“Christian Resolutions_2020, Part XIII”
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:55 am
“Christian Resolutions 2020, Part XIII” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Study Christian Resolutions, the directly-related the Fruit of the Spirit, and we are also continuing in our review and examination of the first named Fruit of the Spirit: Love. Before we begin, allow me to give credit to Nave's Topical Bible for the selection of most of the verses I will be citing, this evening. I must also thank 18th Century and 19th Century Bible Scholars and Commentators, and would love to be able to thank them if I could, whose wonderful commentaries and edifying insights I have and will continue to cite throughout these Discussions.
Often, when we think of verses to refer to regarding love, we mistakenly think we must skip the Old Testament and go strait to the New Testament to find admonitions and directions regarding loving one another. That is not true, however. In spite of saying what I just said, I am going to go to the New Testament, but you'll see why in a second:
We read beginning in Matthew 22:35: “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Let me point out that when Jesus made the statement, “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” that was not the first time Jesus' hearers ever heard such a concept. Well... let me qualify that. It should not have been the first time they heard it, although, unfortunately, for many of His hearers, they acted as if it were a brand new concept. It was certainly not one that they were living. Let's see how far back that phrase actually goes. And to do that we have to go all the way back to Leviticus 19:18: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
We will read a little bit later what the understanding was in Jesus' day of exactly what constituted a neighbor. We read something of an addition to that concept in Deuteronomy 10:19: “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Matthew Henry helps us to understand why the people of His day, and for generations previous to His arrival on earth, that command, (Jesus called it the Second Commandment) was not being observed. He writes, “Let us, without delay or reserve, come and cleave to our reconciled God in Jesus Christ, that we may love, serve, and obey him acceptably, and be daily changed into his image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Consider the greatness and glory of God; and his goodness and grace; these persuade us to our duty. Blessed Spirit! Oh for thy purifying, persevering, and renewing influences, that being called out of the state of strangers, such as our fathers were, we may be found among the number of the children of God, and that our lot may be among the saints.”
Consider these three Old Testament references regarding love, and loving actions and reactions. I will simply list them with brief comment, for the purpose of giving you opportunity to meditate on them, and the message they convey. In this first verse I will cite, the word “love” does not appear, but certainly its effect is unmistakably seen: We read in Psalms 133:1: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
Of this, Adam Clark writes, “Behold, how good and how pleasant - Unity is, according to this scripture, a good thing and a pleasant; and especially among brethren - members of the same family, of the same Christian community, and of the same nation. And why not among the great family of mankind? On the other hand, disunion is bad and hateful. The former is from heaven; the latter, from hell.”
Next, we read in Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”
Of this John Gill writes, Hatred stirreth up strifes,.... A man, whose heart is full of hatred and malice against his neighbour, will stir up, or awake, as the word signifies, contentions and quarrels which were happily laid asleep; these he renews by tale bearing, and whisperings, and evil surmises; by raising lies, spreading false reports and calumnies, and by virulent reproaches and slanders;
but love covereth all sins; not its own, but others; in imitation of the pardoning love and grace of God, which covers all the sins of his people with the blood and righteousness of his Son. Love spreads its mantle over the sins of its fellow creatures and Christians, and forgives them, even all of them: instead of exposing them, hides and conceals them; and, instead of loading and aggravating the infirmities of others, puts the best constructions on them, hopes and bears, and believes all things; where the apostle seems to have respect to this passage.”
And finally, we read in Proverbs 17:9: “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends,”
The Preacher's Homiletical says of this: “I. That he who thus covers sin is a great benefactor of the human race. The great need of a fallen world is such a state of heart as will promote love among men. One of Christ’s last commands to his disciples was “Love one another as I have loved you” (in John 16:12). And there is no more effectual way of promoting love than by freely forgiving an offence and at the same time endeavouring to turn the transgressor from the error of his way.
A friend loveth whether the object of his love is present or absent, and will, if needs be, defend his friend’s character when he is not present to speak for himself. 2. He loves even in times of temporary estrangement. Transitory differences are not incompatible with the most genuine friendship, and while human nature is in its present imperfect condition it will sometimes happen that one real and true friend will disappoint and grieve another. But if the real and true feeling is in the heart it will be as unshaken by these temporary disturbances as the root of the tree is by the storm-wind that moves its branches.”
Once again, without using the word “love” itself, notice this verse that nonetheless speaks of love where one would not expect to find it, cited in the statutes of the Old Testament which is routinely written off as rigid, and etched-in-stone coldness. We read in Exodus 23:4: “If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.” Albert Barnes writes of this: “So far was the spirit of the law from encouraging personal revenge that it would not allow a man to neglect an opportunity of saving his enemy from loss.”
These Old Testament verses seem to have been unfamiliar to Jesus' hearers when He delivered His Sermon on the Mount.
Let's read some of Jesus' words from that Sermon: We read in Matthew 5:41-47: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy...”
Let me add a quick note, here. Jesus never said that “hate thine enemy” was WRITTEN anywhere in the Old Testament. The fact is that it is NOT written there. What Jesus said was, “Ye have HEARD...” Hating one's enemy was being taught by verbally, as well as socially and culturally by example. It was a word-of-mouth only. What the Word of God said, and in writing, was: “Love you neighbor,” and “love the stranger” in your midst. “Hate your enemy” was being said, and it was being HEARD, but Jesus never said that that was what the Old Testament taught.
Back to Jesus' words: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?”
Matthew Henry writes of the above verses: “The plain instruction is, Suffer any injury that can be borne, for the sake of peace, committing your concerns to the Lord's keeping. And the sum of all is, that Christians must avoid disputing and striving. If any say, Flesh and blood cannot pass by such an affront, let them remember, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and those who act upon right principles will have most peace and comfort. The Jewish teachers by "neighbour" understood only those who were of their own country, nation, and religion, whom they were pleased to look upon as their friends.
The Lord Jesus teaches that we must do all the real kindness we can to all, especially to their souls. We must pray for them. While many will render good for good, we must render good for evil; and this will speak a nobler principle than most men act by. Others salute their brethren, and embrace those of their own party, and way, and opinion, but we must not so confine our respect. It is the duty of Christians to desire, and aim at, and press towards perfection in grace and holiness.
And therein we must study to conform ourselves to the example of our heavenly Father, 1 Peter 1:15,16 which states, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Matthew Henry continues, “Surely more is to be expected from the followers of Christ than from others; surely more will be found in them than in others. Let us beg of God to enable us to prove ourselves his children...
Consider also, regarding what a neighbor is, Jesus' unexpected redefinition of “neighbor status,” at the close of His presentation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. After reviewing the behavior of the three men who encountered the wounded traveler, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan, He asked in Luke 10:36: “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” Jesus replaced the concept of neighbor from the recipient of compassion and assistance, to the bestower of compassion and assistance.
Of this Parable, and the impact it should have on all of us as Christ followers, Matthew Henry wrote, “ No one will ever love God and his neighbour with any measure of pure, spiritual love, who is not made a partaker of converting grace. But the proud heart of man strives hard against these convictions. Christ gave an instance of a poor Jew in distress, relieved by a good Samaritan. This poor man fell among thieves, who left him about to die of his wounds. He was slighted by those who should have been his friends, and was cared for by a stranger, a Samaritan, of the nation which the Jews most despised and detested, and would have no dealings with.
It is lamentable to observe how selfishness governs all ranks; how many excuses men will make to avoid trouble or expense in relieving others. But the true Christian has the law of love written in his heart. The Spirit of Christ dwells in him; Christ's image is renewed in his soul. The parable is a beautiful explanation of the law of loving our neighbour as ourselves, without regard to nation, party, or any other distinction...
It also sets forth the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward sinful, miserable men. We were like this poor, distressed traveller. Satan, our enemy, has robbed us, and wounded us: such is the mischief sin has done us. The blessed Jesus had compassion on us. The believer considers that Jesus loved him, and gave his life for him, when an enemy and a rebel; and having shown him mercy, he bids him go and do likewise. It is the duty of us all , in our places, and according to our ability, to succour, help, and relieve all that are in distress and necessity.”
As we go through our Study, tonight, and look at all of the other occasions of the word love, in specific regard to man loving his fellow man, let us keep this vital point in mind. Jesus made the very clear, plain and simple-to-understand statement in John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Long before the advent of the Internet, most of us were aware of a wide variety of groups professing to be “Christian” fellowships, with a wide variety of beliefs, and practices. I was aware of groups who had their own set of Christian “hurdles” that had to be cleared in order to be saved. One claimed that you had to pronounce God's Name the way THEY pronounced it, or you had to worship God on a particular day, and/or in the manner that THEY, and ONLY THEY, were practicing it. THEY, and ONLY THEY had the Truth, and if you wanted to be saved, and be a Christian, THEIR DENOMINTION, and ONLY THEIR DENOMINATION was the ONLY game in town.
This would be a really good place to repeat Jesus' clear, and plain, and easy-to-be-understood statement: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Is it me? Or are there NO references in His statement to correct pronunciations, or specific, not to mention exclusive, days of the week on which to worship God, or precise practices to perform or abstain from? Jesus said, “By THIS shall all men know that ye are my disciples... By WHAT? “... if ye have love one to another.”
Have you ever been approached by any members of these various “OUR way or the highway” groups? And if you have, have you ever felt loved by them as they told you everyone was going to Hell who did not worship God along the exacting lines of THEIR standards? I have said this before in this Series but I believe it is worth going over again because we have accepted the unacceptable concept that Christianity is composed of many members in many bodies. It is not! We are many members in One Body.
I have been approached by several groups from whom I did NOT feel loved because there was no love being offered for me to feel! Their only purpose was to lure me into their trap of legalism, and think that God will only love me and offer me Salvation if I DO certain things that agree with THEIR exclusive understanding. Is THAT the Gospel? Does the Gospel teach that I am saved by dubious pronunciations or works and/or strict and exacting, not to mention exclusive, performances on my part?
Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
What good works are we to walk in? Paul writes in Ephesians 5:2: “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” We are to walk in love toward each other, not in pronunciations of doubtful correctness or specific days or prideful and unnecessary rituals. And if we do that, if we walk in love, THEN all men will know that we are Jesus' disciples. This is not rocket science; it is just too easy a concept to not get wrong!
But it has been for centuries, and continues to be gotten wrong by untold millions of people because they are not reading God's Word, they are listening to hucksters, charlatans, and the ungodly siren song of divide and conquer. Or, as Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
Love is the first of the named Fruit of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 13, that if he performs all kinds of godly sacrifices, and demonstrates all kinds of faith, but he has not love, he is nothing. This love, (agape` love in the Greek) is a supremely selfless and unconditional love. It is a love that is attributed to God, Himself, in the verse that tells us that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). That is the love that Jesus said His disciples would have and demonstrate to and for each other, that would identify us as His disciples to all men.
That love is manifested in us by Jesus' words in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” He expands the thought in Luke 6:31-36: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same...
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
Of this Matthew Henry writes, “These are hard lessons to flesh and blood. But if we are thoroughly grounded in the faith of Christ's love, this will make his commands easy to us. Every one that comes to him for washing in his blood, and knows the greatness of the mercy and the love there is in him, can say, in truth and sincerity, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Let us then aim to be merciful, even according to the mercy of our heavenly Father to us.”
We read beginning in Matthew 25:31: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world...
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Matthew Henry writes, “This is a description of the last judgment. It is as an explanation of the former parables. There is a judgment to come, in which every man shall be sentenced to a state of everlasting happiness, or misery. Christ shall come, not only in the glory of his Father, but in his own glory, as Mediator. The wicked and godly here dwell together, in the same cities, churches, families, and are not always to be known the one from the other; such are the weaknesses of saints, such the hypocrisies of sinners; and death takes both: but in that day they will be parted for ever.
Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd; he will shortly distinguish between those that are his, and those that are not. All other distinctions will be done away; but the great one between saints and sinners, holy and unholy, will remain for ever. The happiness the saints shall possess is very great. It is a kingdom; the most valuable possession on earth; yet this is but a faint resemblance of the blessed state of the saints in heaven.
It is a kingdom prepared. The Father provided it for them in the greatness of his wisdom and power; the Son purchased it for them; and the blessed Spirit, in preparing them for the kingdom, is preparing it for them. It is prepared for them: it is in all points adapted to the new nature of a sanctified soul. It is prepared from the foundation of the world. This happiness was for the saints, and they for it, from all eternity. They shall come and inherit it.
What we inherit is not got by ourselves. It is God that makes heirs of heaven. We are not to suppose that acts of bounty will entitle to eternal happiness. Good works done for God's sake, through Jesus Christ, are here noticed as marking the character of believers made holy by the Spirit of Christ, and as the effects of grace bestowed on those who do them.”
We read in Romans 12:9-10: “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;”
Of this, Alexander MacClaren writes, “Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of the Apostle’s, ‘Let love be without hypocrisy.’ But the place where this exhortation comes in the apostolic sequence here may suggest to us the discipline through which obedience to it is made possible. There is little to be done by the way of directly increasing either the fervour of love or the honesty of its expression. The true method of securing both is to be growingly transformed by ‘the renewing of our minds,’ and growingly to bring our whole old selves under the melting and softening influence of ‘the mercies of God.’
It is swollen self-love, ‘thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think,’ which impedes the flow of love to others, and it is in the measure in which we receive into our minds ‘the mind that was in Christ Jesus,’ and look at men as He did, that we shall come to love them all honestly and purely. When we are delivered from the monstrous oppression and tyranny of self, we have hearts capable of a Christlike and Christ-giving love to all men, and only they who have cleansed their hearts by union with Him, and by receiving into them the purging influence of His own Spirit, will be able to love without hypocrisy.
II. Let love abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good. If we carefully consider this apparently irrelevant interruption in the sequence of the apostolic exhortations, we shall, I think, see at once that the irrelevance is only apparent, and that the healthy vehemence against evil and resolute clinging to good is as essential to the noblest forms of Christian love as is the sincerity enjoined in the previous clause. To detest the one and hold fast by the other are essential to the purity and depth of our love. Evil is to be loathed, and good to be clung to in our own moral conduct, and wherever we see them.
III. Let sincere and discriminating love be concentrated on Christian men. In the final exhortation of our text ‘the love of the brethren’ takes the place of the more diffused and general love enjoined in the first clause. The expression ‘kindly affectioned’ is the rendering of a very eloquent word in the original in which the instinctive love of a mother to her child, or the strange mystical ties which unite members of a family together, irrespective of their differences of character and temperament, are taken as an example after which Christian men are to mould their relations to one another.
The love which is without hypocrisy, and is to be diffused on all sides, is also to be gathered together and concentrated with special energy on all who ‘call upon Jesus Christ as Lord, both their Lord and ours.’ The more general precept and the more particular are in perfect harmony, however our human weakness sometimes confuses them. It is obvious that this final precept of our text will be the direct result of the two preceding, for the love which has learned to be moral, hating evil, and clinging to good as necessary, when directed to possessors of like precious faith will thrill with the consciousness of a deep mystical bond of union, and will effloresce in all brotherly love and kindly affections.
This instinctive, Christian love, like all true and pure love, is to manifest itself by ‘preferring one another in honour’; or as the word might possibly be rendered, ‘anticipating one another.’ We are not to wait to have our place assigned before we give our brother his. There will be no squabbling for the chief seat in the synagogue, or the uppermost rooms at the feast, where brotherly love marshals the guests. The one cure for petty jealousies and the miserable strife for recognition, which we are all tempted to engage in, lies in a heart filled with love of the brethren because of its love to the Elder Brother of them all, and to the Father who is His Father as well as ours.
What a contrast is presented between the practice of Christians and these precepts of Paul! We may well bow ourselves in shame and contrition when we read these clear-drawn lines indicating what we ought to be, and set by the side of them the blurred and blotted pictures of what we are. It is a painful but profitable task to measure ourselves against Paul’s ideal of Christ’s commandment;
but it will only be profitable if it brings us to remember that Christ gives before He commands, and that conformity with His ideal must begin, not with details of conduct, or with emotion, however pure, but with yielding ourselves to the God who moves us by His mercies, and being ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’ and ‘the indwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith.’”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, "Christian Resolutions, Part 13.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on April 1st, 2020.
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We are continuing in our Study Christian Resolutions, the directly-related the Fruit of the Spirit, and we are also continuing in our review and examination of the first named Fruit of the Spirit: Love. Before we begin, allow me to give credit to Nave's Topical Bible for the selection of most of the verses I will be citing, this evening. I must also thank 18th Century and 19th Century Bible Scholars and Commentators, and would love to be able to thank them if I could, whose wonderful commentaries and edifying insights I have and will continue to cite throughout these Discussions.
Often, when we think of verses to refer to regarding love, we mistakenly think we must skip the Old Testament and go strait to the New Testament to find admonitions and directions regarding loving one another. That is not true, however. In spite of saying what I just said, I am going to go to the New Testament, but you'll see why in a second:
We read beginning in Matthew 22:35: “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Let me point out that when Jesus made the statement, “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” that was not the first time Jesus' hearers ever heard such a concept. Well... let me qualify that. It should not have been the first time they heard it, although, unfortunately, for many of His hearers, they acted as if it were a brand new concept. It was certainly not one that they were living. Let's see how far back that phrase actually goes. And to do that we have to go all the way back to Leviticus 19:18: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”
We will read a little bit later what the understanding was in Jesus' day of exactly what constituted a neighbor. We read something of an addition to that concept in Deuteronomy 10:19: “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Matthew Henry helps us to understand why the people of His day, and for generations previous to His arrival on earth, that command, (Jesus called it the Second Commandment) was not being observed. He writes, “Let us, without delay or reserve, come and cleave to our reconciled God in Jesus Christ, that we may love, serve, and obey him acceptably, and be daily changed into his image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. Consider the greatness and glory of God; and his goodness and grace; these persuade us to our duty. Blessed Spirit! Oh for thy purifying, persevering, and renewing influences, that being called out of the state of strangers, such as our fathers were, we may be found among the number of the children of God, and that our lot may be among the saints.”
Consider these three Old Testament references regarding love, and loving actions and reactions. I will simply list them with brief comment, for the purpose of giving you opportunity to meditate on them, and the message they convey. In this first verse I will cite, the word “love” does not appear, but certainly its effect is unmistakably seen: We read in Psalms 133:1: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”
Of this, Adam Clark writes, “Behold, how good and how pleasant - Unity is, according to this scripture, a good thing and a pleasant; and especially among brethren - members of the same family, of the same Christian community, and of the same nation. And why not among the great family of mankind? On the other hand, disunion is bad and hateful. The former is from heaven; the latter, from hell.”
Next, we read in Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”
Of this John Gill writes, Hatred stirreth up strifes,.... A man, whose heart is full of hatred and malice against his neighbour, will stir up, or awake, as the word signifies, contentions and quarrels which were happily laid asleep; these he renews by tale bearing, and whisperings, and evil surmises; by raising lies, spreading false reports and calumnies, and by virulent reproaches and slanders;
but love covereth all sins; not its own, but others; in imitation of the pardoning love and grace of God, which covers all the sins of his people with the blood and righteousness of his Son. Love spreads its mantle over the sins of its fellow creatures and Christians, and forgives them, even all of them: instead of exposing them, hides and conceals them; and, instead of loading and aggravating the infirmities of others, puts the best constructions on them, hopes and bears, and believes all things; where the apostle seems to have respect to this passage.”
And finally, we read in Proverbs 17:9: “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends,”
The Preacher's Homiletical says of this: “I. That he who thus covers sin is a great benefactor of the human race. The great need of a fallen world is such a state of heart as will promote love among men. One of Christ’s last commands to his disciples was “Love one another as I have loved you” (in John 16:12). And there is no more effectual way of promoting love than by freely forgiving an offence and at the same time endeavouring to turn the transgressor from the error of his way.
A friend loveth whether the object of his love is present or absent, and will, if needs be, defend his friend’s character when he is not present to speak for himself. 2. He loves even in times of temporary estrangement. Transitory differences are not incompatible with the most genuine friendship, and while human nature is in its present imperfect condition it will sometimes happen that one real and true friend will disappoint and grieve another. But if the real and true feeling is in the heart it will be as unshaken by these temporary disturbances as the root of the tree is by the storm-wind that moves its branches.”
Once again, without using the word “love” itself, notice this verse that nonetheless speaks of love where one would not expect to find it, cited in the statutes of the Old Testament which is routinely written off as rigid, and etched-in-stone coldness. We read in Exodus 23:4: “If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.” Albert Barnes writes of this: “So far was the spirit of the law from encouraging personal revenge that it would not allow a man to neglect an opportunity of saving his enemy from loss.”
These Old Testament verses seem to have been unfamiliar to Jesus' hearers when He delivered His Sermon on the Mount.
Let's read some of Jesus' words from that Sermon: We read in Matthew 5:41-47: “And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy...”
Let me add a quick note, here. Jesus never said that “hate thine enemy” was WRITTEN anywhere in the Old Testament. The fact is that it is NOT written there. What Jesus said was, “Ye have HEARD...” Hating one's enemy was being taught by verbally, as well as socially and culturally by example. It was a word-of-mouth only. What the Word of God said, and in writing, was: “Love you neighbor,” and “love the stranger” in your midst. “Hate your enemy” was being said, and it was being HEARD, but Jesus never said that that was what the Old Testament taught.
Back to Jesus' words: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?”
Matthew Henry writes of the above verses: “The plain instruction is, Suffer any injury that can be borne, for the sake of peace, committing your concerns to the Lord's keeping. And the sum of all is, that Christians must avoid disputing and striving. If any say, Flesh and blood cannot pass by such an affront, let them remember, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and those who act upon right principles will have most peace and comfort. The Jewish teachers by "neighbour" understood only those who were of their own country, nation, and religion, whom they were pleased to look upon as their friends.
The Lord Jesus teaches that we must do all the real kindness we can to all, especially to their souls. We must pray for them. While many will render good for good, we must render good for evil; and this will speak a nobler principle than most men act by. Others salute their brethren, and embrace those of their own party, and way, and opinion, but we must not so confine our respect. It is the duty of Christians to desire, and aim at, and press towards perfection in grace and holiness.
And therein we must study to conform ourselves to the example of our heavenly Father, 1 Peter 1:15,16 which states, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Matthew Henry continues, “Surely more is to be expected from the followers of Christ than from others; surely more will be found in them than in others. Let us beg of God to enable us to prove ourselves his children...
Consider also, regarding what a neighbor is, Jesus' unexpected redefinition of “neighbor status,” at the close of His presentation of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. After reviewing the behavior of the three men who encountered the wounded traveler, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan, He asked in Luke 10:36: “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” Jesus replaced the concept of neighbor from the recipient of compassion and assistance, to the bestower of compassion and assistance.
Of this Parable, and the impact it should have on all of us as Christ followers, Matthew Henry wrote, “ No one will ever love God and his neighbour with any measure of pure, spiritual love, who is not made a partaker of converting grace. But the proud heart of man strives hard against these convictions. Christ gave an instance of a poor Jew in distress, relieved by a good Samaritan. This poor man fell among thieves, who left him about to die of his wounds. He was slighted by those who should have been his friends, and was cared for by a stranger, a Samaritan, of the nation which the Jews most despised and detested, and would have no dealings with.
It is lamentable to observe how selfishness governs all ranks; how many excuses men will make to avoid trouble or expense in relieving others. But the true Christian has the law of love written in his heart. The Spirit of Christ dwells in him; Christ's image is renewed in his soul. The parable is a beautiful explanation of the law of loving our neighbour as ourselves, without regard to nation, party, or any other distinction...
It also sets forth the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward sinful, miserable men. We were like this poor, distressed traveller. Satan, our enemy, has robbed us, and wounded us: such is the mischief sin has done us. The blessed Jesus had compassion on us. The believer considers that Jesus loved him, and gave his life for him, when an enemy and a rebel; and having shown him mercy, he bids him go and do likewise. It is the duty of us all , in our places, and according to our ability, to succour, help, and relieve all that are in distress and necessity.”
As we go through our Study, tonight, and look at all of the other occasions of the word love, in specific regard to man loving his fellow man, let us keep this vital point in mind. Jesus made the very clear, plain and simple-to-understand statement in John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Long before the advent of the Internet, most of us were aware of a wide variety of groups professing to be “Christian” fellowships, with a wide variety of beliefs, and practices. I was aware of groups who had their own set of Christian “hurdles” that had to be cleared in order to be saved. One claimed that you had to pronounce God's Name the way THEY pronounced it, or you had to worship God on a particular day, and/or in the manner that THEY, and ONLY THEY, were practicing it. THEY, and ONLY THEY had the Truth, and if you wanted to be saved, and be a Christian, THEIR DENOMINTION, and ONLY THEIR DENOMINATION was the ONLY game in town.
This would be a really good place to repeat Jesus' clear, and plain, and easy-to-be-understood statement: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Is it me? Or are there NO references in His statement to correct pronunciations, or specific, not to mention exclusive, days of the week on which to worship God, or precise practices to perform or abstain from? Jesus said, “By THIS shall all men know that ye are my disciples... By WHAT? “... if ye have love one to another.”
Have you ever been approached by any members of these various “OUR way or the highway” groups? And if you have, have you ever felt loved by them as they told you everyone was going to Hell who did not worship God along the exacting lines of THEIR standards? I have said this before in this Series but I believe it is worth going over again because we have accepted the unacceptable concept that Christianity is composed of many members in many bodies. It is not! We are many members in One Body.
I have been approached by several groups from whom I did NOT feel loved because there was no love being offered for me to feel! Their only purpose was to lure me into their trap of legalism, and think that God will only love me and offer me Salvation if I DO certain things that agree with THEIR exclusive understanding. Is THAT the Gospel? Does the Gospel teach that I am saved by dubious pronunciations or works and/or strict and exacting, not to mention exclusive, performances on my part?
Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
What good works are we to walk in? Paul writes in Ephesians 5:2: “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” We are to walk in love toward each other, not in pronunciations of doubtful correctness or specific days or prideful and unnecessary rituals. And if we do that, if we walk in love, THEN all men will know that we are Jesus' disciples. This is not rocket science; it is just too easy a concept to not get wrong!
But it has been for centuries, and continues to be gotten wrong by untold millions of people because they are not reading God's Word, they are listening to hucksters, charlatans, and the ungodly siren song of divide and conquer. Or, as Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
Love is the first of the named Fruit of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 13, that if he performs all kinds of godly sacrifices, and demonstrates all kinds of faith, but he has not love, he is nothing. This love, (agape` love in the Greek) is a supremely selfless and unconditional love. It is a love that is attributed to God, Himself, in the verse that tells us that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). That is the love that Jesus said His disciples would have and demonstrate to and for each other, that would identify us as His disciples to all men.
That love is manifested in us by Jesus' words in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” He expands the thought in Luke 6:31-36: “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same...
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
Of this Matthew Henry writes, “These are hard lessons to flesh and blood. But if we are thoroughly grounded in the faith of Christ's love, this will make his commands easy to us. Every one that comes to him for washing in his blood, and knows the greatness of the mercy and the love there is in him, can say, in truth and sincerity, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Let us then aim to be merciful, even according to the mercy of our heavenly Father to us.”
We read beginning in Matthew 25:31: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world...
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Matthew Henry writes, “This is a description of the last judgment. It is as an explanation of the former parables. There is a judgment to come, in which every man shall be sentenced to a state of everlasting happiness, or misery. Christ shall come, not only in the glory of his Father, but in his own glory, as Mediator. The wicked and godly here dwell together, in the same cities, churches, families, and are not always to be known the one from the other; such are the weaknesses of saints, such the hypocrisies of sinners; and death takes both: but in that day they will be parted for ever.
Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd; he will shortly distinguish between those that are his, and those that are not. All other distinctions will be done away; but the great one between saints and sinners, holy and unholy, will remain for ever. The happiness the saints shall possess is very great. It is a kingdom; the most valuable possession on earth; yet this is but a faint resemblance of the blessed state of the saints in heaven.
It is a kingdom prepared. The Father provided it for them in the greatness of his wisdom and power; the Son purchased it for them; and the blessed Spirit, in preparing them for the kingdom, is preparing it for them. It is prepared for them: it is in all points adapted to the new nature of a sanctified soul. It is prepared from the foundation of the world. This happiness was for the saints, and they for it, from all eternity. They shall come and inherit it.
What we inherit is not got by ourselves. It is God that makes heirs of heaven. We are not to suppose that acts of bounty will entitle to eternal happiness. Good works done for God's sake, through Jesus Christ, are here noticed as marking the character of believers made holy by the Spirit of Christ, and as the effects of grace bestowed on those who do them.”
We read in Romans 12:9-10: “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;”
Of this, Alexander MacClaren writes, “Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of the Apostle’s, ‘Let love be without hypocrisy.’ But the place where this exhortation comes in the apostolic sequence here may suggest to us the discipline through which obedience to it is made possible. There is little to be done by the way of directly increasing either the fervour of love or the honesty of its expression. The true method of securing both is to be growingly transformed by ‘the renewing of our minds,’ and growingly to bring our whole old selves under the melting and softening influence of ‘the mercies of God.’
It is swollen self-love, ‘thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think,’ which impedes the flow of love to others, and it is in the measure in which we receive into our minds ‘the mind that was in Christ Jesus,’ and look at men as He did, that we shall come to love them all honestly and purely. When we are delivered from the monstrous oppression and tyranny of self, we have hearts capable of a Christlike and Christ-giving love to all men, and only they who have cleansed their hearts by union with Him, and by receiving into them the purging influence of His own Spirit, will be able to love without hypocrisy.
II. Let love abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good. If we carefully consider this apparently irrelevant interruption in the sequence of the apostolic exhortations, we shall, I think, see at once that the irrelevance is only apparent, and that the healthy vehemence against evil and resolute clinging to good is as essential to the noblest forms of Christian love as is the sincerity enjoined in the previous clause. To detest the one and hold fast by the other are essential to the purity and depth of our love. Evil is to be loathed, and good to be clung to in our own moral conduct, and wherever we see them.
III. Let sincere and discriminating love be concentrated on Christian men. In the final exhortation of our text ‘the love of the brethren’ takes the place of the more diffused and general love enjoined in the first clause. The expression ‘kindly affectioned’ is the rendering of a very eloquent word in the original in which the instinctive love of a mother to her child, or the strange mystical ties which unite members of a family together, irrespective of their differences of character and temperament, are taken as an example after which Christian men are to mould their relations to one another.
The love which is without hypocrisy, and is to be diffused on all sides, is also to be gathered together and concentrated with special energy on all who ‘call upon Jesus Christ as Lord, both their Lord and ours.’ The more general precept and the more particular are in perfect harmony, however our human weakness sometimes confuses them. It is obvious that this final precept of our text will be the direct result of the two preceding, for the love which has learned to be moral, hating evil, and clinging to good as necessary, when directed to possessors of like precious faith will thrill with the consciousness of a deep mystical bond of union, and will effloresce in all brotherly love and kindly affections.
This instinctive, Christian love, like all true and pure love, is to manifest itself by ‘preferring one another in honour’; or as the word might possibly be rendered, ‘anticipating one another.’ We are not to wait to have our place assigned before we give our brother his. There will be no squabbling for the chief seat in the synagogue, or the uppermost rooms at the feast, where brotherly love marshals the guests. The one cure for petty jealousies and the miserable strife for recognition, which we are all tempted to engage in, lies in a heart filled with love of the brethren because of its love to the Elder Brother of them all, and to the Father who is His Father as well as ours.
What a contrast is presented between the practice of Christians and these precepts of Paul! We may well bow ourselves in shame and contrition when we read these clear-drawn lines indicating what we ought to be, and set by the side of them the blurred and blotted pictures of what we are. It is a painful but profitable task to measure ourselves against Paul’s ideal of Christ’s commandment;
but it will only be profitable if it brings us to remember that Christ gives before He commands, and that conformity with His ideal must begin, not with details of conduct, or with emotion, however pure, but with yielding ourselves to the God who moves us by His mercies, and being ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’ and ‘the indwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith.’”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, "Christian Resolutions, Part 13.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on April 1st, 2020.
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