DIVINE AFFECTIONS
S.McCallum
John 17: 25,26; Ephesians 3: 14-19; Romans 15: 30-33
It is on one's heart, as the Spirit may help, to say something about divine affections. I want to refer to the love of the Father, then the love of the Christ and then the love of the Spirit. There are references to these various features of divine affections in the passages we have read. It is a very attractive matter to be drawn into the circle of divine affections, especially in a day such as that in which we live where there has been much to test and try the saints. It is important that we see the value of repairing into the conscious enjoyment of that 'circle of affections all divine' (hymn 207) where nothing fails. How many things have failed, but love, as we have been instructed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, never fails; and this reference to the Father's love and our becoming the vessels of it is a very affecting matter. There is only one reference in this chapter to failure and breakdown and that is in the son of perdition. The Lord clothes the disciples with wonderful thoughts in this chapter. He gives us a remarkable example for our education as to knowing how to regard the saints and how to clothe them in the dignity proper to them. There has been much that we have experienced that has belittled the saints and reduced them far below the level of what is proper to their dignity as related to the eternal counsels of divine love. So it is always a comfort to retire into John 17 to such a fine reference to the steadiness of outlook that belongs to the sanctuary. You are amazed that John the evangelist, who lay in the bosom and on the breast of Jesus, could give us such a recording as we have in this chapter. One thing that stands out in it is the Lord's crediting His own with capacity. Spiritual capacity is a very testing matter but it is a very great matter, for we belong to a family that will have the greatest capacity spiritually of any family that is named of the Father in the universe of God. What determines its capacity is its formation. No other family, while having its own degree of formation, has the capacity that the assembly has; it is a creature vessel, next to Deity but a creature vessel, and as Mr Taylor sen once said, 'What a vessel!'. In the millennial world, the world to come of which we speak, and in the eternal state, what capacity will mark that vessel as having increased to a holy temple in the Lord and becoming the library of the universe, manifested as it will be as the fulness of Christ. Anything to be known of Christ and of God in that day will come through the assembly as associated with Christ. So this chapter brings out the capacity of His own. He says "the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them"; what a touch that is! There are times when we talk of the failures of the disciples but in this chapter the Lord is referring to their capacity.
In the typical scriptures dealing with the tabernacle and the temple we find vessels of varying capacity. If God has taken us on it is not to be as empty vessels. He fills empty vessels of course, but in the light of this chapter He takes us on in relation to a capacity that can receive the greatest communications that relate to God and the purposes and counsels of His love. He says in another place in this chapter, "the glory which thou hast given me I have given them". Think of the dignity and greatness of this, dear brethren. May the Spirit carry us into the greatness of these statements of our Lord, as in the light of the sanctuary He speaks to the Father, and of this that I have read: "Righteous Father, - and the world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them", not with them but in them - capacity, "and I in them". It is as if nothing delights the heart of Christ more than to be in the assembly, to be in the midst of His own contemplating the capacity that there is by divine working to hold these great thoughts. Think of the love with which Christ was loved, the way He gave cause for the Father to love Him: "On this account the Father loves me" (John 10: 17), think of the Lord speaking in that way. Of course He reciprocated the love of the Father. At the end of chapter 14 He makes a statement that is not mentioned elsewhere although there are the indications of it; on the eve of His departure out of the world He says "but that the world may know that I love the Father... Rise up, let us go hence". It is the only place in which we have the Lord's statement literally of His love for the Father. He gave evidence of it, of course, in the things He did, but what it must have been for His own, as they were with Him, to hear Him to speak of His love for the Father. From chapters 14 to 17 He is speaking on the eve of His departure out of the world; and what light floods the soul as we think of what He is saying, and of this expression as to the Father's love; "that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them". Think of being vessels of the Father's love, the love with which He loved Christ, and of the outgoings there would be in relation to this thought. John the evangelist speaks of divine affections in the most rich and wonderful way as none of the other gospels do, and he carries it through right into his epistles, especially the first epistle. You would remember how he refers to the contrast between the world and the Father; he is doing that all the way through from chapter 13. He would draw us into the Father's world to know the sense of the wonderful effect of grace and the actings of God that we should know Him who has this place in the economy of love into which God has come. He says in regard to the young men in his first epistle; "If any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him", chap. 2: 15. What a positive statement that is! Do you love the world or the things of the world? This is a check. John's epistles are like the American type of government, a system of checks and balances. The President in the government is executive, Congress is legislative and the Supreme Court is judicial; that is the U.S. system of government, and John's epistles are like that - checks and balances. So it is good to get soundings from John's epistles and discover where we are. He says in very plain words "if any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him". Let us not love the world or the things in the world, the world which has been judged in Christ's moral exit from it. We must remember what He said about the world as He faced the actuality of death; "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out: and I, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all to me", John 12: 31,32. What a statement that was! We may say He was taken by wicked hands and crucified, and so He was; we may say that the rulers of this world ordered the matter of His crucifixion; but never let us forget that in His departure out of the world our Lord went out judicially, He judged the world and every principle of it; He could not fit into the world's system. Can we fit into the world's system? If we do we are a denial of what we partake of every first day of the week. Partaking of the Lord 's supper involves our judgment of the world; we show forth the Lord's death until He comes, that is the judgment of the world. The Spirit of God has come to maintain us in keeping with what Christ said: "Now is the judgment of this world", and as we put our hands to the loaf and to the cup we are nominally at least testifying to our correspondence to the Lord's judgment of the world and His moral exit from it. I believe as we are on the eve of the Lord's coming, so imminent as it seems to be, the Spirit of God would have us go out of the world as overcomers and as having in our souls a judgment of the world and every principle of it. So it says "if any one love the world, the love of the Father is not in him"; but think of the love of the Father being in us. "And I in them"; what a statement that is! It is like Hebrews 2 as to the Lord's presence in the assembly leading the praises. He loves that environment; He loves to be there in us watching the responsive movements in the praise of God and appreciation of the Father's love which we are the depositaries of in this sense. Oh! how we need to think of the Father's love and be comforted in the sense that it can take up a dwelling place within our hearts, helping us in the sense of how He loved Christ and how we are to love Christ on that level, on that standard.
Now I want to say a word about "the love of the Christ as it is referred to in Ephesians 3. What a feature of the circle of affections all divine the love of Christ is! You remember how Paul said to the Corinthians "the love of the Christ constrains us", 2 Cor 5: 14. Have you ever felt the constraining power of the love of Christ? It is a wonderful thing. You think of how He loved the assembly and gave Himself for it, delivered Himself up for it. What an expression of His love that was! Think of how He loved the assembly typically in Genesis 24 as Isaac led Rebecca "into his mother Sarah 's tent... and he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after the death of his mother", (v 67). The current love of Christ which that refers to in a testimonial position is a wonderful comfort, dear brethren, amidst the defection publicly and the sorrows publicly of distance from Him. Isaac is a type of the heavenly Man in testimony here, and the assembly typified in Rebecca is identified with Him in it. Paul is speaking here of his knowledge; there is no egotism in this; he is soberly giving an assessment of his own impressions of his ministry as "prisoner of the Christ Jesus for you nations". What substance there is in this chapter; it moves you as you go through it and think of it. Then how he resorts to priestly service in prayer; "that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man", referring to the Father's activities. Think of the Father strengthening us "by his Spirit in the inner man", the inner man. There is a lot that is outward that the Scriptures refer to in relation to us, even to the outward man, but think of the inward man referring to formation in manhood, strengthened by the Father's Spirit. Our young people have so much to contend with in all the temptations by the way. The Spirit of the Father is needed to strengthen us in the inner man in holy care for that which becomes the objects of that care, especially with the outlook in this chapter where we are not on the outside looking in but on the inside looking out. We are at the very centre of things with Christ; as it says, "that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saint s what is the breadth and length and depth and height; and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge". What a leverage the love of Christ is in this area that is so grand and so glorious in relation to divine thoughts, the place that we will have in the spiritual universe at the very centre of things with Christ. Think of Paul's desire that we might "know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge". What a statement that is, referring to infinitude as to the love of Christ. Our own place in it is finite, "the breadth and length and depth and height" are finite measurements; but we are in the midst of what is infinite; "the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that yes may be filled even to all the fulness of God". Think of the love of the Christ preceding being "filled even to all the fulness of God". Dear brethren, let our souls be lifted up and our hearts be stimulated by these holy references of Paul in the presence of the substance of his ministry which he has outlined in this chapter, as he says in verse 7 as to the glad tidings, "of which I am become minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me, according to the working of his power. To me, less than the least of all saints, has this grace been given, to announce among the nations the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ". Think of these expressions as to what is infinite, "the unsearchable riches of the Christ"; that all entered into and affected Paul's ministry in the substance that marked it. No wonder that in Acts 19 they could take handkerchiefs from Paul's body. What a body Paul had! We had a word on it in Glasgow the other night in regard to 1 Corinthians 9 (v 27): "I buffet my body, and lead it captive", and in Galatians (chap 6: 17): "I bear in my body the brands of the Lord Jesus". There is no question of ownership with Paul as to his body, the brands of the Lord Jesus spoke of whose he was, and we want to be affected by that.. What a vessel Paul was; and he refers to the love of Christ in relation to this circle of divine affections and his desires for the saints that they might be filled to all the fulness of God.
Now I want to say a word as to the love of the Spirit. This is a most touching reference in a chapter where Paul is referring to his missionary journeys. It is almost like the anti-typical setting of Jacob fleeing into Syria, Israel serving for a wife and for a wife keeping sheep; what journeyings Jacob's were, but the object of his affections was before him, "Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep", Hosea 12: 12. Think of the journeyings of Paul here, even Spain coming on to view; how he laboured! If Jacob knew exposure in his matters relating to service for a wife ("in the day the heat consumed me, and the frost by night", he said to Laban, Gen 31: 40), think of what Paul describes in Corinthians as to what entered into his journeyings and service in the ministry. He is saying here, "I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit". Think of the nearness of that servant to the Spirit, that he could beseech them by the love of the Spirit. You read Genesis 24 and feel in a typical sense the love of the Spirit - the love for his master Abraham, the love for his master Isaac, the love that he had in the fulfilment of his mission in securing Rebecca, type of the assembly, and conducting her to the heavenly man, to Isaac. What matters these are, dear brethren, how God in Trinity has not only come in as in Luke 15 in view of the salvation of men, but into the expression of divine affections in the securing of His own great thoughts in keeping with the counsels of His love. Paul says "I beseech you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in prayers for me to God; that I may be saved from those that do not believe in Judaea". We speak about those who do not believe today but Paul had it in his day, persons that did not believe in Judaea, and how he wanted to be saved from them. But with what persistence, with what energy, he pursued with the Spirit! of Christ his love for the assembly which was the chief note in his ministry, reaching its crown at Ephesus. What delight the Lord had in His servant!
Well, dear brethren, may the Lord help us and the Spirit help us to know the blessedness of the Father 's love being in us, and may we be constrained by the love of Christ overcoming all obstacles to secure the assembly, and to give us a sense of His active abiding love, "Jesus... having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end" (John 13: 1) ; and the love of the Spirit in watching over the ministry, in watching over the results of the work of God in bringing about formation in relation to the great thoughts of God. May we be affected by this wonderful circle of affections all divine, and be found steadied in those affections, going onward until our Lord returns.
St.Albans
29 June 1974