LOVE IN INCORRUPTION

J. Lovie

1 Corinthians 16: 21–24; Ephesians 6: 23, 24

I believe the Lord is desirous of extending the area of affection for Him in every one of our hearts. I think He would serve us in His grace in the appreciation of all that reaches us from the divine side so that we might love Him more. How worthy He is that we should love Him more! Think of how He was loved by the Father; how He drew out the Father’s love in His movements in manhood. At one point He says, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”, John 10: 17. On the one hand as in manhood He enjoyed the settled disposition of the Father’s love. From another viewpoint He drew out that love, the love of

friendship, because He was lovable. David was lovable; all Israel and Judah arrived at a point when they loved David. I think therefore the Lord would serve us to extend in our hearts an area of love for Him.

The more we love Christ, the less we love self. Naturally, man is selfish and makes himself the centre. We know that by our own histories. But as Christ gets a place in our affections love for self recedes; self-interest recedes; love for Christ and the things of Christ comes more on to view. And I would say now that if we are to love Christ more it means that we love the things of Christ more. Mr. Raven taught that the more we enjoy union with Christ where He is, the more we make His interests ours in the scene where they are rejected. The Lord Jesus is not here personally but His interests are down here. His saints are here, and every interest He has in the assembly and in the gospel is to become your interest and mine as we love Him more. What a thing it would be if, as a result of our meetings today, there would be more room in our hearts for Christ, and more room for the things of Christ.

As the Lord served those two on the way to Emmaus He spoke from the prophets and others of the things concerning Himself. Those things must have involved the assembly; He must have opened their understanding as to the assembly. The Lord must have gone through the book of Genesis and spoken about Rebecca—“the things concerning Himself”—it must have included His interest in relation to the assembly. The result was that their heart burned within them while He talked with them on the way. Immediately they arrive at the company and contribute from their experience as to their knowledge of Christ and the things of Christ.

I have read from those two passages because I think that at Corinth there was a lack of love for Christ. Paul puts it in the negative, “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ”. I think that there were persons at Corinth who did not really love Christ. That would be evident as you look into what was existing in the place; and yet the Lord serves them in grace through ministry that love might be increased, and that their love might then be demonstrated in their

administration in the local meeting. He comes to that in the second letter, that they were to show the proof of their love. So he says, “If any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ”.

It is evident that there were persons there who did not love Christ from the way they were coming to the Supper. Some were obviously coming to the Supper drunk; others were making it a meal, they were taking their own supper, and Paul has to say, “When ye come therefore together … it is not to eat the Lord’s supper”, 1 Corinthians 11: 20. The Lord’s supper relates to His dominical glory, it relates to the Lord’s day, and the teaching of that in the first epistle comes in very powerfully. Paul speaks in chapter 10 in relation to the fellowship and the Lord’s table; what relates to the Lord. I think the bearing of that stands related to the world to come, the Lord’s day bearing on the day of the Lord, involving His judicial activities in view of putting down evil. He can do that, He will do it; He will do it among the nations, and in view of the ushering in of Christ’s day the Lord will act in the day of the Lord in the suppression and overthrow of all that is lawless in every area, and of every evil influence, in view of introducing the glory of the day of Christ.

I think then the Lord’s day bears on that, whereas “The first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread”, (Acts 20: 7), bears on eternity. Dear brethren, we are in the greatest days, the time of the Spirit. The first day of the week is what is distinctive to christianity, and the bearing of that runs right into eternal conditions. What the Lord would show us, I think, is that even in a place like Corinth, where there were persons who were not really loving Him, He was serving them in grace through ministry to re-awaken and rekindle among them right desires, right affections, right instincts, as to Himself.

When you come to Ephesians we have, “Grace with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption”. Oh, how delightful the state of things at Ephesus was, where love for Christ was so manifest, loving in incorruption. I think at Corinth there were persons who were loving in a corruptible way, and I would like to illustrate this from the history of David. He was so personally attractive; his prowess, his victory, the way he met the foe, the way he went into the valley of Elah and dealt with the giant and then carried the head of the giant up to Jerusalem. How full and complete the victory as he carried that big head up to Jerusalem! I think David virtually said, ‘This head will not control us any more, God has a new Head for man in Christ’. How glorious, how attractive He is!

So it is that certain persons loved David. You might say that Jonathan was a great lover of David, but his love was a corruptible love, he did not love in incorruption. And yet David, in that remarkable song of the bow, says, “Thy love to me was wonderful”, 2 Samuel 1: 26.

How he valued and appreciated the love of Jonathan: At one time Jonathan stripped himself of his sword and his bow and gave

them to David, and yet all the time there was a certain distance in his love. He was like a long-distance lover. The shooting of the arrows indicated that there was distance (1 Samuel 20), it was not close contact. He knew that David would be king, but if Jonathan was to share the place in glory it involved that he must share the place of reproach, and he was not prepared for that.

How sad the fact that Jonathan was slain on Mount Gilboa, and yet he loved David; but his love did not go all the way. Oh, dear brethren, let our love be such as would go all the way.

Jonathan stopped short; when David went into rejection, Jonathan went back to the house of Saul. He was not prepared for the path of separation.

Then there was Michel; she, loved David up to a point. At one point she seems to have spared his life when Saul would have killed him, when she put that image in the bed (1 Samuel 19); but how sad, she just had an image in the bed, she did not have the real thing. There are many persons today who have a link with the Saviour, who have a judgment of certain things that are wrong, but they are not prepared to go all the way. If I can convey what I mean by that, Michal was against certain features that were coming out and were being expressed towards David, and while she acted as she did to seek to protect his life, she was not an incorruptible lover of David. At the time when David danced before Jehovah with all his might, Michal looked down through that window and despised him. It was a love that fell short, that did not go all the way because it was corruptible. The Anglican system was against Rome, but not fully for Christ. How many have missed their way in the scattering of these recent years; while they were against

certain features of evil that were brought into the assembly, their love for Christ stopped short of going the whole way in the path of the present testimony.

Then you have an Ittai, who had only come “yesterday”, 2 Samuel 15. Oh, his love for David in death or in life was beautiful! How attractive David was to him. You know, when David spoke to Jonathan in that final conversation (1 Samuel 23) he did not say, ‘Look Jonathan, you come with me’, he did not weep then, he did not quote 2 Corinthians 6 or 2 Timothy 2 to Jonathan, he appealed to Jonathan on the basis of what he was personally, and if there had been true loyalty in Jonathan he would have taken that path into rejection with David and then shared with him in the kingdom.

But, oh, when you come to Mephibosheth, what a true lover of David he was! He loved at the level of Ephesians. I have no doubt that Mephibosheth was an Ephesian. David, the kingdom established in his hand, sends out the message, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?”, 2 Samuel 9: 3. David in the exercise of that prerogative in the overabounding character of the grace of God reaches out to Mephibosheth and brings him in from Lodebar, brings him to his table as a son. How true Mephibosheth was to David in rejection; how true he was when a usurper would seek to challenge his place; how loyal despite being misrepresented and maligned.

David at that point is not seen as a type of Christ, he is a type of a believer who comes under the influence of a wrong story, 2 Samuel 19. From one point of view that was never put right, according to the record; but Mephibosheth from his side shines at the level of an Ephesian saint. His joy is that the king is come again to his house, that David is in his own place, typically that Christ is getting what is due to Him. As to what belongs to himself personally, does he seek his own? Even when slandered he says, “Let him even take all”. ‘I am not concerned about those things’, he says, ‘I am not seeking my own things; I am seeking the things of Jesus Christ’. He shows that his love for David is incorruptible at the Ephesian level.

May the Lord grant, dear brethren, that our love for Christ may increase and that it may be of the quality that is prepared to go through in devotion and in loyalty and in attachment to Him who is our Saviour and Lord. Let it be increasing with us, and let our love be unfeigned, without pretension, let it be love of this character, as Paul says in the end of this remarkable epistle, “Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption.”

Address at Sandwell (Birmingham)
10 November 1973

 

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