"Yet show I unto you a more excellent way."
" The end of the commandment is charity."-
(Read 1 Cor. 13)
This way of surpassing excellence, so often missed, so little understood, it is the purpose of this paper, by the Lord's help, a little to unfold.
" The end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." But nothing can be farther from a just apprehension of this " way," nor anything much more remote from this " end of the commandment," than that which is presented in the current thoughts and aims of those who are distinguished by the profession of Christianity in this day. In ordinary Christianity the root of charity is not seen, its divine nature is not known, and consequently its development is impossible and unsought. The utmost that is seen in the divine unfolding of this " incomparable way," is but an attractive picture; a well-considered description; a hyperbolical exhibition of some ideal that must never be expected to be realized in action; or if ever embodied at all, it is reduced to the outgoing of the kindliness of mere human feeling, and attempted to be displayed by schooling the passions into subjection, and the subdual of the natural haughtiness of the temper and spirit under the menage of the bit and curb, or the influence of conventional restraint. I speak not here of the restriction of the term to the mere giving of alms, but of the meaning that lies beneath the current phrases, " in perfect charity," " universal charity," " living in charity," " dying in charity."
But " GOD is charity." Charity is "love;" and Christ on earth was the divine embodiment of love. Apart from this, men's thoughts of love and their results in natural men, are but a poor and worthless caricature of the divine original. This, surely, is not the display of that to the cultivation of which all the gifts of God's Spirit were to tend, and all faith and truth to foster, and all revelation to sustain; and beyond
Which there lies no attainment in the heavenly life, either in this world or in that which is to come. Deeper, far than this, must we look for that whose essentiality enters into every true exercise of the soul towards God, and overlives all that ministers to its development; and is beyond the limit of all mysteries and knowledge, and the endurance of all the wonders that may be disclosed to faith and hope
It is difficult in a day like this clearly to perceive God's ends, whether in the individual believer or in the collective body. And when they are discerned, it is still more difficult consistently to carry them out. This arises, not from any want of plainness and explicitness in the divine word, but from our views being so contorted by the false exhibitions of Christianity around us, and from the heart's estrangement from the moral power of the cross. It is hard to emancipate the spirit from those false influences that are at work, and bear upon us on every side, from a Christianity that, conjoined with the cross, may be said, emphatically, to " mind earthly things;" and that we should be indebted for the molding of our thoughts and desires only to the precious revelations of our God in His word.
The assertion ought not to surprise us that even as Christians we often miss God's ends, since it is on record before us that the Corinthians, with their apostolic constitution as a church, and with all their plenitude of spiritual gifts, had failed of discerning God's ends in two most striking points, (there were others too, and of a moral nature) to which they were obliged to be solemnly recalled by the Spirit of the Lord. They missed God's end in their gathering together at the table of the Lord, so that it was " not to eat the Lord's Supper," but their own: and they were so aside in their use of revealed truth and spiritual gifts, as to bring upon themselves the rebuke of being " carnal'," and walking as men, and very children in their use and valuation of what they had received from God. It need not, therefore, be thought wonderful that individual Christians now should often miss of discerning God's ends in them as His redeemed; nor that the assembly, however rightly constituted, and however full its ministrations of truth as truth, and perhaps secretly boasting in its knowledge, should need to be recalled to the solemn consideration, that " knowledge puffeth up, but charity buildeth up"-and to be warned in the language of, the Spirit, " Yet show I unto you a more excellent way I" Of this we may rest assured that no principles, however Scriptural, nor truths, however deep, will keep the soul in God's paths, if " love," as the end of all, be not sought.
But what is this charity, without which all gift is but an idle clangor, and all knowledge but as childish amusement?
In Christ its exhibition was perfect, even in its objective character. Its exercise flowed from Him without any antagonistic power, and without any place for the negation of self. For as " God is love," so Christ was the perfect manifestation of this love, in a man, in human circumstances. In truth He was it, inasmuch as He was " God manifest in the flesh." But in us it is the exactly opposite. It begins in us in the negation, the active negation, of all that is characteristic of nature, or of the old man. Its power stands in the new risen-man, in Christ. It is Christ in living power in the soul: " To me to live is Christ"-" Christ liveth in me." Hence it is impossible that this " more excellent way," this end of God in His saints, should be understood or sought,. where the soul is not in possession of the confidence of acceptance, and where being " risen with Christ" is not practically laid hold of. It is a hopeless enigma where this is an enigma. For the manifestation of a thing cannot be where the thing itself does not exist. It is an energy of life that evolves its own appropriate form; and it cannot be but from the living spring which is within-the divine nature—" that which is born of God." It alone will bear the stress of days like these; for it overcomes and cannot be overcome. Love asks no motive: it is its own motive. It depends not, in its exercise, on success, or estimation, or approval, from without. And He well understood its power who could say, " Be it so; though the more I love you, the less I beloved." But its perfect example is seen only in Jesus on the cross. Power was not there-sympathy was not there-the estimation of those who had known its exercise in life, in their sick being healed, or their lepers cleansed, or their dead raised up, was not there; nor was the estimation of those there, who were debtors to His love for life and salvation, and who were to know its abundant fruits after love had achieved its victory amidst rejection, 'and desertion, and sorrow, and death.
In the exposition of this chapter, the peculiar position of which the most careless cannot fail to notice, I take it to be so far plain in its practical bearing on the " husbandry of God," that he who exercises gift or ministry, of what-fifer character, does it in vain, as to himself, if it flows not from this spring of love. And I take it to be no less plain that God's end is not accomplished in those that are ministered to if charity be not quickened and nurtured, and if its characteristic exercises be not awakened in the soul. The end of God in His saints-His " perfect way " for them-is " charity." And so love's ministry begins in love in him who exercises it, and issues in the nurture of love in those on whose behalf it is exercised; even as the apostle unfolds to Timothy, that " the end of the commandment (or charge) is charity."
If, therefore, it were the speaking with tongues-although they displayed in a wonderful manner the power, and even the goodness of God, in reaching men in their divisions and various languages, which were the fruits of sin-yet, " If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity,"-if love direct not their exercise, and if love be not awakened as their result, I am in the sight of God, and as to all divine results, a mere empty sound: " I am as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."
But deeper than this. If it were the interest of the mind, which so often stops short of God's ends, and makes its own recreation and delight its end, even when dealing with the bright revelation of truth, it is worthless. Prophecy, and the penetration of all mysteries, and all knowledge, on which we build so much satisfaction for ourselves, and expect, with frequent disappointment, so much fruit from others, reach not the point. Love's husbandry is not advanced by instruments such as these. Even the " faith" that knows how to bring in the power or God, in its miraculous displays—-the faith that could "remove mountains "-will falter in this "perfect way." If I have no more than this, and seek no more, still " I an nothing."
But farther still. Benevolence in me may have its widest scope, and zeal may reach its final limit, yet may it never reach this heavenly way. Though I give all my goods in doles to feed the poor; and though I become a martyr in my zeal, if " love " be not the spring, it nothing profits. Philanthropy may have its devotees, and zeal its martyrs: " love " only profits.
" Love is of God; and 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.) Herein the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and that of John, however widely they diverge in their general tenor, are found to coalesce. Indeed, it must needs be so when God's final end stands in the view of both.
" Love," then, " is of God;" and in order to love, we must be " born of God." It is the exercise and display of that which is essentially and characteristically divine. It is to be exercised in a world where trial of its energy will be found, and in circumstances where everything but itself must fail. But " love never fails." In the blessed example of the Lord Jesus we see how everything in a hostile world was but the occasion of the brightening display of love, until it reached its crowning manifestation in the death of the cross.
This love, then, can never differ from itself: so that if suffering is to be encountered in its exercise, or an occasion for kindness to be shown, love is girded for its work. " Love suffereth long, and is kind." Nay, further: is another to be advanced and myself thrown into the shade? Be it so: " Love envies tot." It looks with an eye not emulous of others, and is not insolent or rash. As it seeks not to diminish another's praise, so it is not inflated with an estimation of attainments in itself. Love's carriage is ever in deepest modesty: there is nothing unseemly in her ways. Her own she does not seek; and is not resentful of the slights she meets. Evil she thinks not, nor imputes. " Rejoices not in iniquity;" but finds in the triumphs of the truth her joy. " Beareth all things" that must be borne; " believeth all things" that should be believed; "hopeth all things," while ever there is the possibility of hope; " endureth all things," while endurance is demanded..
" Love never fails." " Prophecy," through dealing with divine communications, "will be done away;" "tongues,',' though the bright witness of Christ as the ascended Lord, " will cease;" and "knowledge," such as the mind of man can grasp, though heavenly communicated, " will be done away." They are but steps by the way-the rudimental advances toward that, beyond which is no advance. When that is reached, these will have receded from the view, or will be looked back upon from the vantage-ground of that which is perfect and eternal, as manhood now looks back on the things of its childhood with a corrected and abated estimation of their worth.
But " now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity." Deep and eternal as are the truths on which the assurance of faith is built, and apart from which there can be no onward progress for the soul in the paths of the Lord, still His end is onward. Even the assurance of hope is not God's end. There is something deeper still. The revelations which ally, the soul to Him, " whom having not, seen we love," will cease, and be no longer the ground of "faith," when "we shall see Him as He is." Even the bright visions of hope, with all the sublimities and glories which it anticipates, will reach their issue, and be no more as hope; but love will still remain. Nor is it in an abstract manner that it is said love will remain, as characterizing the nature of God and therefore eternal as Himself: eternally blessed as is the thought-but it remains now, as the way that we have to pursue, a way that never fails. But how surely nothing that is of nature will enable us to pursue this way. Nay how surely must that which is natural to us, as men, be put aside in order to make a step of progress here! It is the way of the cross; the way of death to the flesh. It is a path that lies only in the sight of God-a path which "the vulture's eye hath not seen," but still it is " the path of life." But a path that none but the " single eye" will find.
Unlike those gifts and ministrations of knowledge which bear the stamp and -impress of power in their exercise, and which man can covet and value, " love" looks only to the eye of God for approval of its labors, and can alone be estimated by those whose hearts are fashioned by its heavenly power.
Truth may be ministered and delighted in, but truth in its highest range or deepest character will not keep the soul, if, for himself and in the light of God, each one seeks not the ends of " love." Truth may be coveted, and right principles may be boasted in; but love only will stand the time of trial. All short of this will leave those that are attracted by it but as chaff before the winnowing- fan, when the stress of suffering for the truth may come.
" Love never fails," and " the foundation of God stands sure," and it may be added, " the Lord will keep his own;" still, he who in God's husbandry looks not to " love " as his spring of strength, and seeks it not as his final end in souls, is but laying the foundation for discomfiture and failure, and a result common to every previous revival amongst the church of God.
Charity respects, necessarily, all that god respects, for " God is charity." It cannot be exercised in maintaining anything that is contrary to God. Its essential character is unknown where such a thought concerning it possesses the mind. It seeks God's ends and these alone. And what are these but the glory of Christ, and that there should be a due estimation of his worth in those that are His?