Having mentioned that there are four types of love in last month’s article, let us now go a little deeper into the subject of love itself. The wise man wrote that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and when we turn to the New Testament we read, “There is no fear in love,” and that “perfect love casteth out fear.” We might be tempted to think that there is a contradiction, but there is not. There is a cycle of events that is spoken of clearly and to the man who comes into the Temple of God or to the Word of the living God in humility and seeks to learn, God will give him that wisdom and he will learn from it. So what we have here is a cycle of events. It begins with our earliest knowledge of God, when we first come to know God and fear Him. We fear Him because He is a great and mighty God, because of the mighty plagues in Egypt when He stretched out His right arm and the nations of the world had to bow down in humility and prostrate themselves before the great and mighty God. The people then feared Him, and you and I, brethren and sisters, feared Him too when we first came to know Him, but as our knowledge of God increases, we no longer fear Him. We turn toward Him and begin to love Him and you and I are somewhere along that road that leads to full love, to the time when perfect love has cast out all fear and there will be no more fear.
We have heard brethren, in their prayers, use phrases which are unscriptural, such as, “That we may be found worthy of a place ever so humble in God’s kingdom.” Well, there is no such thing. Another such phrase is, “That we might love and fear Thee.” Now, we can’t love and fear God at the same time. We feared Him when we first knew Him, but we shall love Him to perfection when we stand before Him and be like Him. Now, as we progress along the road, we certainly don’t fear Him any more. We should have left that behind. There has been criticism of such an observation concerning what someone unwittingly says in prayer. People say that because it is a prayer we have no right to make such remarks because the prayer is spoken in sincerity and is addressed to God. Well of course no one doubts that it is addressed to God, although some brother might question the words. We do not doubt the sincerity of any brother who prays in public or elsewhere, but sincerity is not enough in anything. We condemn sentimentalism in the churches and chapels around us. They have a great deal of sentimentalism and emotionalism which is not based upon purity of doctrine, and we condemn them and rightly so. So why should we say, that because a prayer is given in sincerity, (if it isn’t truth) that we should say “Amen” ? Just as we condemn emotionalism in the churches and chapels, so we should condemn sincerity if it is not guided by truth.
How can we fear God and love Him at the same time? We cannot be a little wise and very wise at the same time. Either we fear God, or we love Him. We cannot fear Him and love Him at the same time. We have to do one or the other. It just shows how careful we should be in the words we use. When we pray to our Father in heaven the words convey our thoughts and reveal our minds. Our words are the chords of our thoughts and minds—so we must use the right words or it leaves confusion in the minds of our brethren. And how can we say “Amen” to a prayer, no matter how sincerely given, if it is not spoken in truth?
There are two levels of love in the world. One is the human level of love and the other is a divine level of love. One we can analyze, we can demonstrate, we can illustrate, we can say it is subject to the law of cause and effect which exists in the entire universe, but when we come to look at the divine level of love we find there is no law of cause and effect for it. There is no reason underlying it.
We want to show you various human reasons why you and I, mortals upon this earth, love one another, and then we want to lift these reasons out and see if we can apply them to God’s love for you and me. Let us begin with the foremost reason why you and I fell in love with one another, that is, physical attraction. Two people are drawn towards each other because of beauty, charm and attraction of like to like. That is one of the most fundamental reasons why you and I love someone.
Let us turn from that to the second reason, which is the unity of thought that exists between two people, mutual affinity, two people sharing the same ideals, the same pastimes, the same purpose in life. They are drawn together because of the united front they have in this ideal. Another reason is sympathy. We love people because of sympathy for them, either because of some sadness that has happened to them in their lives, misfortunes, calamity or illness. We can go on adding to this list indefinitely. Because of this we are drawn to them and we love them because our heart goes out to them in sympathy, or we may love them because of gratitude. We are thankful to someone because of something they have done for us or for someone near and dear to us, and because of that we love them. It may be moral uprightness. We see a brother or sister, or a man or woman who has great integrity and character, who has high principles for which he constantly strives and we may be drawn to him in a common bond of love because of this uprightness, this integrity, this moral virtue. You see a good man, a kind man, and you love him because he is such a kind man—this will draw two people together in love.
The last reason I will mention is abundance of wealth or position we have in this life. Two people love one another because of these sometimes.
For instance, someone has a great deal of wealth and wants to be a benefactor to someone else and he is loved because of this. Or it may be the other way around, we love so we can share our wealth, or it may be for vanity, to be well thought of by someone who has wealth.
We can turn these statements around and around and see the psychological impact of them, that we love for a reason and that there is always a reason for two people to be drawn together in the bonds of love.
Now let us look at the love of God towards us. “God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Why does God love us? Let us look at physical attraction. Is there any physical attraction in human nature that God should love us because of it? When we analyze it we find there is not. When we compare God and man we find that while He is pure, we are evil; while He is righteous, we are sinful; while He is immortal, we are mortal. He created the whole universe whose beauty we see, and we are nothing—”Dust and ashes,” as Abraham says. So we see there is no beauty in man that God should desire. When we come to the emblems, as we do week by week and perceive in them the body and blood of Jesus, we see that we were dead in trespasses and sins, that we were alienated from God through ignorance, and it is only through His Word that we become united to Him. He has no physical reason whatsoever to love us. We read that “There is none righteous, no, not one,” that when we would do good, evil is present with us. The Apostle Paul declared, “The good that I would, I do not. 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” We cry these same words because we realize that we are in the same condemnation as he was, probably more so. But in spite of all the iniquity, all the evil, all the deceitfulness, God loves us. Not because of, but in spite of the absence of physical or moral beauty, God loves us. We love because He loves in spite of its absence.
Now let us look at unity of thought, the mental affinity that exists between two people and draws them together. Does such a thing exist with God? Isaiah says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” David says, “The heavens declare the Glory of God” and adds, “Oh Lord, how manifold are Thy works.” Brethren and sisters, for us to assume mental equality with God is the height of presumption. We can never believe that we can be equal to the mind of God and that He sees in our minds an affinity and loves us because of the mind that we have. Therefore God doesn’t love us because of our intellect, but in spite of the absence of it.
Let us look at sympathy. How can we expect God to love us, fallen creatures, sons and daughters of Adamic descent? The just recompense of our reward has been passed upon us. We cannot expect Him to have sympathy for fallen man in our state of degeneration.
What about gratitude? What do we ever do that God should be grateful to us ? We do nothing. When we have done everything we are unprofitable servants and have only done that which it was our duty to perform.
And what about moral virtues and integrity? Is there such a thing in human nature? If there was, there would have been no need for Jesus to die for us. No, brethren and sisters, there is no moral integrity in any of us that we can boast of. “Should God count iniquity, all flesh would perish.” There is no moral virtue or integrity that God loves us for, so we come to the conclusion that in spite of the absence of moral integrity in us, God loves us.
The last is wealth. What have we to offer God in the form of wealth or abundance? When we realize that the cattle on a thousand hills are His—the rivers, and the sheep in the valleys—what can we give Him except a pure and contrite spirit? There is nothing we can give Him except our hearts. Everything we have or ever hope to have has been given to us by Him. Job says, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” Paul says, “He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.” So God does not love us because of anything we have. Although we can say that human beings are brought together and love for this reason, we cannot say that about God.
So the conclusion we find we must draw is that while God loves us in spite of the absence of all these things, we love one another because of these things and so there is no comparison whatsoever between the things that God loves us for and the things that we love one another for. In spite of our physical, mental or moral imperfections and in spite of our material and spiritual poverty, God loves us. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Here we have an insight into the love of God. We find that God’s love for you and me is without reason. It is beyond comprehension and we are forced to the conclusion that it transcends all human forms of love. If we say that we love God and we love not our brother, we are liars ? How can we love God whom we have not seen and love not our brother whom we have seen ? We must love one another and if we don’t love one another we are liars. The Word of God speaks clearly and bluntly and if it hurts, it is His Word.
The Lord Jesus Christ says, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you.” This was not a new commandment. They had commandments regarding loving one another, so it wasn’t new in that sense. So what did Jesus mean? He meant that it was new in order of priority. It took a new relationship. It was number one now. It wasn’t a case of “Thou shalt not do this” or “Thou shalt not do that.” They had ten commandments that instructed them as to what they should not do and one hundred and ten other commandments which they produced out of these ten commandments, placing upon their fellow men burdens too grievous to be borne, shutting off the Kingdom of God from their fellow men. Jesus accused them of this. He said, “I give you just one law.” Never mind the ten, never mind the one hundred and ten that you have manufactured out of them. I will give you one law, the law of love. Jesus says if a man will keep that law he keeps all laws. Let us illustrate this fact.
Take three laws regarding God, three commandments. “Thou shalt have no other God before me.” A man who loves God doesn’t have to be told not to worship any other God besides the Almighty. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” A man who loves God does not do that either. He doesn’t have to be told. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” A man who loves God would not have to be told that. He would worship the Lord his God in spirit and in truth. There we have three commandments that love replaces.
Now let us take the laws regarding man. “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land.” Surely a man whose heart is filled with love, doesn’t have to be told that he should honor his father and mother. It would be ridiculous to tell him. Again, “Thou shalt not kill.” A man who loves doesn’t kill something he loves. He nourishes and sustains it. Again, “Thou shalt not steal.” We can go into all the others, can’t we, and we shall find clearly and unmistakably that Jesus is right, that this is the royal law, the law of love. It is the greatest thing in all the world to love and to be filled with love, not to talk about love, but to actually practice it so that our love goes out toward all brethren and sisters; and not just the brethren and sisters, but to the whole world, to those who hate us and would do us harm.
Love is the key of life. It is the operative power within us that moves us and drives us and will eventually bring us into the everlasting Kingdom of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is love and love alone which will do this. Paul writes to the Galatians, “In Christ circumcision availeth nothing, neither uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.” It is our faith, brethren and sisters, bearing fruits in the form of love, that will make us acceptable to God. It is faith which worketh by love. Faith without works is dead. It isn’t that a man is working doing this and that for wages. It isn’t a case of that at all. It is bringing forth out of ourselves the fruits of righteousness, peace and love, and so on. Paul had this in mind when he said, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, patience, meekness.” That is a very beautiful phrase, “The fruit of the Spirit.” There is a very similar one spoken in connection with David. Of the fruit of his loins God would raise up Christ. The Spirit was teaching us clearly what this means, the fruit of the Spirit. Just as by the fruit of David’s loins it meant his offspring, his greater Son, so we see in the fruit of the Spirit, a begettal and a time of labor and sorrow out of which comes forth to the birth, the qualities of God, Himself. It is the result of walking with the Spirit, because if two walk together and they are agreed, they will produce, and so if the Spirit is with us, we have this intimacy, this perfect personal relationship with the Father through the Spirit Word, then the Spirit Word will produce out of us this fruit, which is love.
How do we have this Spirit of God dwell within us and move us? Of course, brethren and sisters, it is the Word of God. We don’t have the Holy Spirit as exercised in the first century to perform miracles, etc. Jesus says, “The words that I speak, they are spirit and they are life.” They come from God Himself. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We read in the same chapter of John, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us . . . in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” James wrote, “Of His own will begat he us with the word of truth.” We have all been begotten to a new and living way, and we are waiting for the birth, the time when, as Israel was born a nation in a day, we shall be brought forth to the perfection of divine nature and shall be born of Spirit, whereas now we have been begotten of Spirit and as a result of being begotten of the Spirit, we are producing and cultivating the virtues of God Himself because of our intimacy with Him; then when Jesus comes He shall see in us the reflection of His character, His perfection and He will welcome us, He will open his arms to us. There will be no shadow of a doubt. We should not go to the judgment seat with fear and trembling, with trepidation. That is the trouble with the brethren and sisters of today. We think in fear, in terms of having a simple place in the Kingdom when there is no such thing. We can look forward to the crown of righteousness, which He, the Righteous Judge, shall give unto us and to all who love His appearing. It depends on how much we love His appearing, how much we are looking forward to it. This is the whole teaching of Jesus.
You and I have the Word of God in the form of writing, Words which the Holy Spirit caused holy men of old to write down so that you and I could read them, so the words which Jesus spake have become the written Word which we can imbibe within us, and as a result, grow by them and become more like God. This is growing in grace and going onward unto perfection, until, in the mercy of God, we reach the fulness of the stature of the man, Christ Jesus.
Now, let us turn to the 13th Chapter of 1st Corinthians, because nothing on the subject of love would be complete unless we referred to some of these beautiful thoughts of the Apostle Paul. He begins by comparing the things that men esteem most highly in the world with the things of God, and he says to us, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels . . .” It is not writing or prophesying that matter. Though we have all eloquence, that is not enough. It is love that must rule our hearts, or else all our gifts, all our knowledge, all our wisdom will be vanity. We look up to a brother who can preach the word eloquently, but that is not enough. We must be filled with the love of God, because if we are not, we shall fail miserably and shall not see the Kingdom of God. Unless we develop God’s love in at least a small way, it will not be suddenly given to us. We must learn to develop it now.
Having shown the importance of love, the Apostle Paul goes on to analyze love. We might say he is like a scientist who takes a beam of light and passes it through a crystal prism so that it is broken up into its various colors, all the colors of the rainbow. Paul takes love and passes it through the prism of his divinely inspired mind, so that you and I can see what the divine attributes of love really are. It is like a housewife who bakes a cake. This cake is the result of many ingredients which go into the making of it; so Paul takes the multitudinous aspects of love and forms them into this divine love which you and I must develop. There is not time to go into the analysis which he gives us. We can do that in our own homes. We can take it verse by verse and meditate upon it and get the meat out of it, what the Spirit wishes us to know about this divine quality of love so that we can apply it in a practical way to our lives. Having analyzed it, what does Paul do? He defends it. He shows us that it is the greatest thing in the world. Faith, Hope, Charity, the greatest of these is love. Why does he say this? He must have a reason. He isn’t saying, “Do this because I found this the greatest asset in my life, the easiest thing that I can do.” No brethren and sisters, it was the hardest thing in his life, because at the time he wrote this, Paul was a hard man (although later on he developed softness). He was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, learned in the law. He knew the doctrine and teaching of the Pharisees, as he had been one of them. He had given consent to the martyrdom of Stephen. This same Paul, whose hands were stained in blood, could write, “The greatest of these is love.” He wasn’t saying, “Do this because I can do it.” He was talking to himself, just as I am talking to myself and we all must talk to ourselves.
We must learn to cultivate and develop this quality of love. Peter says, “Above all things, have fervent love among yourselves.” Faith will one day be turned to sight and all our hopes and aspirations will be realized, but love will continue, because love is eternal. As John says, “God is love.” Love will remain in the Kingdom of God. Love will remain when the Kingdom has been handed back by Jesus to the Father and God will be All in All. Love will remain — perfect love that casts away all fear.
There is a scientific maxim which says, “Like begets like” and we see that this is true not only in a physical sense in the procreation of all the species around us, but we see it in a spiritual sense. Love begets love, just as hatred begets hatred, so if you and I draw near to the Lord Jesus Christ, to his character of love, that divine love that He manifested, then that divine love will gradually become reproduced in us. By walking with the Spirit, the Spirit will produce within us this fruit, the result of our intimate walk or relationship.
We can put it another way. We can show that if we take a magnet and put it close to an ordinary piece of steel, which has no magnetic qualities whatever, in due time, the ordinary piece of steel will develop magnetic qualities and we will have two magnets, not just one. It is a wonderful scientific fact. The same thing applies to our coming to Jesus, to our drawing near to Him. We shall bring into our lives the magnetic influence of that love, different from anything that was ever manifested before, a love which was emotional. Sometimes we think that emotion is wrong, a sign of weakness. It was not with Jesus. He was so moved with sadness that He wept. It is not a sign of weakness as the world denounces it today, but a sign of divine glory to be moved by things, and when we are not moved, there is something wrong with us. We must be moved by Jesus, so that, like a magnet, we come to Him and become like Him.
It is essential that we learn to love one another. The world in which we live is not a playground, but a schoolroom. It is an education and the greatest lesson we must learn is the lesson of love. Love is the greatest thing in all the world, and it plays a very important part in All our lives. We must ask ourselves what makes a man a good ball player, a good linguist, a good musician, typist or anything else? What is the answer? Practice, isn’t it? Nothing else. Diligence and perseverance are what it takes. The same thing applies to our human nature. The only thing which will change us into the pure in heart is practice. We are not like that to start with. We are alienated from God. “The heart is deceitful above all things.”
It isn’t easy to love one another. It is something we must force ourselves to do and eventually it will come naturally. As we stand before the judgment seat of Christ the things for which he will judge us will not be the things that we have believed. It does matter that we believe the truth in contra-distinction to the errors that exist in the apostasy that is all around us. We don’t want to have communion with evil and with error, but at the same time how often have we found brothers and sisters quarreling with one another, almost coming to blows, because the other brother couldn’t agree with his petty interpretation of a verse. Who are we to quarrel about such things when the bowels of love and mercy should exercise us? Jesus died for such a brother who would almost come to blows about such a thing. Think about it! He died for him every bit as much as He died for me. So why should we exercise this spirit of antagonism and animosity toward one another? Who do we think we are? We must be exercised by love. Those who stand before Christ and are condemned will not be condemned because of little differences they have had in their midst, perhaps causing divisions because of pride and vanity; and it isn’t because of what they have done either for all have been sinful and unrighteous. On that basis no one would pass the judgment seat of Christ, because we are all sinners, we are all unrighteous and none of us will be worthy. There was only one man found worthy to open the Book, as the Book of Revelation clearly shows.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One