PERFECTION, THE AIM OF DIVINE LOVE
PERFECTION, THE AIM OF DIVINE LOVE
Much is contained in the Lord’s words to Peter, “Lovest thou me?” to promote devotedness.
Love is the highest attribute of God, and for us the most enjoyable activity. In loving the Lord we are loving One who first loved us; in fact, we could not love Him otherwise; in order to love God we must know Him. How could we love what we do not know? In loving the Lord we love One whose love is perfect, and who draws out our love, which increases in proportion as we know His. Love, as we say, must have an ideal; that is, it has a standard to which its object must come up in order to satisfy it, though among men it is too often that they only fancy it comes up to it. But true love could not view with indifference the state of its object. With man, therefore, it is an advantage that love is blind. But with God it is not so, and His love puts away in the cross of His Son the entire offending thing - that is, He in judgment righteously gets rid of our condition which is painful to His love, and sets us up anew; we are graced in the Beloved; so that His love having nothing to check it, can flow out and on as it likes. It is not that He loves us in spite of our faults, but now He can rest in His love; because in Christ we are entirely new before Him, “holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1: 4). What a complete satisfaction to His love! and evincing at the same time the exactitude and inexorability of His righteousness. Lessen the righteousness and you lessen the love. The love cannot allow anything in me that would be below the divine standard, for the standard of the one who loves is always that which is perfect in his eyes; and hence with God, the standard is Himself. We in our love are obliged to tolerate and excuse, because even [p. 36] in our ideas of perfection we must make allowance for imperfection, or we must condemn ourselves or be dishonest. God commends His love to us while we were yet sinners. He from His own side in judgment removes every atom of the offending thing, so that we now, in the life of His Son, may make our boast in God, through Him by whom we have received the reconciliation. Everything has been removed by His love, that we may be on the happiest terms with Him and make our boast in Him; His love surrounds us, and nothing can separate us from it (see Romans 8: 35 - 39). In my flesh there is plenty to pain His love; but He has judged it from His side for ever, and I am called to do so as I love Him. “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8: 28). If I love Him, I love what suits Him. I am not surprised to see judgment on everything unsuited to Him. See Deuteronomy 11: 1: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge”; and in 1 Corinthians 2: 9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard ... the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”. I love His perfection; for, after all, the thing to satisfy love is that the object is according to its standard of perfection. Hence the Lord shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied; and He will present us to Himself “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; ... holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5: 27).
Now, the more we know the Lord, the more are our souls filled with His perfection. Nothing there can ever check the sensibilities of our love; and the more we love Him, the less we can bear that which is unsuited to Him, and the more do we labour to conform everything to His mind and to seek that which will please Him. This imparts the greatest charm to devotedness, and is its reward. The delight of love, as seen in the eagle, is to lead her offspring into the same power as herself; and this is the way of divine love, not only in its nature but in its ability. This is the nature of Christ’s [p. 37] love for us, and eventually it will reach its aim, for we shall be perfectly like Him. Hence, as we love Him, we seek that all who belong to Him should be here like Him. If we have learned in any little measure to fly, we take the place of the eagle-mother and encourage the young bird to fly. This is the delight of love, and this is devotedness of the highest order; while the satisfaction of love is, that there is nothing in its object to check it, but that it is according to its standard of perfection.