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.) But, as we have before observed, His love is first, not ours; for “we love him because he first loved us.” Divine love embraced us in our worst and lowest state, when in our sins, rebellious, and far from Him. “For 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 alone source of love in us, for “love is of God.”
Thus 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 did, in His atoning work on the cross, 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.
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.”
Thus 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.
“So near, so very near to God,
I cannot nearer be;
For in the person of the Son,
I am as near as He.”
Is Christ alive for evermore? Then have we eternal life in Him, for He is our life. Is He near to God? then are we as near to God as He, for we are in Him. “But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” (Eph. 2:13.) Is He righteous? then is He our righteousness, for we are “made the righteousness of God in him;” “even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.” (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:22.)
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.” 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, 26.) Thus we can truly say—
“The love where with He loved the Son,
Such is His love to me.”
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 to us-ward 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, 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 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.)
And wonderful as all these actings 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 Ghost, 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 thus become cleansed vessels in whom He could take up His abode. Thus, the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 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, 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 Ghost 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 Ghost, and by Him united to Christ who is at the right hand of God, our life, righteousness and peace.
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 perfect love could. As our High Priest He succors 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, 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 gin, so that our communion with the Father may be restored; and 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.
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, standing, and 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 4:1719.) 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.” (Ver. 16.)