THE expression, repeated over and over in verse 7 of John 4, is "love; ' and in verse 8 it is repeated again, winding up with, " 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 here spoken of is the character of God Himself: " God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." (Ver. 16.) This is something exceedingly beautiful to those who know it, and, " He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love."
What the Spirit of God speaks of in chapter i. of this epistle, as to our relationship with the Father, is sur- passingly marvelous, and we can only know it by knowing what Christ came for; knowing it, we are identified with that Son, who came into the world that we might have life in Him, and God sent His Son that we might have life. What sort of life is it? A life that brings a believer 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, and it was love, divine love, that led Him to give His Son, and love that led that Son to come into this world, that God's love might be manifested to His creatures; His own nature and heart led Him to do it. He drew His own motive from within Himself, and 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 turn round, and say, That is the manner of life I have got —life hid with Christ in God? If Christ Himself, up there, 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 of its being bound up in the 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.
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 round, man might have said,. " What a large Giver God is." But what can we say, as those to whom this life has been given, and whose fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ? Surely, we can turn round with deeper feeling, and say, "What a blessed Giver our God is 1" When I wandered in sins, He found me and gave me a life that has brought me into fellowship with Himself and His Son.
The eleven, at the day of Pentecost, saw the stream of life flowing to this and that one, and even to men that had dipped their hands in the blood of God's own Son. But did it cease then? No, it has flowed for eighteen hundred years into the dead souls of sinners; and, when we look, we find it has connected us with another scene altogether. Well may you say, I am very unlike Him whose life I have. If you have it, you have found out, and will be finding out till He comes to take you to Himself in a glorified body, what a contrast you are to Him; but it is not a question of what you are, but of a portion that has flowed to you from the Father. You will find your dearest relations turning from you, as those whom the Father has given to Christ out of the world. The Lord said, " The world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of it." The world cannot understand that principle in you-a certain affection in
the heart of God that found its expression in the Son, and we find those whom God has given to Him so connected with Him, that the love wherewith He is loved 'is inz them, and they are able to walk in the power of His life, unto His praise and glory, as dear children. Neither you or I can say, " We love God with all our hearts and souls," but, "He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins"-" Not that we loved him, but he loved us." If I begin with self, there is nothing but ruin. Is there anything to be got out of the ruin? Any want felt there for God? Impossible that there could be. Well, then, " 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."
Under the law, in connection with propitiation, or atonement, a victim was brought, but the blood of bulls and goats never could put away sin, the blot remained, and though the blood was sprinkled, and put on the mercy-seat,its effect was so far from being eternal, that before the end of the year, sin being there, it again; but Christ, by one kering, forever has put our sins away. Not, only love comes out on the cross, but all He did was the expression of the love of God, and the meeting of the Father's mind. He was as completely one with the Father as it was possible to be. I have to begin with God, not myself. What has God done? He has put before the soul the ground on which it can rest in His presence-given His Son as the propitiation for our sins; and we can sing, "Unto him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen."
In Rom. 2;3. the Spirit of God traces out the awful condition of man by nature, but God has commended His love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Not only God has given His Son as a, propitia- tion for us, but He has introduced us to a higher order of existence than man in Adam ever was in; He has given us the eternal life that is in His Son-an entirely new and divine order of being, What I have is just the life of that One Person in whom is all God's delight. By the work of Christ on the cross all question of sin was once and forever settled, and we have peace with God, and, now, out of His fullness we receive grace upon grace, and when He comes He will present us, without spot or wrinkle, to Himself. Is it difficult to say whether or not we have tasted what it is to be in such a place? I get this light shining in me, because He has given me of His Spirit. Has not God a right to speak? Does He not know how to use human language so as to carry it right home to our souls? To be sure He does, and He says, " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."
The Lord Jesus declares about His sheep, that they have eternal life, and none can pluck them out of His hand, or out of the Father's hand; but human nature says, " How can I know it to be true?" How can you know it! A pretty word for a creature to put forth! Far better for the creature to say, " Let God be true, and every man a liar." It is by faith in Him who cannot lie that we know this, and His testimony is, that " Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God."
Then, in describing the experience of a soul led by the Spirit of Christ and what should be the mark of it, God says His love was so displayed in that work of His Son, that it dwells in the hearts of believers, and they in it. If God uses your sin to skew the virtue of His Son's blood, are you to say, " My leanness, my leanness "? Your leanness! How came you to be calculating on anything of yourself? If you bring an empty vessel, even if there be a crack or flaw in it, you can keep it full to overflowing, if you put it into a cistern of water.
The proper expression of God's will has come out; the deepest, highest, brightest, fullest, most blessed counsels of God getting their expression in Rim who said, " Lo, I come to do thy will." Who was that Babe, laid there in a manger? What could it mean, those angels saying, " Glory to God in the highest?" Ah! God said, Your ways are not my ways, nor your thoughts my thoughts I shall bring out of my own bosom One who was there before all worlds, and thus will come out to light, through that Son of my love, what I am-my character will be seen; He will declare what I am; I can let the brightest expression of heaven's delight shine out upon something on earth now. God could look down on that Babe, and see there the perfect expression of His glory. All God's glories came out in connection with that Person, who said, " No one knoweth the Father but the Son;" and, " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also."
Looking to be manifested at Christ's judgment-seat, we have no cause to have any uncertainty as to results. And why? Because, " as he is, so are we in this world "; and I can say this, " If Christ has taken the place of the smitten Rock, and has become my life, will He find fault with His own life in me?" He will find fault with our practical inconsistencies, but the life of a believer is what Christ is; and not only have we life in Him, but He is the propitiation for our sins. He did the whole will of God, and He was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We can take our place in God's presence, and our confidence cannot be shaken, if the heart is simple and true, because there is the blood that cleanses from all sin, and we take our place there as those who are cleansed. If it is the question of your getting into His love, you cannot get in; but if it is the question of Christ's having brought you into it by washing you from your sins in His own blood, there can be no fear, "perfect love casteth out fear," and We love him, because he first loved us." Would you have liked Christ to have left out of His word all desire for the expression of your love?
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 be 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. What have Ito do with bringing water down from the rock? The water is there, and if it has,come down to me, was there any virtue or power in self to bring it down? No! As a creature I am ruined, and if I should say to God, " What can I, a ruined creature, do?" His answer is, " It is not the question of your doing, but of mine. I gave my Son to be the propitiation for your sins, and you will find that he that honors that work has found the ground on which to stand in My presence with perfect acceptance."
I am in a world where all are scrambling after what they can get for self. " Well," I say, " I have nothing, but poor and little as I am the Father gave His Son for me, and I have the heart of that Son of His occupied with all that concerns me, and counting the beatings of this heart of mine down here, and after all Christ's self-'denial for me is there to be none from me to Him?" 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? Surely not in the thought of paying Christ. One once spoke to me of suffering for Christ, and said, " If I love, I must expect to suffer a great deal more." " What!" I said, " you do not want to pay Christ, do you?" " No; but I do wish to have my love to Him going out in some other way than in cold expressions of gratitude." How beautiful to be on those terms with God that we find in the word certain individuals were! Oh, believe me, you can only plead with God as you know Christ. 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. W.