In the Lord Jesus there was seen in perfection love to God and to men. He was the only Man who ever loved the Lord His God with all His heart, soul and strength, and His neighbour as Himself. In Him there was seen fulfilled what the two tables of stone in the ark of God represented. His holy life demonstrated that God had a Man in reserve who could answer perfectly to all the law’s demands; and the holy nature found in God’s Son has been given to all His children, who have been born of Him; and as having God’s nature, and the indwelling Spirit of God, the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in them “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4).
Love Commanded in the Law
Israel, as recorded in Exodus 24, bound themselves in a covenant of blood to keep the law, which commanded them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and might, and their neighbour as themselves (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). They were also exhorted to follow the example of Jehovah in loving the stranger (Deut. 10:18-19). but the law demanded without giving the power to fulfil its demands, so that it but demonstrated the utter inability of man in the flesh to answer to its requirements. Man, derived from Adam is a sinner, and his sinful nature does not love God; indeed, it was fully manifested when the Son of God was on earth that man by nature hates God, even as the Lord Jesus said, “Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father” (John 15:24).
Man is evilly disposed towards his neighbour also, even as Paul wrote to Titus, “We ourselves also were sometimes foolish…living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (3:3). There is natural affection in families, without which families could not exist, and where it does not exist how dreadful are the results, as foretold in 2 Timothy 3:1–5. Men will also love those who love them, as the Lord told His disciples in Luke 6:32, sinners loving sinners, but this is not the love that God required from His people under the terms of the law. Natural affection is very beautiful in the different relationships of life, but it has been impaired by sin; and it may be found in those who manifest their bitter hatred of God, a God who has done them nought but good.
Love to the Lord Jesus
The proof of our love for the Lord Jesus is obedience to Him. In John 14:21 He said to His disciples, “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me…and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” Here, His commandments are specially referred to, things that He has asked His own to do, and, as we read in 1 John 5:3, “His commandments are not grievous.” What the Lord commands is what the divine nature finds delightful, and He has given His commandments so that the believer might have the means to respond to the love that has been so perfectly and fully manifested towards him.
Disobedience brings its bitter fruits, as seen in Adam, in king Saul, and in the whole human race; but obedience to the commandments of the Lord bring many precious fruits, for this results in the love of the Father and the love of the Son being specially called forth, and the promise of the presence of the Son to the obedient one.
Those who truly love the Lord will seek to walk pleasing to Him in all things, having His commandments and His word in their hearts and ever seeking to live for the Lord’s pleasure and approbation, like those of Philadelphia to whom He said, “Thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my Name” (Rev. 3:8). The three mighty men who went to the well of Bethlehem to get the water for David were near enough to him to hear what his heart desired, and their love was strong enough to put their lives in jeopardy to satisfy the longing of his heart.
Obedience to the word of the Lord is for the Father’s delight, and those who thus live for the Father and the Son will have them dwelling with them (John 14:23). Here we have obedience as the fruit and proof of love for the Lord, and His great love for us surely demands that we live constantly for His will and pleasure.
Still, however feebly the response from the heart and life of the believer in the Lord Jesus, there is in every believer’s heart affection for Christ, even as the Apostle Peter writes, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). This is the normal state of the Christian, and the different exhortations of the Lord and His servants to us are in order that we should live as normal Christians, allowing the divine nature full expression without the hindrances that the flesh in ourselves and others would bring in.
Love to One Another Commanded and Taught
When the law commanded those under it to love, there was no visible example for them, though there was no doubt as to God’s love for His people Israel. The presence of Jesus altered this, for divine love was fully and perfectly manifested in Him. At the beginning of John 13, we read that Jesus, “having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end” (verse 1). His love for them had been constant, and unaffected by all that they were in their weaknesses and failures. Even the prospect of Peter’s denial, and the forsaking by all, did not in the least diminish His love for them, even if He felt with infinite sensibility, what all would mean for Him.
Against this background, in the same chapter, the Lord said to His disciples, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35). The Lord never asked His disciples to do anything but what they had the perfect example in Himself. We have been brought into a circle of divine love where the love of the Father and the Son are known and enjoyed, and we have the nature and the power by which we can respond to this wondrous love.
Divine love, which no obstacle can stop, is to be expressed as a testimony to the world around that we belong to Christ. Publicans may love publicans, but it is with a love of self-interest, not the love that belongs to the divine nature that God has given us. Divine love belongs to heaven, but it has been brought here by the Son of God, and manifested to all; and this is the love that is to be manifested by the disciples of Jesus.
When the Lord renews the commandment in John 15:12, He shows us the extent to which love goes, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” He has given in this the perfect example, as in all else. Recalling this, the Apostle John, in his first epistle writes, “Hereby perceive we the love, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (2:16). We may not be asked to do so much, “But whoso has this world’s good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him?” (verse 17). It may be but little we are asked to do, but how great is the privilege of showing in any little way that we are the disciples of Him who manifested love in perfection.
The Portion of Those that Love God
How blessed is the knowledge “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). The Christian is viewed normally as a lover of God, and this because of the divine call; and the God who has called us watches over all the varied circumstances and conditions of life through which His people pass, making all to work together for their blessing, bringing prosperity to the soul, and carrying on His good work within us in view of the day of Jesus Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 2:9 we learn something of what lies ahead of the believer, even “as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him; but God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” For the present, those that love God have all the care of a loving Father; and for the future, they are assured of wonderful blessings in association with God’s own Son, things that the natural man has no ability to understand.
Love in the Assembly of God
Although what is written in 1 Corinthians 13 is to govern us as saints of God at all times, the setting of the chapter shows its special connection with our being met together in assembly. The gathering of the saints for the breaking of bread is dealt with in chapter 11, and assembly gathering is continued in chapter 14. Between we have the details of the truth of the one body in chapter 12, and love in chapter 13; for these two things are to regulate all the gatherings of the saints when gathered together in assembly.
Tongues evidently were used for self-glorification, so that the Apostle writes, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” In the gatherings of the saints of God, every gift is to be controlled by love. Love is to be the motive in the exercise of all that God has given for the edification and blessing of His saints. There would never be disorder among the saints of God if love was ever in evidence as the controlling force among them.
What is said positively of love in this wonderful chapter is what we have seen perfectly displayed in the Son of God. He was the One who bore all things, who endured all, bearing with the weaknesses and failures of His disciples, and enduring the contradiction of sinners against Himself.
Love to the Brethren in 1 John
We are told by the Apostle that “He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (2:10). Where the divine nature is active, it is the evidence of having the knowledge of God, who is Light and Love; and there is no danger of such stumbling or causing others to stumble, but it is an unrighteous change, for love will never do ill to anyone. As so often in 1 John, the saint of God is seen here as in the divine nature in an absolute way. Alas, in our mixed condition, the flesh is often in evidence, and the flesh does, even in a Christian, give occasion of stumbling.
Children of God are manifest by the love they show towards each other (3:10), even as the Lord had said to His disciples. Love is the expression of the divine nature, and Cain, by his hatred of his brother, showed that he did not possess the divine nature, but rather that he was a child of the devil. We never could have loved the children of God had we not been born of God, therefore “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (3:14). In the brethren we see the same nature, the same precious features that were seen in their perfection in Jesus, and these are the features that God has given us to discern and value.
Real love is not in word only, “but in deed and in truth,” and there are abundant opportunities for the expression of our love to each other as we pass through a world where all around is hostile to what is of God. The difficulties in which brethren are often found are occasions for the expression of sympathy and the manifestation of divine love in a practical way. While the divine nature can manifest itself in compassion to those who belong to this world, the children of God have the first claim upon us as belonging to the same divine family. John is dealing with the love that belongs to the family of God, and the family circle in which it is expressed.
We are exhorted to love one another, “for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God” (4:7). All true love has its origin in God, the love that exists in nature comes from Him, but sin has vitiated natural affection; the love of which the Apostle writes here is the divine love that sin cannot touch, that which comes from God in the new birth, that which is of heaven and belongs to Him. Those who exhibit this divine love show that they have been born of God, and have the nature in which God is known, for “God is love.”
God dwells in those who manifest His love, and His love is known in the hearts of His children as it was seen in Jesus here, for it found its perfect manifestation in Him, and it is in Him and in His death that we learn it and know it. Those who are mere professors cannot claim to love God if they do not love His children, for hatred of the life of God in the Christian is hatred of God Himself. When Jesus was here the Jews claimed that God was their God and Father, but their hatred of His Son manifested that they did not know God, or love Him. God demands that those who claim to love Him show love to His own.
Brotherly Love
The divine nature being in every believer, we cannot help but love one another. But we also have the flesh within us, hence the need for the exhortation, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love” (Rom. 12:10). We are not asked to love the flesh in our brethren, but we are to love the brethren because they are brethren, and in spite of all their weaknesses. The exhortation in Hebrews 13:1 is “Let brotherly love continue.” Amidst the trials through which the Hebrew Christians had been passing there was ample opportunity for expressing their care and affection for one another, and it had been shown, so that the exhortation is for its continuance.
In 1 Peter 1:22, the exhortation to “love one another with a pure heart fervently” rests on their obedience to the truth through souls, giving them no more conscience of sins, and a new moral state before God, and had brought them into new relationships with new affections. This being so, fervent love was to be shown among them as believers in the truth centering in Christ. In 2 Peter 1:7, brotherly love is one of the links in an expanding chain of Christian traits.
We have received “like precious faith,” and have been called by “glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:1-3), and are therefore exhorted, “giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly love; and to brotherly love love” (verses 5–7). Every divine trait is to be manifested in us, the divine nature itself is love. Well does Paul add, “As touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another” (1 Thess. 4:9).
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