THE WAY OF LOVE
[p. 182] THE WAY OF LOVE
Numbers 10:33,34; 2 Corinthians 4:7 - 15; Genesis 11:6 - 10; Revelation 3:8
From these scriptures I hope to show something of the way of love, and in speaking of it I would point out that love is of God, and that the manifestation of it is mediatorial. That is, that while it has been manifested in Christ, and whilst He is personally God, a divine Person, yet He, as here, made it clear that love is “of God”. John, who is employed by the Spirit to expatiate on this great subject, emphasises that it is of God. In chapter 4 of his first epistle, in which he enlarges upon it, a chapter of twenty-one verses, you will find the word ‘God’ no less than twenty-nine times. He says, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us”, the proof being that He sent His Son into the world “that we might live through him”, and that He might be the “propitiation for our sins”. 1 John 4:10. So that we have to look to the only-begotten Son here, as I said, as sent, or mediatorially, for the manifestation of that love, ever bearing in mind that the testimony is of God.
There is also the love of Christ to the assembly which is peculiar to Himself, but I desire on this occasion to emphasise the way of love as finding its expression in One sent, in One here who was in obedience. I have therefore selected the passage from Numbers and the passage from 2 Corinthians, the first setting out in type in a most beautiful and striking manner love’s way as in Christ; the second in a correspondingly beautiful manner, love’s way in one of like passions as ourselves, so that it may not appear to be far away, but the rather brought near to us.
[p. 183] Now having said so much as to what I wish to present, I want to show from the other two passages how the government of God is to enhance this way of love, indeed, to make it possible in this world; and then the government of Christ in the sphere of profession as making it possible for us, for the assembly. Without these two features — features which are perhaps somewhat overlooked by many — it were impossible that love’s way should shine here.
The combination at Babel was intended to prevent such a way, such a manifestation of God. The line of blessing had already been introduced in Shem, and you will observe that the Spirit of God gives us his generation, both before and after this great historical event — the effort to build Babel. He it was, as you will remember, who led in the hiding of his father’s shame, for the divine way takes its course in the recognition of parental rights. In this he takes the lead with Japheth his brother. They take the upper garment, placing it upon their shoulders, and going backwards they cover their father’s shame and nakedness. They went backwards, we read. It was a movement of parental respect, and, I may say, of affection. Their faces were in another direction, they were not occupied, or would not be occupied with their father’s shame, that of which Ham spoke with no concern. Ham was indifferent and spoke without shame of the self-degradation of Noah, whereas Shem and Japheth took the upper garment and went backwards, their faces being in another direction. This action in due course God would respect in His government, for in their posterity they should see something blessed different from parental degradation. Hence we find that Shem is blessed by Jehovah — the covenant name of God.
God adds a double blessing to Shem, for he had earlier been blessed with his father and his brothers, and now he is blessed again: “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his bondman”. Genesis 9:26.
[p. 184] Jehovah is his God, and in due course the fulness of that will be known to Shem. Hence as the nations are divided in the government of God, we have the second account of his generation, as if God were to say, “I have intervened governmentally to make a way for Shem, for the line of blessing will be blocked if men are to unite and remain with one language”. It says, they “had one language, and the same words”, so that they should be perfectly intelligible to one another, but I ask, intelligible for what? Opposition to God. And thus the lines of blessing would be blocked were it not that the government of God intervened. Let us mark that it is the line of God’s purpose to bless universally through a chosen person; it is not as in Genesis 5, the life-line. There are two distinct things, there is the line of life in Adam through Seth, culminating in Enoch being received up into heaven; but then there is the line of the purpose of God to bless through Christ, for it is a question now of the glory of God, and what underlies the glory of God is the love of God. His glory is the shining out of His love, and that in universal blessing. Hence He says to Abraham, the descendant of Shem, “In blessing I will bless thee”, Genesis 22:17 and “thou shalt be a blessing”, Genesis 12:2 and “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”. Genesis 12:3.
You will thus see how the government of God subserves this wonderful way of love. So that Shem, in Abraham, with his face in another direction, in a different direction from that in which the shame of his father lay, sees the glory of God. How honoured! And so Stephen began with that: “The God of glory”, he says, “appeared to our father Abraham”, Acts 7:2. Then to Stephen, one of his most honoured sons, the glory itself appeared; it says he “saw the glory of God”. Acts 7:55. He had to face the setting aside of God’s earthly people for the time had come for it:
he says, “Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers, ye also” Acts 7:51, but he saw the heavens opened through, and the Son of man, as he says, standing at the right hand of God, and the glory there. What a marvellous end reached! What interventions of divine power there had been to make a way for the line of blessing, from the days of Shem to the days of Stephen, for the way was made. Forty-two generations came right down unbroken under the government of God in the line of blessing, culminating in Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham; and now the God of glory has reached His end in that that glory is secured in heaven in Jesus; it is there.
Now I wish that we may take notice of this, that is, of the government of God. Nothing is happening amongst the nations unknown to Him nor even without Him, for the Lord says a sparrow does not fall without Him. How much more then the overthrow of governments, or the establishment of a government in any nation is taken account of by God. These things do not happen without Him. It is not that He is the author of these things, but nothing happens without Him; and thus we may be assured of the way. John in his gospel, which particularly applies to our times, remarks more than once that there was a division amongst the Jews because of Christ. We may thank God for these divisions, however many there may be amongst them; the more the divisions amongst the enemies of Christ, the weaker they become, and the less power they have against the truth. These things are not there for nothing, they are there for our learning and encouragement.
Then, too, there is the Lord’s direct government, in the sphere of profession, Revelation shows that He is walking amongst the golden candlesticks; He is walking. He has, as it were, right of way. Who can interfere with that walking? There are no passports needed. However high the walls between the [p. 186] nations He walked through or over. The Lord is not dealing with the nations, God is dealing with them. The Lord is dealing with the profession. Is He not walking there? He is, and some of us know it well. Things are happening that enable the saints of God to move on when the enemy would block up their way. Hence He says, “I have set before thee an opened door” — not simply an open one, but an opened door; it had been shut. One of the witnesses of the love of Christ to us lies in that, “I have set before thee an opened door, which no one can shut”; thank God! But then why? “Because thou hast a little power”. That is why; there is power to move on, and He makes a way. It is useless to talk about an opened door, it is like a sounding cymbal, unless we move on through it; He says, “thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. Are such not worth making a way for? They are, indeed, to Him. “Because thou hast a little power”. It is that He thinks of, and the keeping the word of His patience and the non-denial of His name. He loves to see such, and to see such move; thus He opens the door for them.
It is all a question of movement at the present time. “I have set before thee”, He says; it is He who has done it; there it is — an opened door; the enemy had closed it, now it is opened, but opened for what? Not for earth-dwellers, not for stationary people, not for those who live in this world, in their families, and in their businesses, but for those who have a little spiritual power; it is they who move in; they have kept the word of His patience and not denied His name. It is worth while; there is that here which He values, and He would make a way for it, and He has done it, beloved friends, there is no question about it: the door has been opened. The question is, are we moving through into whatever there is for us? What is beyond that door? The [p. 187] best that love can provide; that is what is there, and it is entering in that you find it out. As the Lord says elsewhere, “I am the door; if anyone enter in by me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture”, John 10:9. Things are to be found according to John’s way. The Lord says, “Come and see”. John 1:39. You find the things; light comes to you, and the next thing is movement, “Because”, He says, “thou hast a little power”. How He loves to see us moving, and moving together!
I like to go back to Genesis, for the root of everything is there. I think of the appearing of the God of glory to Abraham the great father, and the descendant of Shem whose God was Jehovah, whose servant was to be Canaan. Canaan was cursed in order to make room for the line of purpose. Israel went into Canaan legitimately, it was not arbitrarily; it was according to the rights of love. The curse was there for hundreds and hundreds of years: “Cursed be Canaan”. Genesis 9:25. It is not Ham but Canaan; it is a question of the inheritance of God and room being made in it for His loved ones.
Well now, having said all that, I want to come back to what I began with, and that is the way of love. You see how beautifully it is presented in the ark. The ark, as you will all know, is a symbol of Christ as the power of God, and the glory of God. “He delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand” Psalm 78:61; that is to say, it is a question of the power as subservient to the love. Love is behind everything in God and His ways.
And now, let us look at what love will do, so as to understand its way. The ark had been enthroned in the midst of the camp; it was to be carried by the levites — by the Kohathites — when in movement. Many of us like to be carried — a service involving great energy and strength in others. It also involves love in them, and there is such a thing, thank God, as love in others, so that our burdens should be borne.
That is their responsibility, but love’s way is not to expect from others. Love’s way is to lay aside one’s dignity and take up the most menial, the most arduous, the most trying features of the service. Hence John says that “Jesus knowing ... that he was come from God, and went to God ... laid aside his garments” John 13:3,4; note, knowing that He came from God and was going to God, laid aside. It is all a question of God; God who has been manifested here mediatorially, that is, in One in the place of a servant. It is a question of God, that He may be known, and that thus the way of love may be known.
And so what is emphasised is that the ark goes before on the three days’ journey to find out a resting-place for Israel; it goes before, we are told, on the three days’ journey. Every moment of those days you could see the ark going before. It does not say it was carried, though doubtless it was, but that is not the point; the point is it went before. Jesus was not carried. Mary anointed His feet six days before the passover. There were six days of travel yet ahead for those feet of love, and every inch of that way was travelled by the very feet of Jesus. He was not carried, He went His way; those feet of love trod every inch of that way. “If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way”. John 18:8. He would go that way; He went down into death to seek out a resting-place. It was the service of love. Think of the combination of satanic power that lay athwart that path! What will love do? “What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest?”. Psalm 114:5. It was in the presence of the Lord here, as I said, in mediatorial service. He came as the sent One, as representative of God, that God should be known, and that divine love should be known. That was the thought, that the saints should live in that love and respond to God in it. So Jordan fled; it was as the feet of the priests touched the waters. The type refers to the Lord’s own feet, not to any feet [p. 189] that carried Him. No feet could dare to tread there save His; He had not gone this way before; two thousand cubits separated the people of God from those feet. The Son of God trod that way alone to make a way for us, so that we might enter into the place love has prepared for us.
It is a wonderful theme. God would impress upon us what love is, and what its way is, the way, as Paul says, of more “surpassing excellence”. 1 Corinthians 12:31. So he sets out that way in these verses; “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God”. It is a question of God, but God as manifested in the life of Jesus; that life should be manifested first in the body, in a vessel, and then in a condition — mortal flesh. There can be no question as to what Paul was; he was an earthen vessel and he was in mortal flesh, just what every one of us is, and yet the way of love shone through resplendently. The glory had shone into that heart, the glory of God in the face of Jesus, The God of glory had appeared to Abraham; now the glory of God in the face of Jesus had shone into that heart. He was persecuted and cast down, but his way was not entirely shut up. The enemy would shut it up, but it was never shut up, nor will it ever be. For any one who is the vessel of that love, the way will never be entirely shut up.
And what was Paul’s motive? The Corinthians. “Death worketh in us”. That was love’s way. Paul, as it were, had placed himself on the altar of God, and whatever the will of God was for him, he accepted it. The will of God was that he might be a vessel for the help of the Corinthians, refractory as they were, and though the more abundantly he loved them the less he was loved. But be it so, there he was, it was “death worketh in us, but life in you”. It is a question of the saints; but then what about the vessel? The God who had raised up Jesus, he says,
[p. 190] will raise up us also with you and present us with you; for love will not do without its object. One thinks of one’s own resurrection and ascension, but it is a question of the saints being with us. We are raised up together. We are told in Ephesians that God has quickened us with the Christ, and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. It is a question of love and love’s way, and love will not be without the brethren. I speak of it in Paul because the Spirit of God sets him out as a model for us. He says that he sought that the life of Jesus should be manifested in his body.
Now note the two expressions — body and mortal flesh; first in his body. Every one of us has a body, it is a mortal one, but nevertheless a vessel, fragile indeed, and the more fragile the more the dependence upon God. “This treasure”; what is that treasure? The glory of God in His love shining in the face of Jesus, having shone into our hearts; that is the treasure. That must not be impaired in any way. Let the vessel be tossed about, it is under divine protection, the way is not entirely shut up; so that the life of Jesus is manifested in it, first in the mortal body, and then in the mortal flesh; that is to say, in my actual living condition every day, but all to the end that the saints should be benefited. Of what value am I to Christ in this world if the saints are not being benefited by me? Of what value is any one of us if we are not a benefit to the saints of God, those who are most precious to Christ? “As ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”. Matthew 25:40. Hence the way of love is to be here on behalf of others. “Death worketh in us”, but then the resurrection is the great end, the power of God taking us together and lifting us out of death, out of mortal conditions, raising us and making us like Christ altogether.
[p. 191] Well, I hope that what I have said may convey some little further thought of love’s way and the end of it and the importance of it. Then how the government of God in the world and the government of Christ in the profession tend to make the way clear for it in us.
Pages 192 - 339 — “The Chief Musician”. Readings and Addresses. Great Britain, 1929 (Volume 98).