THE EFFECT OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST ON THREE MEN
[p. 285] THE EFFECT OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST ON THREE MEN
John 21: 15 - 25; 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15; Ephesians 3: 18, 19
The mode of God’s dealings with us is not understood in a moment; it is complex, there are many parts in it, there is very much to be done. If you have any comprehension at all of His great end, you must see there is very much to be done. Then again you have to take into account the material on which He has to work, the kind of clay, if I may say so, on which the Potter works.
Many are content with being enlightened; others, with the sense of forgiveness — they do not go further — but that is not the work of God. I do not mean that God does not produce it, but I should not speak of it as the work of God. You get His work expressed in 2 Corinthians 5: 5. “He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing”; that is the work of God, whatever that thing may be. I have no doubt that it is for a glorious condition — the house out of heaven — and He has also given the earnest of the Spirit.
The work of God never begins in a person properly till he has the gift of the Holy Spirit. What I understand by the work of God only begins when the Holy Spirit is received.
I was speaking last time of the light of God and the effect upon us. That must be the first thing: naturally man is in darkness, departed, fallen far away from God, and therefore the first necessity of his heart is that God may be made known to him. Man can have no sense of God except as God illuminates him, and that is what He does by the gospel. That is the proper work of the preacher, to enlighten man. That is what the apostle’s work was; he speaks of it [p. 286] in that way when he gives the details of his commission. The first point is “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light”, not that he could turn them, but he was to open their eyes that they might turn — in other words, that they might be converted and receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified. The light of God, therefore, is the first thing that affects the heart of man, and this is God’s intention. The first thought is to lay a moral foundation; you cannot build a superstructure till you have a foundation; and as far as I understand, the light of God is the foundation God lays in a man’s soul — the light that has come out in the Lord Jesus Christ: it forms the foundation on which God can build. It has been said that where persons are converted very lightly it is like trying to build on the sharp edge of a knife; but if, on the contrary, a man gets a sense of divine power, love, grace, and righteousness, a foundation is laid on which God proposes to build; the Spirit of God builds up the superstructure. That is of the last moment.
After all, it is a wonderful thing to know God. In this dark world there is no expression of God except of His mercy; the world is all contrary to His righteousness. Evil and sin dominate in the world. In this world there is not much expression of His power. Everything in this world is weakness. Let men combine and effect what they may, it all ends in death, and death is not power. Sin is dominating, and death as the fruit of sin, therefore I do not think we see evidence either of the righteousness or power of God, and certainly not of His glory. But the wonderful thing is, all is made known to the heart of the believer — that is the gospel. Faith brings me into a scene where the power of God operates.
Christ is invested with all authority, and He uses it to carry out the work of God, but in an unseen way. It is not what man would take account of, it is only [p. 287] faith that can take into account and appreciate what God does down here, and faith knows that all the mighty power of God is exercised, the same power that raised Christ from the dead. What did the world know about that? There were a few witnesses, but the world knew nothing of it: yet never was there such a mighty act of power as that! Chosen witnesses were permitted to see the effect of it in seeing Him risen from the dead, and that mighty power has continued to work in its own way, producing its own effects. Every converted person is a proof of the power of God; none of us came in voluntarily, we were compelled, and the compulsion was the mighty power of God.
Now, what I want to come to tonight is, what is it that makes a man devoted? It is a great thing to have a foundation. The Spirit of God is bent on building, and so the Spirit is very jealous to have a good foundation. People have thought that the reception of the Spirit was the crown of everything; the truth is, it is the beginning of everything. “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. The well is there when the Spirit is given, but it has to spring up — you cannot have any springing up till the well is there. It has to get rid of a great deal of encumbrance and rubbish that overlays it; there is a great deal that has to be displaced in order that the well might spring up freely to everlasting life. But then the well is the beginning, not the end; the rubbish is removed by the living energy of the well.
Now what is it that makes a man devoted, supposing a good foundation has been laid? I tell you what it is, the love of Christ. I feel quite sure of this: there never was a Christian devoted, except as under the influence of the love of Christ: no other influence in the universe will do it. I am quite sure in my own soul it is the case, but I cannot convince you except [p. 288] by the way it is presented in Scripture. You will not get a man or woman effective for the Lord here, except as under the influence of the love of Christ. His love is very peculiar. It is not quite the same as the love of God — that is a more general idea; John 3: 16. The love of Christ, if you will excuse my using the expression, is a little more personal in character. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit; it is blessedly true, and the gift of His Son was the expression of His love to the world; but there is a peculiarity of its own about the love of Christ that attaches to nothing else.
We find three men of very different characters in these three passages read. They were all apostles, but as different from one another as could possibly be. They were different in character, bringing up, and in proclivities, but each was under the influence of the love of Christ, and I want to show you the effect of it upon each.
Look first at Peter; John 21: 15, 17. Now see, what the Lord said to Peter was about his (Peter’s) love. I want to call your attention by the way to verse 20, where it is said, Peter seeing the disciple whom Jesus loved. You cannot fail to observe the contrast; to Peter the Lord says, “Lovest thou me?” Now I do not doubt for a moment that Peter loved Christ; the Lord owns it, but the defect was, he thought too much about his love. No one ever loved Christ unless he was first under the influence of His love; but Peter gave himself credit for being pre-eminent in love to Christ; he thought he loved Him more than all the others, and that was the reason of Christ’s challenge: “Lovest thou me more than these?” It is a serious thing to talk about your love to Christ, for what you bring on yourself is, you must show it. Peter had not shown it; he had denied the Lord with cursing and swearing, but he did love Him. The Lord interceded for him and he was restored in [p. 289] conscience and heart, and now the Lord challenges him to give expression to his love. “Feed my sheep”. “Feed my lambs”. So I would not care to talk very much about my love to Christ, for the Lord might challenge me, too. I do not doubt Peter responded to the challenge — he laid himself out with martyrdom in view — to feed and shepherd the lambs of Christ. But I think he got a challenge in that way, because he attached a little too much importance to his love. He gets this challenge three times, and Peter has to say, “Thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee”. The Lord, as it were, says, You claim to love Me devotedly — I give you another chance — now show it. Here is a man under the influence of the love of Christ who had been taught by bitter experience that you cannot trust anything at all in yourself; you can only trust what is in Christ. He interceded for him, and the faith of Peter did not fail; he went out and wept bitterly; it was bitter repentance, and he was restored in conscience and in heart, and he laid out the rest of his life to feed the sheep of Christ; he proved his love in that way, but it was the effect of the love of Christ to him.
Now we will take the case of John. “Then Peter turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following ... this is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true”. John did not talk about his love to Christ. I do not think he cherished the idea that he loved Christ more than any other; what marked him was, he traded on the love of Christ to him, and that is a much safer thing. Peter rested on his love, and he broke down and denied Christ. John rested on Christ’s love, and he lay on His bosom; that is what I mean by trading on His love. I recommend everyone here to do the same: get as close to Him as you can. John could not be closer, and the Lord did not resent it in any way. John took advantage of His [p. 290] love and leaned on His bosom; he was near enough to speak to Him and to hear His voice. It was very like Mary; she was affected by His love, and she got as near to Him as she reverently could, and her point was to hear what He had to say. I venture to say there is not one here who would not be delighted to get a word from Christ, but He does not speak to people at a distance from Him. You must be near to Christ if you want a word from Him. I want you to notice how the love of Christ acted on John. “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true”. The Lord does not challenge him as He does Peter, but John proves his love to the Lord divinely by the power of the Holy Spirit; by recording what the Lord had said; it was his pleasure to do it. How did Philadelphia prove its love? “Thou ... hast kept my word”, and it is to them the Lord says: I will make them to know that I have loved thee. John wrote the incomparable gospel; he was the inspired instrument for recording the words of Christ; it was the work in which he delighted. So with Mary, she not only heard but kept His word. John wrote these things, he bore witness of them, he was so under the influence of the love of Christ that he could not write what was untrue. What gospel brings out the love of God and of Christ as John’s does? Others also are beautiful and perfect in their place, but they do not bring out what John does.
Now turn to 2 Corinthians 5: 13, etc. It is not exactly the same thought as with Peter or with John. Paul was not employed to write a gospel, but his peculiar characteristic is this, that he was a man wholly devoted to Christ as he had seen Him. The other apostles had not seen Him as Paul saw Him. He made Paul deeply conscious of His love to him, and what marks him is, he is devoted to the One who appeared to him. “We thus judge, that if one died [p. 291] for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. Paul was a man devoted to the risen Christ, and at the same time he is conscious that outside Christ risen everything else was death. Death is on Christians — the Christian accepts it, he drinks the bitter waters of Marah; it is the difference between the Christian and the man of the world. What a Christian apprehends is, that everything is death outside Christ risen. I am shut up to Christ, I live to Him who died and rose again; He is the One who is before the soul of the Christian, properly speaking. So it was with the apostle, it guided and governed him in all his course. He said, “We know no man after the flesh”. He went to an extent to which none of us could go. I do not think we could say that. Paul was apart from human affections and relationships, and his life was simply this: he lived to Him who died for him and rose again. The love of Christ constrained him; he was under that constraint, it marked him in a special way. He went through thick and thin — trials, persecutions, the loss of everything in this world, the loss of all, that he might gain Christ. And what affected him? The love of Christ. He saw the wonderful truth that when all were dead, He died for all.
I want you to bear in mind the way in which these three men, so diverse in character, and each having his own peculiarity, were under the influence of the love of Christ. Where the love of Christ first touches us is in death. The Christian has to go back to what is properly presented in baptism. “If one died for all”, we were all in death and Christ came into death — it proved that all were dead — it did not make them dead but proved them dead.
The heart of everyone ought to be affected to think that when we were all in death, the judgment of sin,
[p. 292] the blessed Son of God actually came into that place. The spring of it was love; the love of Christ constrains us, the love that led Him to come down into that death in which we were, that we might rise from it, and live to Him who died for us and rose again. It is the first point that touches the heart of a Christian. Our feebleness lies in this, that we fail to apprehend that man is under the judgment of God; people refer judgment to the future, and fail to understand that it is now every man is under death. Let a man have what he may in this life, he is under death. Death is the great leveller, it puts all on a common platform: all are under death. What sense can there be in sticking up to be anything in this world, if all are under death? People are quite sceptical about it, it does not enter into their thoughts, they look upon it as natural decay, not as the judgment of God. What are rich or poor, high or low, if all are under death? But I see that Christ came into death, there was no death on Him, but He came into it in love to man. He came into death that He might establish upon us an incontestable claim, the claim of love. He can say, There is no love like My love; you were all in death, the judgment of God, and I came into it that I might have an absolute claim over you. “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”.
I would like to stir you up if I could, and to be stirred up myself, as to the absolute claim Christ has over us down here. We are accustomed to give a great place to other claims; but does not every claim give way to that one? It ought, for He died for all to that end. The apostle responded to it, but we also ought to respond to it — that expression of the love of Christ which came out in death.
But that is not the end of the love of Christ. Look at Romans 8: 33, 34, which I will connect with [p. 293] Hebrews 7: 25; you will see that intercession is the connection. My object in referring to it is to connect the love of Christ with intercession. The first proof and expression of His love is in death, but now He lives, and the next great effect of His love is that He intercedes, and the effect of that is, He saves to the uttermost and we are more than conquerors. It is a point of all moment to us. We should all like to be more than conquerors. His intercession is the expression of His love. “I have prayed for thee”. What dictated that? The Lord’s affection for Peter. Peter had not asked Him; He loved Peter, and the spring of His intercession for His people is His love. I really would not care for the intercession of Christ if I did not think the spring of it was love, that it was the fruit of love.
Beloved friends, Christ will intercede for you because He loves you; and whatever we may have to confront, or whatever may confront us, we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us.
Priesthood is a very blessed thought to me; the high priest carried the names of the children of Israel on his shoulders and on his breast, the place of affection and strength. Intercession is the blessed fruit of affection, and the practical result is, we are sustained and supported while down here by the intercession of Christ. There might be a lapse in Israel’s case, but with Christ it is after the power of an endless life — always the same High Priest and able to save to the uttermost. It is a blessed thing, to trust one Priest. He ever liveth, and He intercedes because He loves, and the result is He saves us from being swamped by the thousand and one things down here. You will not be able to be devoted or happy Christians except as your hearts are under the influence of the love of Christ.
I turn to one more thought; John 14: 1 - 3. What I want to show you is the climax of the love of Christ.
[p. 294] We have seen His love in death, and the object, to establish upon us an incontestable claim; then His love in intercession to make us more than conquerors, and now the climax is, to bring us to the Father’s house. The people of God were given of the Father to Christ, 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)
That is where saints are placed, between the Father and Christ; the Father’s gift to Christ, but given to Him with an object, that He might bring them home to the Father’s house, and the love of Christ will never have complete satisfaction till He has them there. He tells them He is going to leave them, but He is going to prepare a place for them. “I will come again, and receive you unto myself”.
Now what I have to say is, the moment has not yet come for that, it is a future moment; but I tell you what He does in the interval: if He does not yet bring us to the Father’s house, He brings us to the Father’s heart; His love is not satisfied with anything else. He declares the Father’s name and makes us know the Father’s heart. He makes us know we are loved of the Father as He is loved; John 17: 25, 26. What a wonderful thing that He should declare the Father’s name, that is, His love! (That declaration was completed in John 20: 17.) He declares it, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. That is what it was for the Lord to conduct them to the Father’s heart.
No man is fit for the assembly except in proportion to his love. Faith is no good in the assembly — you could not be there without faith; but you are only in touch with Christ according to your 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.
[p. 295] I only touch on those three points, but you cannot suppose I could exhaust the subject of the love of Christ. There is first His claim in death, then the fruit of His love in intercession, then that He may conduct us out of the world to the Father, that the love wherewith He is loved may be in us; that is the climax of His love. And then you can very well understand the prayer of the apostle which I read in Ephesians 3.
If the saints all knew the love of Christ, there would be a present expression of Christ down here in the saints, just as there was the perfect expression of God in Christ Himself. “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. The same expression is used as to Christ in 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 the third chapter of Ephesians.
Once Christ had been here in testimony, nothing short of Christ would suit God, and therefore the church was to be filled to all the fulness of God. But the secret is that you may know the love of Christ. Nothing else makes people devoted; doctrine and light do not do it; love does it, for the great object of devotedness is Christ Himself, as it was to Mary when she sat at His feet, and to John when he lay on His bosom.
May the Lord give us to know His love, so 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 make us know the Father as He knows Him; “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”.