“Christian Resolutions_2020, Part V” by Romans
Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgqYYk-0wDs
Youtube Audio of this Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYDrqe7vlQU&t=488s
We are continuing in our Study of the Fruit of the Spirit as it is related to and complementary of Peter's list of those things we need to add to our Faith, that I have deemed, “Christian Resolutions.” Tonight's focus is Love, the first-named Fruit of the Spirit, as it was manifested by Jesus. If we are going to add this to our Faith, and bear this Fruit to the Glory of God, Jesus is our perfect Example as He, Himself, said: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).
I am sure that you all also noticed that this was not merely a good idea or a well-meaning suggestion that Jesus shared with us. He introduced it to His original disciples, and to us His followers through their written word, as a “new commandment.” It is to our great shame that the Body of Christ virtually throughout all of history, has not obeyed this new commandment.
We don't hear it so much now, but not too long ago, (I believe it was) Lebanon was torn by Civil War. One of the factions fighting for their piece of territory was “the Christian Militia.” What are the two words “Christian” and “Militia” doing in the same sentence, much less in the same “job description” of a believer? I seem to distinctly recall Paul writing to the Church at Corinth, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal...” 2 Corinthians 10:3-4. Lebanon apparently did not get the memo. But neither did many other Christians.
The warfare believers have waged has not always been an armed conflict with traditional weaponry. We have identified and either attacked in many ways, or withdrawn from in many ways, other believers in the same God from the same Book. In America, we proudly declare that one of our Founding Freedoms as a nation is Freedom of Religion. May I remind you the persecution and repression our Founding Fathers fled from in Europe, to found this country, was from fellow-believers in God and Christ and the Bible.
But let's look again at our opening verse, this opening Commandment spoken by Jesus to us: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” The word “love” in the verse comes from the original Greek word, “agape`.” This is the unconditional and self-less God-level love that we will look at in greater detail later from Paul's 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. For right now, however, I would like to cite the Sermon Bible's comments on this passage.
They write, “I. The new commandment has been once for all uttered—the new law is given; and each generation, at whatever point of the advance to its fulfilment God may have ordained its place, is bound by it equally. Every individual Christian lives under the force of that law, and is responsible to Him for obedience to it. Such obedience is, in fact, each generation’s portion of that upward work into fulness of love, which the Holy Spirit is carrying on in the whole race.
And the same may be said of every individual Christian; his obedience to Christ’s law of love is his contribution towards the universal recognition of that law, in God’s good time. No generation, no man stands alone. Even the humblest may contribute something, and all are bound for their own lives, and for God’s great work, to do their utmost in the matter.
II. Now, our Saviour has not left this, His new commandment, in mere abstract vagueness; He has fixed it on us, and brought it home to our consciences by a definite and specified pattern: "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Of what kind was His love to us? (1) It was a self-denying love. (2) It was a boundless love. (3) It was a love of gentleness and courtesy. If we would love one another as He loved us, there is but one effectual instrument, but one genuine spring of such love.
No mere admiration will effect it; no mere sensibility will call it forth; no romance of benevolence will keep it up; it can come from nothing but faith in Him; that faith which purifies the heart. It alone is powerful to dethrone self in a man by setting up Christ instead, and until self is put down within, there can be no real presence of love, and none of its genuine fruits;
until Christ reigns in a man’s heart there can be no imitation of His love, for it will never be understood by me till I behold it as a personal matter; till I measure its height by the depth of my unworthiness of it, its vastness by my own nothingness. H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iv., p. 223.
I. When our Lord said "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another," He appealed directly to the personal experience of those to whom He spoke. It was the eleven alone who could know to what extent He had loved, for they alone had felt His love. They had lived in sweet familiar intercourse with Him for some years.
They had known His care, His kindness, His gentleness, His patience, His longsuffering, and it is not too much to say that they had never known anything like it. It is plain that our Lord intended this original experience of the eleven to become generally intelligible to vast multitudes who had never shared their experience.
II. As long as we regard the love of Jesus as a thing only of the past, displayed once for all, even though we may believe ourselves to have been the objects of it, I think it will have but little power on our hearts or conduct. What is it, then, that is wanting to make the love operative and effectual? A very important question, involving the essence of the whole matter.
The element that is wanting, then, is clearly this: to see in the love of Jesus for His disciples, not only a love in which we were concerned, and a love embracing us; not only the love He evidenced when He said, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on Me through their word"; but a love still going forth, still reaching out to us, of which love all that was done by the Christ of history was, so to say, the pattern and the image.
Now, it is impossible that the love of Christ could be thus energetic and operative if He was nothing more than man, however great. You do not and cannot feel any satisfaction or any real benefit from the present love, which you believe to be extended towards you by your deceased relatives. You would not like to think that they felt no such love, but whether they do or not, it is impossible, in any true sense, to reciprocrate that love, because you have now no evidence of its going forth towards you.
But Christ’s love has been with you from the first day of your life till now. It has not been merely an utterance recorded in the history of a great tragedy which was enacted eighteen hundred years ago; but it has been shown to you, it has been felt by you under ten thousand special dealings with you in your own inmost being, of which you alone are conscious and all the world besides is ignorant. The love which the life and death of Christ displayed was none other than the love of God.
If this was not the love of Christ, then the utterance "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another," becomes meaningless and trivial. It no longer corresponds with the precept, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," but substitutes in the place of a Divine standard of love a merely human and earthly standard.
S. Leathes, Penny Pulpit, No. 532.
References: Joh_13:34.—Contemporary Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 309; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 133; J. H. Wilson, The Gospel and its Fruits, p. 233.
In the very next verse, Jesus expands on how important our fulfilling this new Commandment is: He says, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
The Sermon Bible continues, “I. Look at the command of brotherly love as it was given in old time. It was contained in the last six of the Ten Commandments; or putting on one side the fifth commandment as being of a peculiar kind, referring to one particular duty and not to our duty to our neighbour in general, we may say that the command to love one another is contained in the last five commandments of the decalogue.
All these commandments, you will observe, are employed in telling us what we may not do, saying nothing of the things which we ought to do. The actual form of the law of loving our neighbours, as given in the Old Testament, was a prohibitory law; not an active law of love depending for its force upon a spring of love within, but a law which, if obeyed according to the letter, would sunder only certain offences, and might be kept thus by a man whose heart was as hard as a flint.
II. If you examine the precepts of loving our neighbours, as given by the Lord Jesus Christ, I think you will perceive that the peculiarity and the strength of them consist in this very thing, that they imply active, self-denying exertions for our brother’s good. That love is emphatically Christian which, setting aside all consideration of self-advantage, and running beyond the mere negative duty of doing our neighbour no wrong, goes forth with activity, life, and zeal to show itself in works of mercy and deeds of loving-kindness to our brethren.
The commandment was new because Christ had only then come to explain it; it was new because it could not have been conceived before His life exhibited its meaning; it was new because the love which He showed was something altogether beyond the power of man to have imagined for himself;
and, as in science we reckon him to be the discoverer of a new law who rises above the guesses and glimpses of his predecessors, and establishes upon new ground, and in a manner which can never afterwards be questioned, some great principle which had been partly conceived before;
so I think we may say that the law of brotherly love, as illustrated by the example of our Lord, the law of self-denying, active efforts for our brother’s good, the law which stamps the great principle of selfishness as a vile and execrable principle, might be truly described as a new commandment which Christ gave to His disciples.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 3rd series, p. 258.
References: Joh_13:34-35.—B. Dale, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 33. Joh_13:35.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 18. Joh_13:36.—Ibid., vol. vii., p. 22. Joh_13:36-38.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 392.
Matthew Henry writes of all of this: “He discourses with them concerning the great duty of brotherly love (John 13:34-35): You shall love one another. Judas was now gone out, and had proved himself a false brother; but they must not therefore harbour such jealousies and suspicions one of another as would be the bane of love:
though there was one Judas among them, yet they were not all Judases. Now that the enmity of the Jews against Christ and his followers was swelling to the height, and they must expect such treatment as their Master had, it concerned them by brotherly love to strengthen one another's hands. Three arguments for mutual love are here urged: -
1. The command of their Master (John 13:34): A new commandment I give unto you. He not only commends it as amiable and pleasant, not only counsels it as excellent and profitable, but commands it, and makes it one of the fundamental laws of his kingdom; it goes a-breast with the command of believing in Christ It is the command of our ruler, who has a right to give law to us;
it is the command of our Redeemer, who gives us this law in order to the curing of our spiritual diseases and the preparing of us for our eternal bliss. It is a new commandment; that is, (1.) It is a renewed commandment; it was a commandment from the beginning (1 John 2:7), as old as the law of nature, it was the second great commandment of the law of Moses; yet, because it is also one of the great commandments of the New Testament, of Christ the new Lawgiver, it is called a new commandment; it is like an old book in a new edition corrected and enlarged.
This commandment has been so corrupted by the traditions of the Jewish church that when Christ revived it, and set it in a true light, it might well be called a new commandment. Laws of revenge and retaliation were so much in vogue, and self-love had so much the ascendant, that the law of brotherly love was forgotten as obsolete and out of date; so that as it came from Christ new, it was new to the people.
(2.) It is an excellent command, as a new song is an excellent song, that has an uncommon gratefulness in it. (3.) It is an everlasting command; so strangely new as to be always so; as the new covenant, which shall never decay (Hebrews 8:13); it shall be new to eternity, when faith and hope are antiquated. (4.) As Christ gives it, it is new. Before it was, Thou shalt love thy neighbour; now it is, You shall love one another; it is pressed in a more winning way when it is thus pressed as mutual duty owing to one another.
2. The example of their Saviour is another argument for brotherly love: As I have loved you. It is this that makes it a new commandment - that this rule and reason of love (as I have loved you) is perfectly new, and such as had been hidden from ages and generations. Understand this, (1.) Of all the instances of Christ's love to his disciples, which they had already experienced during the time he went in and out among them.
He spoke kindly to them, concerned himself heartily for them, and for their welfare, instructed, counselled, and comforted them, prayed with them and for them, vindicated them when they were accused, took their part when they were run down, and publicly owned them to be dearer to him that his mother, or sister, or brother.
He reproved them for what was amiss, and yet compassionately bore with their failings, excused them, made the best of them, and passed by many an oversight. Thus he had loved them, and just now washed their feet; and thus they must love one another, and love to the end.
Or, (2.) It may be understood of the special instance of love to all his disciples which he was now about to give, in laying down his life for them. Greater love hath no man than this. Has he thus loved us all? Justly may he expect that we should be loving to one another. Not that we are capable of doing any thing of the same nature for each other (Psalms 49:7), but we must love one another in some respects after the same manner; we must set this before us as our copy, and take directions from it. Our love to one another must be free and ready, laborious and expensive, constant and persevering; it must be love to the souls one of another.
We must also love one another from this motive, and upon this consideration - because Christ has loved us. See Rom_15:1; Rom_15:3; Eph_5:2, Eph_5:25; Php_2:1-5.
3. The reputation of their profession (John 13:35): By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. Observe, We must have love, not only show love, but have it in the root and habit of it, and have it when there is not any present occasion to show it; have it ready. “Hereby it will appear that you are indeed my followers by following me in this.”
Note, Brotherly love is the badge of Christ's disciples. By this he knows them, by this they may know themselves (1 John 2:14), and by this others may know them. This is the livery of his family, the distinguishing character of his disciples; this he would have them noted for, as that wherein they excelled all others - their loving one another.
This was what their Master was famous for; all that ever heard of him have heard of his love, his great love; and therefore, if you see any people more affectionate one to another than what is common, say, “Certainly these are the followers of Christ, they have been with Jesus.”
Now by this it appears, (1.) That the heart of Christ was very much upon it, that his disciples should love one another. In this they must be singular; whereas the way of the world is to be every one for himself, they should be hearty for one another.
He does not say, By this shall men know that you are my disciples - if you work miracles, for a worker of miracles is but a cypher without charity (1 Corinthians 13:1-2); but if you love one another from a principle of self-denial and gratitude to Christ. This Christ would have to be the proprium of his religion, the principal note of the true church.
(2.) That it is the true honour of Christ's disciples to excel in brotherly love. Nothing will be more effectual than this to recommend them to the esteem and respect of others. See what a powerful attractive it was, Acts 2:46-47. Tertullian speaks of it as the glory of the primitive church that the Christians were known by their affection to one another. Their adversaries took notice of it, and said, See how these Christians love one another, Apol. cap. 39.
(3.) That, if the followers of Christ do not love one another, they not only cast an unjust reproach upon their profession, but give just cause to suspect their own sincerity. O Jesus! are these thy Christians, these passionate, malicious, spiteful, ill-natured people? Is this thy son's coat?
When our brethren stand in need of help from us, and we have an opportunity of being serviceable to them, when they differ in opinion and practice from us, or are any ways rivals with or provoking to us, and so we have an occasion to condescend and forgive, in such cases as this it will be known whether we have this badge of Christ's disciples.”
Alexander MacClaren adds, “Wishes from dying lips are sacred. They sink deep into memories and mould faithful lives. The sense of impending separation had added an unwonted tenderness to our Lord’s address, and He had designated His disciples by the fond name of ‘little children.’ The same sense here gives authority to His words, and moulds them into the shape of a command. The disciples had held together because He was in their midst.
4. I ask you, first, to consider: I. The new scope of the new commandment. ‘Love one another.’ The newness of the precept is realised, if we think for a moment of the new phenomenon which obedience to it produced. When the words were spoken, the then-known civilised Western world was cleft by great, deep gulfs of separation, like the crevasses in a glacier, by the side of which our racial animosities and class differences are merely superficial cracks on the surface.
Language, religion, national animosities, differences of condition, and saddest of all, difference of sex, split the world up into alien fragments. A ‘stranger’ and an ‘enemy’ were expressed in one language, by the same word. The learned and the unlearned, the slave and his master, the barbarian and the Greek, the man and the woman, stood on opposite sides of the gulfs, flinging hostility across.
A Jewish peasant wandered up and down for three years in His own little country, which was the very focus of narrowness and separation and hostility, as the Roman historian felt when he called the Jews the ‘haters of the human race’; He gathered a few disciples, and He was crucified by a contemptuous Roman governor, who thought that the life of one fanatical Jew was a small price to pay for popularity with his troublesome subjects, and in a generation after, the clefts were being bridged and all over the Empire a strange new sense of unity was being breathed:
‘Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free,’ male and female, Jew and Greek, learned and ignorant, clasped hands and sat down at one table, and felt themselves ‘all one in Christ Jesus.’ They were ready to break all other bonds, and to yield to the uniting forces that streamed out from His Cross. There never had been anything like it. No wonder that the world began to babble about sorcery, and conspiracies, and complicity in unnameable vices. It was only that the disciples were obeying the ‘new commandment,’ and a new thing had come into the world
It was a community held together by love and not by geographical accidents or linguistic affinities, or the iron fetters of the conqueror. You sow the seed in furrows separated by ridges, and the ground is seamed, but when the seed springs the ridges are hidden, no division appears, and as far as the eye can reach, the cornfield stretches, rippling in unbroken waves of gold. The new commandment made a new thing, and the world wondered.
Now then, brethren, do not let us forget that, although to obey this commandment is in some respects a great deal harder to-day than it was then, the diverse circumstances in which Christian individuals and Christian communities are this day placed may modify the form of our obedience, but do not in the smallest degree weaken the obligation, for the individual Christian and for societies of Christians, to follow this commandment.
The multiplication of numbers, the cessation of the armed hostility of the world, the great varieties in intellectual position in regard to the truths of Christianity, divergencies of culture, and many other things, are separating forces, But our Christianity is worth very little, if it cannot master these separating tendencies, even as in the early days of freshness, the Christianity that sprang in these new converts’ minds mastered the far more powerful separating tendencies with which they had to contend.
Every Christian man is under the obligation to recognise his kindred with every other Christian man-his kindred in the deep foundations of his spiritual being, which are far deeper, and ought to be far more operative in drawing together, than the superficial differences of culture or opinion or the like, which may part us.
The bond that holds Christian men together is their common relation to the one Lord, and that ought to influence their attitude to one another. You say I am talking commonplaces. Yes; and the condition of Christianity this day is the sad and tragical sign that the commonplaces need to be talked about, till they are rubbed into the conscience of the Church as they never have been before.
Do not let us suppose that Christian love is mere sentiment. I shall have to speak a word or two about that presently, but I would fain lift the whole subject, if I can, out of the region of mere unctuous words and gush of half-feigned emotion, which mean nothing, and would make you feel that it is a very practical commandment, gripping us hard, when our Lord says to us, ‘Love one another.’
But there is more than that involved in it. The very same principle which makes this love to one another imperative upon all disciples, makes it equally imperative upon every follower of Jesus Christ to embrace in a real affection all whom Jesus so loved as to die for them. If I am to love a Christian man because he and I love Christ, I am to love everybody, because Christ loves me and everybody, and because He died on the Cross for me and for all men.
And so one of the other Apostles, or, at least, the letter which goes by his name, laid hold on the true connection when, instead of concentrating Christian affection on the Church, and letting the world go to the devil as an alien thing, he said: ‘Add to your faith,’ this, that, and the other, and ‘brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity.’ The particular does not exclude the general, it leads to the general.
The fire kindled upon the hearth gives warmth to all the chamber. The circles are concentric, and the widest sweep is struck from the same middle point as the narrow. So the new commandment does not cut humanity into two halves, but gathers all diversity into one, and spreads the great reconciling of Christian love over all the antagonisms and oppositions of earth.”
For time's sake, we will have to break in Alexander MacClaren's comments right there. But we will pick up at that place next week. I hope that as many of you are here, tonight, or are hearing my voice on Youtube, will be able to join me for the next part of this review and examination of Love, the first of the Fruit of the Spirit.
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Christian Resolutions_2020, Part V”
This Discussion was presented “live” in February 5th, 2020.
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