THE CONSTRAINT OF CHRIST'S LOVE
THE CONSTRAINT OF CHRIST’S LOVE
John 21: 15 - 25; 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15; Ephesians 3: 18, 19
What is it that makes a man devoted is a question that must interest every christian. It is the love of Christ. No man or woman is effective for the Lord here except as under the influence of that love. It is not quite the same thought as the love of God, for that is a more general idea (John 3: 16); the love of Christ, if you can understand the expression, is a little more personal in character.
In the passages I have read there are three men, who were all apostles, but very different from one another, yet each under the influence of the love of Christ, and I want to show the effect of it in each case.
I first take Peter, as in John 21: 15 - 17. To him the Lord said, “Lovest thou me?” No one can doubt that Peter loved Him, the Lord owns it, but his defect lay in thinking too much about his love. No one ever loved Christ unless he was first under the influence of Christ’s love; but Peter gave himself credit for being pre-eminent in this, he thought he loved Christ more than all the others, and that was the reason for the Lord’s challenge, “Lovest thou me more than these?”
It is a serious thing to talk about our love for Christ, for in so doing we bring upon ourselves the challenge to show it. Peter had not shown it, for he had denied the Lord with cursing and swearing. But he did love Him, and the Lord interceded for him and he was restored in conscience and heart, and then the Lord challenged him to give expression to his love. Three times the challenge was repeated, until he has to say, “Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee”. He had attached too much importance to his love to Christ, and had been [p. 584] taught by bitter experience that he could not rightly trust anything in himself, but only that which is in Christ. Then I have no doubt he responded to the challenge, for, with martyrdom in view, he laid out the rest of his life in feeding and shepherding the lambs and sheep of Christ. In that way he proved that it was the effect of the love of Christ to him.
Now I take John. He did not talk about his love to Christ, but he traded on Christ’s love to him, and that is a much safer thing. Peter rested in his own love and broke down and denied the Lord. John rested in Christ’s love and lay in His bosom. He got as close to Him as he possibly could, and the Lord did not resent it. He was near enough to speak to the Lord, and to hear His voice. It was like Mary, who got near to Him to hear His word. I venture to say that there is not one of us who would not be delighted to have a word from Him; but He does not speak to people at a distance, you must be near Him if you would have a word from Him.
Now notice how the love of Christ acted upon John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true”, John 21: 24. It was in this way he proved his love to the Lord. As an inspired instrument he recorded the words of Christ, and it was his pleasure to do it. He was so under the influence of Christ’s love that he could not write what was untrue. He wrote the incomparable gospel. The others are beautiful and perfect in their place, but they do not bring out, as John’s gospel does, the love of God and the love of Christ.
How did Philadelphia prove its love to the Lord? By keeping His word. To them He says, “I will make them ... to know that I have loved thee”.
[p. 585] Now, turning to 2 Corinthians 5, we find that what characterised Paul was devotedness to Christ as he had seen Him. The other apostles had not seen Him in the same way. As the risen One in glory He appeared to Paul, making him deeply conscious of His love, and also that outside Him everything was death.
The christian accepts death, drinking the bitter waters of Marah. He is thus shut up to Christ; the One who died for him and rose again is before his soul. So it was with Paul. He went to a further extent in it than we can go, as he said, “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh”; he was apart from the power of all human relationships and affections. He was under the constraint of the love of Christ, and went through trials and persecutions, suffering the loss of everything in this world, to gain Christ.
So we have these three men, diverse in character, and each having his own peculiarity, yet all under the influence of the love of Christ.
The love of Christ first touches us in death. We have to go back to what is presented in baptism. We were all in death, and He came into death. His doing so did not make all dead, but proved all to be dead. The heart of every one ought to be affected by the thought of the love of the Son of God which brought Him into death, the judgment of sin, where we all were. He came into it that we might rise from it, and live to Him who died for us and rose again.
The feebleness of many lies in failing to apprehend that man is under the judgment of God; they refer judgment wholly to the future and fail to understand that every man is now under death. Let a man have what he may in this life, he is under death. Death is the great leveller, putting all on one common platform. Men are quite sceptical about it, looking upon it as natural decay and not as the [p. 586] judgment of God. But I see that Christ came into death. It was not on Him, but in love He came into it, and He did so that He might establish upon us an incontestable claim, the claim of love. We are accustomed to give other claims a great place, but every claim should give way to this, for He died for us that He might have an absolute claim upon us down here. The apostle responded to it, and we ought to respond to it also.
But that is not the end of the love of Christ. Look at Romans 8: 33, 34, which I connect with Hebrews 7: 24. My object in doing so is to show how the love of Christ comes out in intercession. The first proof of His love is in death, but now He lives, and intercedes for His people. Thus He saves us to the uttermost and we are more than conquerors. This is a point of all moment to us, for we should all like to be more than conquerors. We become so through His intercession, and that is the expression of His love. To Peter He said, “I have prayed for thee”. What dictated that prayer? Peter had not asked Him to pray for him; but the Lord loved him and prayed for him. And so for us He intercedes because He loves us, and thus whatever may confront us we may be more than conquerors through Him who loves us.
Priesthood is a very blessed thought to me. The high priest carried the names of the children of Israel upon his shoulders and on his breast, the place of strength and affection. Intercession is the fruit of affection, and we are through it supported down here. In Israel’s case there might be a lapse from the change of high priest, but Christ is priest in the power of an endless life. We have always the same High Priest, who is able to save to the uttermost. He ever lives, and He intercedes because He loves, and thus we are preserved from being swamped by things down here. You cannot be a [p. 587] happy, devoted christian except as you are under the influence of this love.
In John 14: 1 - 3 we have the climax of His love, He brings us to the Father’s house. We were given to Him by the Father, as it is beautifully expressed in a hymn:
“Thou gav’st us, in eternal love,
To Him to bring us home to Thee”. (88:1)
We are placed thus between the Father and the Son, the gift of the Father to Christ with this object, that He might bring us home to the Father’s house, and the love of Christ will have complete satisfaction when He has us there. He tells His disciples that He is leaving them, but He goes to prepare a place for them, and will come again and receive them to Himself.
Now that is still future, but I will tell you what He does in the interval, He brings us to the Father’s heart. His love is not satisfied with anything less. He has declared to us the Father’s name, and makes us to know that we are loved of the Father as He is loved. “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”, John 17: 26.
We are only fitted for the assembly in proportion to our love. We could not be there without faith, but we are in touch with Christ in love. He is in touch with the Father, and His part is to conduct us to the Father’s heart as it will be His part to conduct us to the Father’s house.
I have noticed these three points, but you cannot suppose that I could exhaust the subject of the love of Christ. There is first His claim as having died for us, then the fruit of His love as seen in intercession for us, then He conducts us out of the world to the Father, that the love wherewith He is loved may be in us. Thus we can understand the prayer of the apostle that I read from Ephesians 3.
[p. 588] If the saints all knew the love of Christ, there would be a perfect expression of Christ down here in them, just as God was perfectly expressed in Him. “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us”. (1 John 4: 12, with which compare John 1: 18.) It is the nature and character of God coming out in the saints down here, and that is the great idea of the prayer in Ephesians 3. Since Christ has been here in testimony nothing short of Christ will suit God, and therefore the church is to be filled to all the fullness of God, but the secret of this is, “and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge”.
Light or doctrine does not make a man devoted; love does so, for the great object of devotedness is Christ Himself, as it was with Mary when she sat at His feet, or with John when he lay in His bosom. May the Lord give us so to know His love that we may be close enough to Him to get a word from Him. It is a great thing to be near Him. He draws us close to Himself that He may cause us to know the Father as He knows Him, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them”.