THE EFFECT OF KNOWING THE LOVE OF CHRIST
THE EFFECT OF KNOWING THE LOVE OF CHRIST
(Extract from a letter)
I have been very much helped though through much conflict lately in judging myself as to whether it is faith in the Lord’s love for me that I had, or faith in His power. Naturally speaking, you could have more reliance on the friend who has means than on the friend who has no means; but the friend who has no means, if he has love, is a better friend. Therefore if I know that the Lord loves me personally, the more I study that love the more I see, not what He could [p. 483] give me, but what He could be to me, and when His present love to you begins to be the attraction, you are surprised to find where it will lead you, and what it will open out to you.
Every christian has learned Him as a Saviour, but the first real beginning in the soul of this attachment is your discovery that He loves you. As He said to Peter (Luke 5: 8 - 10): “Fear not”, I will advance you from a mere fisherman to be a fisher of men; for Peter had said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord”. It is not only that He is the Object of my heart, but I find that the One I love has made me an object to His heart. A great day for the soul! People are ready to say how they love Him, but how far can they say that they are conscious of His love to them, and that they so prize it that it is the greatest secret of their hearts? When the Lord’s love is before you, you find His love is drawing you from darkness to light. He begins by shewing His desire for your spiritual advancement, and not by advancing you in earthly position. It is beautiful to see that the work of true love is to set aside darkness, or whatever would interfere with association, and therefore it is that it is not esteemed as it ought to be, because we are looking for something on the earth, and the tendency is to judge of His love by earthly gifts or favours down here.
The bride in the Song of Songs 1: 4, began rightly when she said, “Draw me, we will run after thee”. The unfailing mark of true affection, if I know He loves me, is, that I seek His company; and therefore, plainly, if you keep your first love you will seek to have company with Him. The Ephesians had given up their heavenly position when they lost their first love. If you are thus true in heart to Him you can follow out what you get in chapter 2: 3, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste”. It is very plain that company is dearer to the heart than any gift, and in the end you find, “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of Songs 2: 4). But alas! like the bride, though one knows the peculiar sweetness of sitting under His shadow with great delight, yet the tendency is to think of oneself and one’s own interests here, to drop down into selfish engrossment - to sleep like the bride in Song of Songs 5. Sleeping is not doing anything actually wrong, but it is making oneself happy without the Lord, it is a state of inactivity with regard to Him. It often follows a very happy time, but then you feel that you have had an irreparable loss, and you want to return to your first love. This, as we see in chapter 5, brings out great exercise; and the peculiar exercise connected with it is that which is always fruitful in occupying you with Himself personally, so that when you reach Him again you are nearer to Him. “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song of Songs 6: 3). I should not dwell so long on this point only I see that it is where the weakness of christians lies: they do not expect the Lord to draw them out of this place, to make it an unrestful place; on the contrary, they are looking to find rest here.
Surely Mary Magdalene, when in the agony of her heart she could not find the Lord, was indifferent about everything here; but He, true to His love for her, and not merely seeking to relieve her present distress, tells her not to touch Him, but to tell His disciples that He is going away - a great practical lesson; a deep, dark disappointment it must have been to her, but it was the Lord’s love which would not conceal from her that the only way henceforth of reaching Him was outside of everything here - which in the long run the true heart gladly accepts - and that we can be where He is fully accepted, and be clear of the place where He is refused; as she found before the close of that day when she met Him again on resurrection ground - an unequalled moment to her soul. This prepared her for the great history of those who belong to a rejected [p. 485] Christ, set free from everything, in the purity and perfection of His work, so that she could say, “As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4: 17) - and that consequently she is part of the consecrated company, and relieved of every human pressure, she can enter the holiest to share before God in all the acceptance of Christ, of which we have no type; the fulness and magnitude of it are only made known by the Spirit of God; it is not detailed in Scripture. She is united to Him and therefore shares in all His interests and all His power, and can come forth to act here unhinderedly according to His pleasure; and it is then only that the greatness of worship on God’s side is truly known.
Now we can see how the love of Christ conducts one all along the way to His own company, to be in unclouded communion with the Father and with Himself: “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1: 3). We cannot get any higher than that - a most amazing height - and yet it is from that height where all things are of God, that we must look down if anything tries us here, instead of trying to scramble out of the trouble here by one palliation or another.
I trust you will see very fully, how blessedly one is conducted by His love to a scene where everything is solved, and where your heart is assured that the love that has brought you to the top will order for you all along the road below.
But if you understand it, you will look at it, not as being in the trouble, but as living with Him out of it, marking His gracious way of freeing from it.