THE LOVE OF GOD IN ACTIVITY AND IN REST

^[p. 116] THE LOVE OF GOD IN ACTIVITY AND IN REST

John 1: 12; Ephesians 1: 3 - 6

I desire to make a few remarks on the difference between divine love in its application to us as saints on earth in our individual path, and in its application to us as privileged to be in association with Christ in a scene where God can rest in entire complacency, all being suitable to His glory. The first connects itself with our position as children in the presence of God, and the second with sonship and the assembly. A difficulty in understanding the matter may arise from the fact that, though both thoughts cannot be realised at the same moment of time, both are true now of believers.

The first thing to be apprehended is our present recognised place down here as before God. We are evidently in the kingdom of God, justified and under the sway of grace. The same will, I apprehend, be true of Israel hereafter, but this does not fully describe the position of christians, they are “children of God”. The children of the Queen are in the kingdom, and subject to its ordering and laws, but they are none the less the children of the Queen — and christians as begotten by the revelation of God’s nature, and partaking of that nature, cannot be less than children of God — when the world knew not its Creator, and “his own” received not the light which had visited them; then it was that God saw fit to set forth His children. I judge that the object was that there should be those here who were morally according to Christ. I think that any careful study of the Lord’s ministry on earth must end in the conviction that the purpose of His teaching was to lead the minds of those who listened to Him into the sense of being children. This is summed up in John 1: 12, “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right ^[p. 117] to be children of God, to those that believe on his name”. In accord with this we have in 1 John 3: 1, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God;” and in Romans 8: 16, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”.

The great point in reference to children is that they are in the light of divine love, and able to appreciate and enjoy the light because begotten of that love. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him”. If we apprehend that God began, and not we, then we can understand our place as children; a new generation, called out of darkness into light, to shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Now the relationship of children, though connected with the idea of perfectness in practice — for we are to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect — hardly conveys the idea of perfectness in point of state. Hence it is that such thoughts as discipline, purging, divine care, and exhortation to obedience are brought out in connection with it; and these thoughts are perfectly consistent with love. Discipline is an expression of a parent’s love, and the absence of it would indicate rather the contrary. On the other hand keeping God’s commandments is the evidence we give of love to God, and to talk of love apart from it would be vain on our part. A reference to John 15 and to Hebrews 12 will shew the way in which the Father’s love is exercised in regard of us, and the end which it has in view. It is vigilant and active — for God withdraws not His eyes from the righteous — it humbles us in exposing tendencies in ourselves of which we were probably unaware and our own inability to overcome them — but all in view of the peaceable fruits of righteousness as the end of exercise, and, in result, of our becoming partakers of God’s holiness. But concurrent with that we have the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit — our hearts are ^[p. 118] being divinely instructed in the disposition of God towards us, and thus we are led into the enjoyment of liberty and confidence toward God. But all this, vitally important as it is to us, does not speak of love in rest — but in vigilance and activity. In connection with it comes in also the service of priesthood, as in Christ’s intercession for Peter that his faith should not fail. I think that I have said enough to indicate the relation of love towards us in the place of children here. It is made perfect in the day of judgment in that as Christ is, so are we in this world.

But I desire now to touch for a moment on the thought of love in rest — and this I judge must connect itself with perfectness in the state of those who are the objects of that love. It is in this connection that we can apprehend Christ as the centre of the throng in a scene filled by divine glory, and in which all is according to that glory. I suppose that sonship is that in which this is fulfilled in regard of us. Sonship properly belongs to heavenly places, and connects itself with a state which is entirely of, and according to, God. He has chosen us to be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now love can rest here, where all is suitable to God’s glory.

The question naturally arises how far can this be realised by us now? The answer is that we are encouraged of God to accept the truth of association with Christ; perfected for ever as to conscience. We are risen with Christ, and the work of God in us has been with the view that we might be capable for the holiest, at least in the point of affections. On the other hand it is in the power of God through Christ’s death to view saints simply in the light of the holy affections which He has wrought in them, as in the case of the prodigal, apart from all that is connected with responsibility, or that would call for the exercise of discipline. Such things do not come into the thought of the holiest — where all is necessarily of God and according to His glory.

‘^[p. 119] Glory supreme is there,
Glory that shines through all;
More precious still that love to share,
As those that love did call’.

It is properly the privilege of heaven, though enjoyed now, in assembly, by those who have through grace been led to accept the truth of the calling, have forsaken all that they have that they may be disciples of Christ. It makes nothing of us, for we must feel how small we are in regard of these things, but it is none the less the proper inheritance of the feeblest saint, and to enter into it gives us a foretaste of God’s eternal rest.