On Love

There is nothing novel or unprecedented, then, about John’s teaching that Christians are marked by love for one another.  (His teaching about love in this epistle serves as the second aspect of the moral test – cf. 2.7-11).  Because God loves them (Romans 5.8; Ephesians 1.13-14; 2:4-5), true believers will surely reflect that love in their relationships with other people (Matthew 22.37-39; Ephesians 5.2; 1 John 4.9).  Thus, the apostle’s instruction here is not new, but is “an old commandment, which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard” (2.7; cf. verse 10; 4.7-8).

John’s readers knew that truth because apostolic preachers had faithfully delivered it to them (cf. 1.5; 2.24).  However, false teachers had also come and taught, apparently, that brotherly love is not an essential mark of true salvation.  Those apostates added to their erroneous view of Christ’s nature and their disobedience to God’s commands a lack of love for true believers.  In response, John directed his readers back to “the message” they had “heard from the beginning,” referring to the beginning of gospel proclamation.  That teaching included the truth about Jesus Christ, the gospel, mankind’s sinful condition, and the need for righteous living, as well as the command to “love one another.”  The apostle urged his readers to remember what they were first taught and not allow anyone to lead them astray (cf. Jude 3).

From: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1-3 John by John MacArthur (Chicago: Moody Press, 2007), p. 131.  Comment on 1 John 3.11-18.

John Fullerton MacArthur, Jr. (born in 1939) has been Senior Pastor of Grace Community Church of the Valley, in Sun Valley, California, since 1969.  On Sunday, June 5, 2011, having preached from Mark 16.1-8, the congregation celebrated the completion of MacArthur’s 42-year-long project: to preach through the entire New Testament.  (He still must preach through Mark 16.9-20, but the celebration took place after preaching the first 8 verses was completed, these being the last verses before those 12 ”disputed” verses at the very end of Mark’s gospel.)

 

Love

5.  Doth not behave itself unseemly.  Erasmus renders it – “Is not disdainful;” but, as he quotes no author in support of this interpretation, I have preferred to retain its proper and usual signification.  I explain it, however, in this way – that love does not exult in a foolish ostentation, or does not bluster, but observes moderation and propriety.  And, in this manner, he again reproves the Corinthians indirectly, because they shamefully set at nought all propriety by an unseemly haughtiness.

From: The Commentaries of John Calvin on the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians by John Calvin.  Comment on 1 Corinthians 13:5a.  First published, in French, in 1546.

 

Love

Reduced to its simplest terms, the existence of love in a human being means that the eye of the spirit has opened to the sunshine of good.  A man has seen that which is good and, seeing it, has delighted in it.  His delight is acceptance, and what is accepted is a gift; he must ask who is the giver and why should anything have been given to him.  The only answer to that question is love.  He sees that the gift of good can be nothing but the expression of love, and that love itself is greater than any or all of the gifts in which its activity is displayed.  If greater, then more to be desired; and, if he can desire, above all things, the gift of love, if he can truly cast out of his heart all that is contrary to love, then love will be given to him, and he will have power to return it to the giver.  In such fruition of a supreme good there is supreme delight, and the delight itself is radiant, “diffusive of itself,” creative.

From: Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine (The Hulsean Lectures for 1938) by John Burnaby (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), p. 310.

John Burnaby (1892-1978) was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.  Henry Chadwick (1920-2008), the translator of Augustine’s Confessions (1991), was of the opinion that Burnaby’s book is, still, the best intellectual biography of Augustine in print.

 

Love in the Trinity

The three divine Persons in the Godhead mutually love each other.  The Father loves the Son and the Spirit, the Son loves the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son. 

That the Father loves the Son is more than once said (John 3:35; 5:20) and the Son is sometimes called the well-beloved and dear Son of God (Matthew 3:17; 17:5; Colossians 1:13).  He was, from all eternity, as “one brought up with Him” and was loved by Him before the foundation of the world – and that, with a love of complacency and delight, as He must, since “He is the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person” and is of the same nature and possessed of all the same perfections with Him (Proverbs 8:30-31; John 17:24; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 2:9).  Yea, He loved Him as his Servant, as the Mediator, in His state of humiliation and obedience, and all under His sufferings, and on account of them; and even whilst He bore His wrath as the sinner’s Surety, He was the object of His love as His Son (Isaiah 42:1; Matthew 3:17; John 10:17).  And, now, He is at His right hand, in [His] human nature.  He looks upon Him with delight, and is well-pleased with His sacrifice, satisfaction, and righteousness. 

The Father loves the Spirit, being the very breath of Him, from whence He has His name, and proceeding from Him, and possessing the same nature and essence with Him (Job 33:4; Psalm 33:6; John 15:26; 1 John 5:7). 

The Son loves the Father, of whom He is begotten, with whom He was brought up, in whose bosom He lay from all eternity, as His own and only-begotten Son.  And as man, the law of God was in His heart, the sum of which is to love the Lord God with all the heart and soul; and as Mediator He shewed His love to Him by an obedience to His commandment, even though that was to suffer death for His people (Psalm 40:8; John 14:31; 10:18; Philippians 2:8). 

The Son also loves the Spirit, since He proceeds from Him as from the Father, and is called the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6) and Christ often speaks of Him with pleasure and delight (Isaiah 48:16; 61:1; John 14:16-26; 15:26; 16:7, 13). 

And the Spirit loves the Father and the Son, and sheds abroad the love of them both in the hearts of His people.  He searches into the deep things of God and reveals them to them, and takes of the things of Christ and shews them unto them, and so is both the Comforter of them and the Glorifier of Him (1 Corinthians 2:10-12; John 16:14).

From: A Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, Or, A System of Evangelical Truths Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures by John Gill; 3 volumes; reprint (London: W. Winterbotham, 1796), 1:114-115.

John Gill (1697-1771) was an English pastor, theologian, Bible commentator, and author.  A Body of Doctrinal Divinity (1767) and A Body of Practical Divinity (1770) were originally published separately.

 

Christian Love

I do not hesitate, therefore, to say that the ultimate test of our profession of the Christian faith is, I believe, this whole question of our loving one another.  Indeed, I do not hesitate to aver that it is a more vital test than our orthodoxy.  I am the last man in the world to say anything against orthodoxy, but I am here to say that it is not the final test.  Orthodoxy is essential.  This epistle shows that repeatedly…We must believe the right things.  Apart from that, we have nothing at all and we have no standing whatsoever.  So, the correctness of belief is essential.  And yet, I say that, when we come to the realm of experience and self-examination, the test of orthodoxy is not the ultimate test.

Alas, let us admit it: it is possible for a person to be correct and yet not to be a Christian.  It is possible for men and women…to be interested in theology and to say that one theology is superior to another and to accept and defend and argue about it, and yet to be utterly devoid of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the love of God in their hearts.  It is a terrible thought, it is a terrible possibility, but it is a fact.  There have been men, also, who have clearly been perfectly orthodox – champions of the faith – and yet they have denied that very faith in the bitterness with which they have, sometimes, defended it.  I repeat: the test of orthodoxy, while it is so vital and essential, is not enough.

From: “Love and the New Birth,” by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in Free Grace Broadcaster, Issue 206 (Winter, 2008), pp. 25-26.  This article is an excerpt from Lloyd-Jones’s Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John (one volume edition published by Crossway Books in 2002).

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was pastor of Bethlehem Forward Movement Church, in Aberavon, Wales (1927-1938) and senior pastor of Westminster Chapel, London, England (1943-1968).

 

Love Edifies Christ’s Church

Love enlarges the heart, frees it from the bonds of selfishness, and makes us desire others’ welfare as well as our own.  Love for our neighbor breathes forth in fervent wishes, that it may be well with him, both in time and to eternity.  We are, in every respect, to consider our brethren.  True love will make us long that, in every way, they may be benefitted; that they may not want any needful secular comfort and encouragement; especially, that they may be blessed with all spiritual blessings; and, above all, that they may attain eternal happiness and salvation.  The apostle’s love vents itself in a prayer for the Corinthians’ temporal prosperity and increase: Now, he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness (2 Corinthians 9:10).  So, John, writing to his beloved Gaius, wishes him health and prosperity: Beloved, I wish, above all things, that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth (3 John 2).  But, the apostle’s wishes that souls might be sanctified and saved were most vehemently and pathetically expressed: Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved (Romans 10:1); For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all… (Philippians 1:8); My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you (Galatians 4:19).  Behold how the apostle loved souls!  I do not wonder that he offers his love as a blessing to the church: My love be with you all in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 16:24).

From: “Love Edifies Christ’s Church” by Nathaniel Vincent; reprinted in Free Grace Broadcaster, Issue 206 (Winter, 2008), p. 18.

Nathaniel Vincent (1638-1697) was a nonconformist Puritan preacher born in Cornwall, England.  He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University and became well-known for his sermons preached in London following the Great Fire of 1666.

 

The Love of God

If we begin with the intra-Trinitarian love of God, and use that as the model for all of God’s loving relationships, we shall fail to observe the distinctions that must be maintained.  The love of the Father for the Son and the love of the Son for the Father are expressed in a relationship of perfection, untarnished by sin on either side.  However much the intra-Trinitarian love serves, as we shall see, as a model of the love to be exchanged between Jesus and His followers, there is no sense in which the love of the Father redeems the Son, or the love of the Son is expressed in a relationship of forgiveness granted and received.  As precious, indeed, as properly awesome, as the intra-Trinitarian love of God is, an exclusive focus in this direction takes too little account of how God manifests Himself toward His rebellious image-bearers in wrath, in love, in the cross.

If the love of God is nothing more than His providential ordering of everything, we are not far from a beneficient, if somewhat mysterious, “force.”  It would be easy to integrate that kind of stance into pantheism or some other form of monism.  Green ecology may, thereby, be strengthened, but not the grand story line that takes us from creation to new creation to new heaven and new earth, by way of the cross and resurrection of our Master.

If the love of God is exclusively portrayed as an inviting, yearning, sinner-seeking, rather lovesick passion, we may strengthen the hands of Arminians, semi-Pelagians, Pelagians, and those more interested in God’s inner emotional life than in His justice and glory, but the cost will be massive.  There is some truth in this picture of God, as we shall see, some glorious truth.  Made absolute, however, it not only treats complimentary texts as if they were not there, but it steals God’s sovereignty from Him and our security from us.  It espouses a theology of grace rather different from Paul’s theology of grace and, at its worst, ends up with a God so insipid He can neither intervene to save us nor deploy His chastening rod against us.  His love is too “unconditional” for that.  This is a world far removed from the pages of Scripture.

If the love of God refers exclusively to His love for the elect, it is easy to drift toward a simple and absolute bifurcation: God loves the elect and hates the reprobate.  Rightly positioned, there is truth in this assertion; stripped of complementary biblical truths, that same assertion has engendered hyper-Calvinism.  I use the term advisedly, referring to groups within the Reformed tradition that have forbidden the free offer of the Gospel.  Spurgeon fought them in his day.  Their number is not great in America today, but their echoes are found in young Reformed ministers who know it is right to offer the Gospel freely, but who have no idea how to do it without contravening some element in their conception of Reformed theology.

If the love of God is construed entirely within the kind of discourse that ties God’s love to our obedience (e.g., “Keep yourselves in the love of God”), the dangers threatening us change once again.  True, in a church characterized rather more by personal preference and antinomianism than godly fear of the Lord, such passages surely have something to say to us.  But, divorced from complementary biblical utterances about the love of God, such texts may drive us backward toward merit theology, endless fretting about whether or not we have been good enough today to enjoy the love of God – to be free from all the paroxysms of guilt from which the cross, alone, may free us.

From: The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D. A. Carson (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2000), pp. 21-23.

D. A. Carson (born in 1946) is Research Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where he has taught since 1978.  He is the author or editor of many books, including commentaries.

 

Love vs. Lust

Lust is ever bad, and love ever good.  That I take to be a truth arranged by God. – Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was the greatest British novelist of the 19th century.