THERE is a love natural to fallen men, “Sinners also love those that love them.” (Luke 6:32.) The love of family and friends is common to the human race. There is another kind of love, and only this is worthy of children of God. Of this love we write.
“Ye must be born again,” pointed a grown man to his need of a new, divine life, which had not yet begun in his soul. (John 3:7.) This love also is new and divine. Where it springs up in human hearts it has a definite beginning. Before, no love was known there save that other creaturely affection. Now, a love undreamt of has entered—love of God, love of all His children as He loves us, love of all men, even enemies.
It, as well as new birth, must enter, or the heart remains afar from God, outside His kingdom. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.” (1 Cor. 16:22.) This is no curse of the law of Moses, whose malediction fell on the man who loved not the Lord his God. Even under grace the despisers perish.
That expert in the law, Saul of Tarsus, on his persecuting way to Damascus, blinded by the burst of divine light upon him to all but Christ and himself, must have expected death. What did he feel his deserts to be when he discovered himself to be at war with the heavenly Lover of his soul? But he obtained mercy. In the glorified Jesus, he saw righteousness and power in transcendence. Why then were they withheld from destroying him? He learned that the reason was more than the leniency of the throne; it was the sacrifice of the cross. The demands of divine righteousness had been fully recognized there and fulfilled. He who met them in laying down His life for His people took it again, in power according to the spirit of holiness, for their justification. In Christ, as Paul saw Him, righteousness and power in all their glory favored God’s saving purpose. The Son of God had loved him and given Himself for him. (Gal. 2:20.)
Then and thus love sprang up in his heart. It was not to be vaunted, but proved. Three days later when the Holy Spirit filled him, the love of God was shed abroad in his heart. At one moment he was a raging wolf among the flock of God, the next, he realized the grace of Christ to himself; thenceforward, for love of Christ, he became the most watchful and diligent shepherd of those he had torn and devoured. Tirelessly and with utmost self-denial, he fed and cared for them, imparting to them all the abundance and preciousness of the unsearchable riches of Christ revealed to him. He told them of the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. (Eph. 3:19.) Again and again, he spoke of a Saviour Who gave Himself, His life, as a ransom. To men of every race he proclaimed the glad news of God, who “commendeth His Own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8, R.V). Out of an ever-grateful love, he spent and was spent in Christ’s service, stood in jeopardy every hour and laid down his own life at last as Christ’s witness. His first love he never left; rather, it grew more intense as the goal of all his hopes—the gaining Christ by the resurrection from among the dead—drew nearer. But the love of Christ it was that lit this fire of responding love and maintained its constancy from that first day onwards. And this in the heart of a Pharisee of the Pharisees, who, though living in all good conscience toward God up to that memorable day of his conversion had never previously loved Him. (John 8:42.)
In what measure does love spring up?
In Christ’s Own dealing with another Pharisee we learn more concerning the manner and volume of love’s uprising. Simon was a well-meaning host, who would make closer acquaintance with Jesus without loving Him at all, as it would seem. Prepared to believe Him a prophet after thorough investigation, he was put off even this modicum of faith before the investigation had fairly begun. It was because the Saviour allowed the woman who was a sinner to touch Him. This shocked the Pharisee and would have shattered at once any respect he had for his Guest, but for the answer to his thoughts which Jesus immediately gave. Read the matchless story in Luke 7:36-50. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?” Simon’s answer seems to have been grudgingly given: “I suppose,” he says, as though the obvious truth was extorted from him, “that he to whom he forgave most.” It is refreshing to look where Simon was bidden to, look—at the woman whose actions had disturbed him. Love constrained her full heart and busy fingers. Love quickened her understanding to supply the omissions of the Pharisee in a lavish superabundance. In her tears the sorrow of her grateful heart was perhaps more on account of Him slighted, than even for her own misspent past. It was the sorrow of a love set on honoring Him and sensitive to His dishonor. Tears mingled with the ointment and who shall say which was the more fragrant to Him?
Had one asked her about her love, she, overwhelmed by her own unworthiness, would not have dared to speak of it. Nevertheless, the Saviour appraises this new, holy and reverent affection as worthy of His reception, though its vessel seemed so unseemly. It sprang, He taught, from a sense of forgiveness. This does not appear to have been founded as yet on such a direct and personally re-assuring word as He spoke eventually (vs. 48). In some way she knew the fame of Jesus; she had heard some word of His and had understood it with her heart and been converted. (John 12:40.) Perhaps His personal attitude to her in some unrecorded way, had brought her faith to the swift intuition not only of His greatness, His Messiahship, but also of His willingness to forgive; or she had reasoned somewhat like Manoah’s wife. (Judg. 13:23.) Then love was born and love proportioned to the greatness of her debt. Love made her bold to approach Him in the Pharisee’s house and received its reward straightway. For her peace was sealed by His own word, “Thy sins are forgiven.” He did not say, “for love’s sake”; that would not have been true. His forgiving love was what she believed, and her-faith now had complete confirmation. For He said, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” Thus is made clear to us, first, that salvation is by faith; secondly, that His grace forgiving us produces love in us, and finally, that the more we are forgiven, the more we love.
This love to God, then, springs up in human hearts only when one is born again and realizes the surpassing greatness of God’s love towards him. Apart from these conditions love toward God has no place in us, we are strangers to it.
Again, the uprush of this love corresponds with the magnitude of the canceled debt, and, of course, with our sense of this. In first days of conversion, the contrast of being brought from the power of Satan unto God is very vivid, and the, conscience keenly alive to what past sins have meant. God’s love is very wonderful to the soul’s enjoyment, and first love ardent and strong. But let faith’s realization of these things weaken, let the horror of the pit, from which Christ in His love has digged us, diminish within us, and our love, too, will weaken and wane. On the other hand our love will be maintained and increased if we grow in the knowledge of Him, for sharing His thoughts and understanding His holy nature will deepen the sense of our sin and heighten the wonder of Grace. First love should he least love, the infancy from which growth is continuous until last love shall be most love, the soul breaking with longing to be with Christ, whether at His coming or in the soul’s own departing. May God grant each Christian reader to abound in this love more and more. T. D.