by G. V. Wigram
The expression repeated over and over in verse 7 of 1 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." v. 16. This is something exceedingly beautiful to those who know it, and "he that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.”
Communicates Life
What the Spirit of God speaks of in chapter 1 of this epistle as to our relationship with the Father is surpassingly marvelous, and we can only know it by knowing for what purpose Christ came. 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.
He tells me I am in His Son who was before all worlds and He in me. Think what a place it is in which He sees me, and notice all God's springs are in Himself. He saw nothing in man but hatred, and it was 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 who 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. They have a life that is locked up in the Son and never can be touched.
Is it true that you can say, "The manner of life I have is life hid with Christ in God"? If Christ Himself in glory is my life, it links me up with Him in whom is the whole bundle of life. The Head cannot say to the foot, "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 around man might have said, "What a great 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 with deeper feeling say, "What a blessed Giver our God is!" 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 on the day of Pentecost saw the stream of life flowing to this and that one, and even to men who had dipped their hands in the blood of God's own Son. But did it cease then? No, it has flowed for over nineteen hundred years into the dead souls of sinners. 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.
Starts in His Heart
It is not a question of what you are, but of a portion that has flowed to you from the Father. You may 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 the world." The world cannot understand that principle in you-a certain affection in the heart of God that found its expression in the Son. We find those whom God has given to Him 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 that we love God with all our hearts and souls, but that 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 gotten out of the ruin, any want felt there for God? Impossible that there could be. Well then, "Herein is love," God says, and it is not your love to Him, but His to you. Turn your eye to Christ to see how God loves you, so much that He gave His Son for you.
Displayed at the Cross
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, though the blood was sprinkled and put on the mercy-seat, and its effect was so far from being eternal that before the end of the year, sin being there, it needed to be done again. But Christ, by one offering, 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. We can sing, "Unto Him that 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 and 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 has God given His Son as a propitiation for us, but He has introduced us to a higher order of existence than man in Adam ever was. 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 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. 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 my soul? You can 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 that His sheep 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?" It would be 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 believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.”
Dwells in the Believer's Heart
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 show the virtue of His Son's blood, are you to say, "My leanness, my leanness"? How did you come 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 Him who said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will." Who was that Babe there laid in a manger? What could it mean when those angels said, "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, and 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 man knoweth the Son, but the Father." And again, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”
Looking to be manifested at Christ's judgment-seat, we have no cause to have any uncertainty as to results. Why? Because, "as He is, so are we in this world." 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. 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.
Received Without Merit
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, for "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 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 we are 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 as 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. I might say that I have nothing, but poor and little as I am the Father gave His Son for me. I have the heart of that Son of His who is occupied with all that concerns me, and He even counts the beatings of this heart of mine down here. After all Christ's self-denial for me, is there to be none from me to Him? When Christ bought me with His own blood and He charged Himself with all my guilt, am Ito do or say anything that is not for the glory of that Christ?
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.
"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God;
and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God.”