PURSUED BY LOVE
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7. How do I know that I have passed from death to life?
There are many who mix among those who are regenerate, but are themselves unregenerate knowing nothing at all of God’s grace in their hearts. They receive the Word, but only in their unsanctified minds. It works on their natural conscience, plays upon their emotions. They do many good works and outwardly to all intents and purposes, they and those around them assume that their salvation is an established fact. The tragedy is that this is far from being the case. What is patently missing in their lives is a knowledge and experience of that divine love of God working in the heart illuminating and vitalising all things. The evidence of the genuine new birth and the presence of the Holy Spirit is just this one thing: the divine love that is shed abroad in our hearts.
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” (Romans 5:5)
This verse is not talking of a love in a general sense, but of a very different kind of love: the only pure, true, divine love brought to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Such love is found only in the hearts of the regenerate and as such is clear evidence of the new birth.
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” (1 John 3:14)
There is love in a more general sense which in many ways reflects God’s eternal love, but is nevertheless distinct from it. There are expressions of kindness, attachment, mutual affection and devotion amongst men. There is parental love, filial love, fraternal love. All these forms of love can and do exist in total independence of a knowledge of the love of God.
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is 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. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:7-10)
Between the holy love of God and the natural love of men there exists a wide chasm. God’s love cannot be measured by that of men as though it were simply a more perfect example of love than the human which is found in man. God is the fountain of all good of which love is the highest good.
We confess a triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; one God in three Persons. The Father who generates the Son, the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both the Father and the Son. These three mutually love each other. There is nothing more precious than the love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father and the love of the Holy Spirit for both the Father and the Son. It is this love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit no other.
Before God created heaven and earth and all their inhabitants, eternal love of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit shone with unseen splendour in the divine Being. This love exists not for the sake of the world nor for anything external to God, but alone for God’s own sake. When the world came into existence, His love remained the same. Even were every creature to disappear, God’s love would remain the same. It’s glory and richness remain ever the same.
Love is not God, but God is love. His love is sufficient to Himself. God does not need a creature to love. The love of God springs eternally in the love between the Persons of the Trinity. God is love and its perfection and divine beauty is not found in men but only around the Throne of God. Every comparison of the love of God with our creaturely love must be set aside.
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16)
The Son became flesh and in doing so revealed to us the fullness of divine love in the flesh, manifested in His redemptive work.
This is very different from what the Father did in creation. In creation divine love was foreshadowed but not yet revealed. It was revealed in the coming of the Lord Jesus, the Son.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
The love with which God loved the world is proved by the fact that He “… spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all…” (Romans 8:32). Divine love is seen in Christ, God manifest in the flesh. The divine love appeared to man for the first time and once for all in Christ. The glory of eternal love had captivated and pervaded their whole souls. Up until the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh, all men had lived only in the shadow of love. Its appearance now was not a mere radiation of love or reflection, but irresistible waves of Christ’s own love coming straight from His own heart.
This love shone forth in Christ as love for an enemy. Man was now God’s enemy. This enmity was absolute and frightful. When all was enmity and repulsion, the love of God in Christ was made manifest in that He died for us while we still His enemies. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). This love attained its severest tension on Calvary. The Cross of Christ is the most formidable manifestation of man’s enmity and at the same time the greatest expression of God’s love to us.
The work of the Son does not finish the work of impressing God’s love upon the human heart. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This work is not carried through independently of the Son. He receives of the Son to give to us. “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). When spiritual life enters our soul, a bond of love is the result. The Holy Spirit being the same in all the redeemed this unites us all in a blessed union of love. The souls of the redeemed are united in an indissoluble union, united in the Son. In this way, God performs and perfects His work in every heart irresistibly. Those in whom the Holy Spirit has shed abroad His love will recognize that same love of God in others. Those therefore who demonstrate no love towards those who are Christ’s are denying that they are His and that the Holy Spirit dwells within them. As long as we are assured that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, then we can be sure that the love of God dwells in us. This love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian and through its manifestation in us it will be clear to everyone around us that we are followers of Christ. Jesus Himself made this clear to His disciples.
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34-35)
We may put a cross in our lapel or hang one on the wall, but it is love above all things that marks us out as redeemed by Christ. It is a sobering thought in these verses to learn that God has given to the world around us the right to judge whether we are Christ’s by God’s love being clearly seen in us.
It is God’s earnest desire to have personal fellowship with us. If we know Him only from afar, God remains a stranger whose love we may admire but only in a very faint sense. True love is one with God and inseparable from Him. It is the Holy Spirit whose office it is to enter our hearts and establish an intimate relationship between us and God. Yet Father and Son will also come to dwell by the Holy Spirit. Christ stands at the door waiting to be admitted. God abides with the saints below, but He dwells with the redeemed already around the Throne of God in heaven.
What can separate us from the love of Christ? He cleaves to us so that were we thrown into the hottest furnace; we still cannot be separated. When we leave our earthly body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, He yet abides with us forever. Though we will often be cast down by our own untrustworthiness and we may cry out with David: “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11), His indwelling cannot be destroyed. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5), what else could we possibly need besides Him?
The Holy Spirit feels Himself One in all God’s children. Dwelling in us, He loves that work He does both in us and others. He is one and cannot deny Himself in others, so neither must we. He will always love Himself. It is by this divine love that He comforts us and teaches us to comfort others. God is love and through His Holy Spirit love dwells with all God’s children. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and with Him His love which He sheds abroad or pours in until overflowing.
Once established in our hearts, He subjects the impulses and intentions of our hearts to His love in order to prevail. To this end He uses the external means of the preached Word to penetrate our consciousness and take hold of our person making it effectual.
NEXT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE
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