THE LOVE OF GOD
On a previous occasion we were considering the blessings set forth in the first four verses of this chapter. I propose now to dwell upon the following verses which give us our portion. “The love of God”. I could show you from the writings of both Paul and John that this love is the spring of all. You cannot get beyond it: that love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. The Spirit is given to me to make that love good in me. I do not wait to go to heaven to enjoy it; it is perfected in us now. Love is realised. I have now touched upon an important point, and perhaps some of you are saying, That is the very point; I should like to realise love. I met a man once who said he should like to have blessing from God, but he was waiting to have the love of God shed abroad in his heart. But in this scripture, directly after the realisation of the love is spoken of, you are turned away to consider the great expression of the love of God. ‘Well proved in what it’s done’. The Spirit of God takes our eyes from love realised to love expressed. You are turned to what produces the realisation. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. This takes us to the when and the how it was manifested. You cannot start from your own heart. How much have you realised the love of God? In the measure in which you know the love expressed. Love must be manifested before it can be realised. People are looking for the love in their own hearts. You must get to the fountain first - the heart of God. He has given us His Spirit, and the Spirit produces in our hearts the realisation of His love by pointing out to us the manifestation of His love.
Here for the first time in this epistle we reach love. Before I go on I should like to say: The love of God never could give us peace; it must be the righteousness of God for that; the question of our sins must be settled righteously, or there is no peace. The love of God is the source of all blessing. Our sin was great, but love provided what righteousness demanded. I am anxious as to this point, because we cannot go on until it is settled. God has put these two things together, righteousness and peace, and we must not separate them. If you put them together in your soul, then you can go on to enjoy the spring and source of all - the love of God. The first time the indwelling Spirit is spoken of in this epistle it is in connection with shedding abroad the love of God; the Spirit is given that you may enjoy the love. That is what I call realising. Our hearts are made sensible of God's love. You cannot get beyond that. That is our portion.
We have reached the ocean now. We can never be better loved than we are now, but we may enjoy it more, and shall by-and-by. What a thought! I am loved as much now as ever I shall be. My enjoyment of it is another thing; but God loves you and me, dear saint, as much now as ever He will.
I want to speak to you of the love of God in five different ways: firstly, the Manifestation of love; secondly, the Commendation of love; thirdly, the Perfection of love; fourthly, the Manner of love; and fifthly, the Measure of love. And now you will expect that, if I am going to dwell upon the love of God, I shall turn to John 3: 16; for that is the first statement we get of it in scripture. Let us turn to it. Here we get the manifestation of love. If I asked any one of you to quote the verse, I will answer for it that you would not quote it correctly. “God so loved the world”. Have I quoted it correctly? I have not. We must be careful how we quote scripture. What is it then? “For God so loved the world”. You may think that that is a very small difference, but it all hangs on that. You cannot understand scripture unless you read it in its connection. Go back to verse 14. No one can understand verse 16 unless he understand the brazen serpent. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”. The serpent of brass was a type of Christ on the cross, giving the aspect of His death that I trust God will make known to every reader. You understand, perhaps, that Christ is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; but here we have a serpent of brass as a type of the Lord. What does it mean? The serpent of brass does not set forth the Lord Jesus as the bearer of sins. It is not in that connection He is seen here, but with the judgment of sin.
Let me recall to you that incident in Numbers to which the Lord refers. Look at those people; they are nearing the end of their journey; they say to Moses, “our soul loatheth this light bread”, Num 21: 5. What a terrible thing to say! God's eye rested on them; He heard what they said, and sent fiery serpents which bit the people so that they died. They were poisoned; their lives were poisoned. They were dead and dying with the poison of the serpent in their veins. Their natural lives were poisoned. God told Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it on a pole, so that every one that was bitten might look at it and live. It was to be made of brass: brass always means judgment; and when they looked at the serpent of brass they lived.
Let us go further back to the story of the fall of man. Man disobeyed God and fell. We are witnesses of that fall. I need not go to the Old Testament to see that man is a fallen being. When man disobeyed God he received the sting of the serpent. Who was the serpent? The devil. What was the sting of the serpent? The sting of the serpent was hate. When man disobeyed God, he hated the God he had disobeyed. Satan hated God, and we receive the sting of the serpent morally, as they received it physically. What is God going to do with the flesh that hates Him? Will He forgive it? No. God never forgives the flesh. He forgives sins, but He condemns sin in the flesh. Behold in that uplifted Son of man, made sin for us, the condemnation of sin in the flesh. That is gospel. He was made what we are. It is not only that He bore our sins, but that which put God's Son upon the cross has been condemned in His death.
I will prove to you that man hates God. You know the parable, “last of all he sent unto them his son”, Matt 21: 37. What was the outcome of that? They said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him”, v 38. That is the flesh - hate. On the cross He was made what we are. When you come to the history of it, you see Him there on the cross dead, on either side a dying man, but the centre man dead. The soldier takes a spear and pierces His side. John, who had laid his head on that bosom, watched the soldier. What was the answer to the soldier's spear? Blood and water. I want you to think of the two ends of that spear. My hatred at one end, His love at the other. John bears record, and his record is true. From that bosom came forth blood and water - blood to expiate guilt, and water to cleanse from the defilement of the flesh; both by death. Behold the moral beauty of the gospel! There might have been written across that spearpierced side two scriptures, “God is light” (1 John 1: 5) and “God is love”, 1 John 4: 8. “God is light”; nothing but the blood can satisfy His claims. “God is love”; God so loved where I so hated. Where my hatred was proved, God’s love was proved too. There at that cross rose higher and higher the hate of man, but above it all rose the mighty love of God. Where man so hated, God so loved. My degradation and ruin is the dark background for the love of God. He says, I take advantage of your hate and ruin to show out My love. Have you ever stood by the seashore and looked at the cliffs to see how high the tide rises? You can see the mark of it and can say, I know the water has reached as high as that. At the cross the love of God rises up far above and beyond all the hate of man. Now you can see why “For” comes in in John 3: 16. Now I will take you to another passage. Remember the manifestation of the love is my point just now. John's Epistle, chapter 4: 7: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God”. In this passage Christians are exhorted to love one another. God never needed to be told to love, but we do; we are exhorted, not to look for love, but to show it. Some people are always looking for love. You are not told to look for love, but to exhibit it; and if you do this, you will find it. You have sometimes to pour water into a pump in order to get water out.
Another thing I would like to say: It is God's love, not human love. God loves with a holy love that will never tolerate a stain on its object. God says, I love you with a love that will not allow a spot on you; I will not tolerate it.
Let me just repeat a passage where you get the exhibition of love. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says (2 Cor 12: 15), “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you; the less I be loved”. What! Go on loving, though the more I love the less I am loved! Where is such a man living? In the love of God, or he could not speak like that.
Now come to verse 9 (1 John 4), “In this was manifested the love of God toward us”. Here you have it toward you. How? “Because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”. The manifestation of the love of God is connected with the sending of His Son that we may live, and also to be a propitiation for our sins. How can you talk about the love of God apart from atonement? This doctrine is all about the contrary: it has the hiss of the serpent in it. Turn from it. What does our scripture say? He sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins - on the one hand that we may have life, and on the other as a propitiation for our sins. Behold the manifestation of the love of God. If you want to see love, herein is love.
You see the Spirit of God began in verse 7 by exhorting us to love one another, and in order to produce love, He shows how love has acted towards us. Love manifested towards you beget love realised in you – “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts” - and love realised in you results in love exhibited toward others. But you must start at the top with love manifested toward you; then follows love realised in you. Whose love? God's love. I will tell you how much you love God. In the measure in which you have realised His love toward you. Your heart responds to love in the measure in which you have taken it in. It cannot flow out if it does not flow in. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart, and then it flows out. The moment you take in love, the natural result is - you love.
Now come back with me to Romans 5. We get the Commendation of love here. A man once told me he had been waiting thirteen years for the love of God to be shed abroad in his heart. I said to him, ‘Did you ever read verses 6, 7, and 8 of Romans 5?’ Look at the structure of the scripture. The moment the Spirit of God speaks of love realised in your heart He calls your attention to when, where, and how the love was expressed. If the man had believed the next verse, he would soon have realised the love of God shed abroad in his heart. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die … But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. That is the commendation of the love. I am not called to look into my heart to see whether God loves me; that is miserable self-occupation; you must look outside yourself. You must see the love there, in the cross, before you can realise it in your heart. It is the outside look gives inside enjoyment.
Now I come to point three: the Perfection of love. If you have Bibles with marginal references, you will see that it should read thus: “Herein has love been perfected with us that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; that even as he is, we also are in this world”. Some have even said to me when I have read the passage, ‘Certainly you have a different Bible from ours; that is not in ours’; and, they have gone to look. My dear friends, here it is in the word, and it is here for your joy and blessing. “Even as he is, so are we in this world”. It is this latter clause that people say is not in their Bibles. It is God's love that is made perfect with us, and it is with a view to giving us boldness in the day of judgment. Think of the proposal. The day of judgment is a very solemn thing. It is the day when God will take cognisance of evil and will judge it. He is the centre of the moral universe, and He must judge evil. How can I have boldness in that day? Because as He is, so are we in this world. Who is He? Christ. It does not say here we shall be like Him. There is a passage which says, “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is”, but here it is: “As he is, so are we in this world”, 1 John 3: 2. That is the answer to the serpent of brass. The serpent of brass is Christ made what I am; here it is, I am made what He is. As He is in all His grace and moral worth, as He is to God’s satisfaction, so am I in this world. That is the perfection of His love. Who could have imagined it! But the Holy Ghost has written it.
This is the spring of holiness. Is Christ clear of sin? So am I. Is He clear of judgment? So am I. Is He loved? So am I. I pray God His people may know the perfection of His love as set forth here. Here is a heritage, and saints are being cheated out of it, and that partly because they do not read the scriptures in faith. “As he is, so are we in this world”. What does it mean? I will tell you. “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him”, Luke 15: 22. As much as to say, I will make you suitable to my presence. I will so put you before Me that I may let My love out to you as I do to My Son. The Christian is made meet and suitable for God Himself.
Now the next verse: “There is no fear in love”. If there is a bit of fear in your heart, it is because you do not know you are as Christ is. “Fear hath torment”. Suppose I am going home, I send a wire to say, I will be home by the four o'clock train. I go to the door of my house. I go in. There is great silence. I say to my wife, Where are the children? She replies, From the time we received the telegram the children's hearts have been filled with fear, and they are gone upstairs to hide themselves. Filled with fear! What would that be to my heart? A cruel cut indeed; any one can understand that. But how would it really be? As I come up the roadway, what do I see? Three little faces against the window-pane, and the moment the door is open they rush to welcome me. “Perfect love casteth out fear”. I have heard God's people sing:-
’Tis a point I long to know;
Oft it causes anxious thought:
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I His, or am I not?
That thought is not here. It is a doleful ditty; I used to sing it. “Perfect love casteth out fear”. Anxious thought! Yes, it may cost you anxious thought if it is your love you are thinking about; but think of His love.
I can only indicate the other points very briefly. The Manner of the love is in chapter 3 of this epistle. “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God”. That is the manner of the love. We are children of God. He is our Father. It is the manner of the love the Father has bestowed upon us. What is the consequence? The world does not know us: I say to myself, No one knows me here, and I am content to be unknown, for I am well known up there. Are you content to be well known there and unknown here? The Lord Jesus was well known there, but nobody knew Him here. He was only the carpenter’s son in the eyes of men. Dear Christians, the Father knows us. Are you content with this, or are you hankering after the world? It is the love of the Father makes us unworldly. Do you want to be noticed? Are you going to publish what you are doing? That will not do; the blessed Lord did not do that; He was content to have His Father's approval. “The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not”. Who is the “him” here? The Lord Jesus. Be content to be nothing and have His company. There is always plenty of room at the bottom of the ladder. All the scrambling is at the top. The bottom is a very blessed place. You get the company of Jesus there. And he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
I will take you now briefly to the Measure of the love. It is in John 17: 23. “And hast loved them, as thou hast loved me”. That is the measure of His love. If you can measure the love of the Father to the Son, then you can measure the love of the Father to you.
The Lord bless this word to you, and give you understanding hearts.
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