The Greatest Thing In The Word.
JOHN 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) gives us the first, and John 21:2020Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? (John 21:20) the last mention of love in the gospel of John. There is a great deal about love in various aspects between those two verses, and with the Lord’s help I would like to say a little about them.
Broadly speaking, the gospel of John divides itself into three sections―the life section, the light section, and the love section.
Chapters 1-7 are very much occupied with life, and how to get it.
Chapter 8 and 9 are full of instruction about light, and its effect.
Chapter 10 and on present the manifestation of love on God’s side and on ours.
Love does not merely talk, love acts; so in chapter 10 you get the Lord bringing out the way in which His love is displayed and the reason why His Father loves Him. He furnished a new motive for His Father to love Him. It must not, however, be said that in the first two sections of the gospel the thought of love is not introduced, but it is not the main theme.
Here in chapter 3 you get the first mention of love. It is love described by God’s only begotten Son. It is love that manifests itself in the gift of Hire, who is the dearest object of His affection, His only begotten Son.
So we read, “God so loved.” Have you measured the depths of that “so”? What creature can? No plummet of man’s mind can fathom those depths.
And what did God love? “The world,” composed of men and women, evil and sinful, “hateful and hating one another.” “God so loved the world.”
And with what object? “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” How blessed!
There is something very delightful in the contemplation of this wonderful thought of God loving the world. For if He loved, when He gave His Son, He loves still, for He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has not changed.
But do not forget that God has got special delights. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” (vs. 35). You will find that the love He has for the Son is the love which He has for His own.
In chapter 5:20, you get the statement repeated. “The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth.” In chapter 3 we read that God loves the Son, and puts all things into His hand. Everything is in the hand of Christ. What a wonderful thing for a Christian to bear this in mind. Here we learn that the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things.
Let us leave this section of the Gospel, and look at chapter 8. There we find men claiming to be related to God. But “Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me” (vs. 42). How beautifully Christ thus presents Himself as the touchstone of the Father’s love. Now, what is the mark of your being a child of God? Perhaps you are in exercise as to whether you are a child of God. Do you love the Lord Jesus? Yes! Then you are a child of God.
Let us go a little further, and look at chapter 10. God in His nature is love. He loved the world. But He has got one special object of affection, that is His Son. Now, why does the Father love the Son in this peculiar way? chapter 10. will tell you. He says, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” (vs. 17).
Jesus laying down His life for the sheep becomes a new reason why the Father should love Him. He was, indeed, the object of the Father’s deepest love in all eternity. But He presents a new reason why the Father should love Him, in the fact that He gave His life for the sheep. Blessed Saviour!
But now there is another thing. Fellow believer, have you got in your soul the sense of the Lord’s love to you? Are you conscious in your inmost soul, as you pass along in this world, that you are loved by the Lord Jesus?
Now let us look at chapter 12. It is striking how the Lord tests our hearts as to where our love is. He says, “The hour is coming that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (vers. 23 and 24). He intimates the wonderful fact of His death. And then He says, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (vs. 25). In the face of this solemn statement we may well ask, What are you, loving? In this very chapter the Lord points out a very great danger, “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (vs. 43). We pass through a scene where the danger is of loving our life, our ease, our comforts, and the snare of loving the praise of men is ever present.
In chapter 11. He, so to speak, says, “I love you.” In chapter 12 He says, “What do you love? Your own life, or the praise of men?” A salutary, searching question surely!
Now we come to chapter 13. Here the scene is entirely changed. “Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (vs. 1). There is something wonderful in that. He had got those in this world whom He loved. And He “loved them unto the end.” Get hold of this. It was true that day: it is true this day. Are you numbered among His own? If you are among His own you are an object of His deep and tender and unchangeable love. It is not that you say that you love the Lord, but because love acts towards you.
There is no question about His loving you, but now He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (ch. 14, vs. 15). And then the test comes, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (vs. 21). He presents a reason why the Father should love you. It is conditional here. But more. “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (vs. 23). That is the way in which we can tell we love Him. We get a manifest sense of the presence of the Father and the Son, when we answer to the conditions laid down.
Then when you come to chapter 15. He says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love” (vs. 9). Who can measure that love? Can you tell the depths of the Father’s love to the Son? You cannot. Can you measure the Father’s love to me, the believer? Just as impossible, for the love is the same. What then? “Continue ye in my love.” Dwell there. “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love” (vs. 10).
And now we come to chapter 17, where we are permitted to hear the Lord’s Prayer to His Father, respecting His own. How fervent are His desires for His own. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word” (vs. 20). Do not think it is only the saints of that moment He prayed for. You are one for whom He prayed. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 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” (vers. 22 and 23). What a wonderful thing, by and by the very world will know that believers on the Lord Jesus Christ have been loved by the Father, even as He loved His own well-beloved Son.
And then He adds, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” He longs to have us with Him. “For,” He adds, “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (vs. 24). He goes back on that eternal love of God into which believers are by grace brought. “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may he in them, and I in them” (vs. 26). How beautiful! That is the lovely atmosphere of love. Dwell there.
And now you find nothing about love in chapter 18. and 19. They present an atmosphere of deadly darkness and hate against Him. Doubtless there is plenty of love really in chapter 20, although the word is not mentioned in that chapter.
When you come to chapter 21. it springs up in a remarkable way. “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord” (vs. 7) You will find it is the loving heart that is intelligent. Presently the Lord will say to Peter, “Lovest thou me more than these?” And again, “Have you any affection for me?” He asks him three times. Christ does not care for intelligence, or labor, or toil, if love is not behind them.
The last mention of love in the Gospel is when “Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following” (vs. 20). The Lord had said to Peter, “Follow thou me.” Instead of following, he turns round and sees John following. Why does he follow? He was enjoying the love of Christ. We read that he “leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?” (vs. 20). Why does that come in at this point again? It shows that to be intimate in all the reverence of intimacy love is necessary. Here is the disciple that is most intimate, he is the one who appropriates the Lord most.
“For Him shall praise unceasing, and daily vows ascend;
His kingdom still increasing-a kingdom without end.
The tide of time shall never His covenant remove;
His name shall stand forever, His great, best name of LOVE.”
May we be led on in love to the Lord, and to enjoy all the holy intimacy of that love, for His name’s sake. Amen.
V. T. P. W.