accounts in Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14:3-9 are very likely the same occasion, although Mary is not named; she is simply identified as “a woman.” Perhaps this would show us that the privilege of such an act of worship is not limited to Mary, but could be performed by any devoted believer.
It will be recalled that Mary was the one (Luke 10:39) who sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. Likewise, she was the one who was most in the current of God’s thoughts when her brother Lazarus died (John 11). When it came time for the Lord to go to the cross, again it is she who understands, perhaps more than any other, what was going to happen. It is she who responds with real devotedness and, more than this, according to the mind of God.
The Ointment of Spikenard
Apparently it was customary for young, unmarried girls of that day to try to acquire some of the expensive ointment of spikenard (or nard) to be kept until they used it on their wedding day. It was very costly, as it was grown in the Himalayas and had to be imported. The price mentioned in Scripture would represent approximately a year’s wages for a laboring man. It was sometimes mixed with olive oil, and the bride would use it as a perfume. It is mentioned several times in the Song of Solomon in this connection.
It is likely that Mary was initially reserving her pound of this ointment for the day when she might marry, but when she saw her Lord and Master about to die, she used all of it to anoint Him instead. In her act of doing so, she recognized the Lord Jesus in His two distinctive characters — as the rightful King and as the sacrifice for sin. Because she knew Him to be the rightful King, it is recorded in Matthew and Mark that she anointed His head; because she knew He would suffer for sin in His humiliation, it is recorded in John that she anointed His feet. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). While the disciples might not understand when the Lord told them He must suffer and die and while Judas (and perhaps others) might complain of the waste of the ointment, Mary understood fully who the Lord was and what He must do. Her act exhibited both spiritual intelligence and heartfelt devotedness.
The Value of Her Act
When objections to Mary’s act were made, the Lord defends her in a touching way. The poor were always present, and none felt for them as did the Lord. There would always be ample opportunity to help them. But here was an occasion that would not present itself again, and Mary had seized that opportunity. The Lord’s response to her is most touching and encouraging, for it shows how much He valued her act. He says, “In that she hath poured this ointment on My body, she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her” (Matt. 26:12-13).
The gospel of the grace of God was about to be preached, as the blessed result of the Lord’s work on the cross. The love of God was to be shown out at the cross as never before and the heart of God revealed as it had not been in the Old Testament. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). What would be man’s response? Sad to say, many would spurn God’s offer of mercy and prefer to remain in their sins. But even more sad, those who would accept it and be brought into eternal blessing with Christ would sometimes fail to appreciate the cost involved. All too often we who are the Lord’s tend to react like the nine lepers in Luke 17, who enjoyed their healing, but had no heart to return and give thanks.
The Display of Deepest Gratitude
Mary’s act would not necessarily be used as a gospel testimony to lost sinners; rather, it would be mentioned because her appreciation of the person of the Lord Jesus and the depth of His love for her called out from her the deepest gratitude. His love, enjoyed in her heart, caused her to give what was perhaps the most precious possession she had, in order to show her appreciation of His love.
Her act was individual, but it was done in the presence of others, and it is thus perhaps a picture of the remembrance of the Lord, which He later instituted. The ointment was poured on Him and was for Him, yet we read that “the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12:3). Our worship is not for ourselves; properly, it flows up to God through Christ. But all who are present will feel the preciousness of it, for all that Christ is and all that He has done will overflow for our enjoyment too.
The Lord Jesus was God, but He was a perfect man too, with all the thoughts and feelings natural to a man, “yet without sin.” He remains a man in the glory and appreciates any small response of our hearts to His love. The enjoyment of His love in our hearts will surely produce this, for “we love because He has first loved us” (1 John 4:19 JND).
W. J. Prost
The Love of Christ
Many Christians spend much of their lives desiring the love of Christ, and still more in desiring to love Christ. “Draw me, we will run after Thee” (Song of Sol. 1:4). Here is love to Christ, but a sense of distance. “Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?” (Song of Sol. 1:7). Such expressions as these in the Song of Solomon express the state of many a soul now, as well as they describe the condition of the remnant of Israel in days to come. How many of us have felt a well-known line in a hymn suit the real state of our souls: “Oh, draw me, Saviour, after Thee,” and may have wondered why a dear servant of the Lord should have altered it to, “Lord, Thou hast drawn me after Thee.” Is not the difference immense?
The difference would not be greater than if you saw a child looking eagerly through a shop window at various kinds of delicious fruit within. Yes, that child loves grapes and pears and plums and greatly desires them, but not one does it enjoy; it is outside, and they are all inside. A kind hand opens the door, and a loving voice says, Come in, my child. Freely I give you all. Eat and enjoy whatever is for your good. How real the difference between the desire of that child and the enjoyment of the fruit! And has not that One with the wounded hands opened the door? “He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love” (Song of Sol. 2:4).
Some make a very common mistake, thinking that we must love Him more, and more, and more, until at last we may hope to arrive at this banquet of love. It is not so; it is not an act of our own. “He brought me to the banqueting house.” Oh, how tenderly He led me with those wounded hands to the banquet of love! But must it not be our love to Him that makes the banquet of love? No — “His banner over me was love.”
Abiding in His Love
It is quite true in another sense that we need constantly His power to keep us and guide us through this wilderness. But “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Yes, He has not only brought us into the banquet of love and spread His banner over us, but this is our dwelling place. The banner of love ever floats over us. The fruit is ever sweet; the perfect rest is ever secure. Never can He cease to love or intercede for those whose sins He bore.
There is no effort to love; all is deep, perfect, full enjoyment. “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love” (John 15:9). Surely then He could not love us more! We have not to keep His commandments to cause Him to love us, but to abide in His 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 15:10). He would not have us remain outside in the continual disappointment of mere desire, but come into the banquet of full joy in the everlasting possession of His love, with the conscience purged and in perfect repose, through His precious blood. His love to us has been displayed to the utmost. We cannot desire God to love us more than He does, for nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
The Desire to Love
But we may say, “Ought I not to desire to love God?” How plain the answer! If we know and believe this wondrous love of God to us, we will love Him, because He first loved us. As the children of God, we have the nature of our Father, and He is love. Would it not be a strange child that desired to love its parent? And the love of God leads us to delight to keep His commandments. It is the very outflow of the new nature, by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. True love is never occupied with self; desire to love is always so. If we are seeking and desiring to love God, we will find nothing but self-occupancy, from beginning to end. Our thought will be that the more we love God, the more He will love us. This shows sad ignorance of the great fact declared here.
But if we know and believe the love of God to us in sending His Son, then every barrier to the love of God has been removed. We have not to desire, but “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5). That love is revealed in Christ, and we may take our happy seat beneath His shade in everlasting repose.
C. Stanley, adapted
The Love of God
Must man, then, hopeless, be forever lost,
Since works and wealth and offerings cannot
save?
Must he on hell’s fierce, fiery lake be tossed,
Imbibe the torments of its burning wave,
And in his thirst for water vainly crave?
Ah! yes; this woe were his, if love had slept,
And God His Son had never sent to save;
For nothing man could bring could He accept,
And man must then, undone, in ceaseless woe
have wept.
But love divine all human thought transcends;
See in the Son how warm its ardor glows!
For ’tis in Him God now His love commends,
Whom once He gave to suffer for His foes,
And taste for them the keenest woe of woes;
Ah! yes, for them, the world, man’s guilty race,
This wondrous love so fully, freely flows,
To trait’rous man, who turns away his face
From his Creator-God, the God of love and
grace.
In Him, the Son, the love of God behold!
For Him, His well-beloved, He did not spare,
But gave Him up to grief and woe untold,
That He the judgment might for sinners bear,
And thus God’s own unbounded love declare
To man, who had rebellion’s flag unfurled!
Where is the love that can with this compare?
His Son delivered for this guilty world,
Which He to endless doom with justice might
have hurled!
W. Trotter