This is the stability and glory of the universe. These words present it
I. AS THE HIGHEST OBJECT FOR REVELATION. “I have declared.” Paul said at Athens, “Him declare I unto you.” Not only is this the highest function of
1. The material universe.
2. Angels.
3. But of Christ the greatest Being.
II. AS THE GRAND ORGAN OF REFORMATION. “That the love,” &c. God’s character is the reformatory force.
1. Moral reformation consists in the transfusion of Divine love into souls.
2. This transfusion of love can only be accomplished through a manifestation of the Divine character. God’s character alone generates love. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
“Love and I”--a mystery
I. THE FOOD OF LOVE TO GOD.
1. Knowledge. “I have made known.” We cannot love a God whom we do not know. Only when the eyes are opened to behold the loveliness of God will the heart go out towards God, who is so desirable an object for the affections.
2. A knowledge given by Christ. It is not knowledge that we pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love to the Father. Not knowledge communicated by the preacher alone. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” He that knows not Christ knows not the Father.
3. Knowledge coming gradually. “And will declare it.” As if, though they knew the Father, there was far more to know.
4. Knowledge distinguishing us from the world. It is the mark by which the elect are made manifest (Joh_17:6).
5. Knowledge of the name of God.
(1) Righteous, and yet a Father. Our joy begins when we see the two united.
(2) The word “name” is used as a sort of summary of all the attributes of God. All these attributes are well adapted to win the love of all regenerate spirits. God is
(a) Holy. To a holy mind there is nothing in the world, there is nothing in heaven more beautiful than holiness.
(b) Good;
(c) Merciful; “Who is a God like unto Thee.”
(d) Love, and there is a something about love which always wins love.
II. THE LOVE ITSELF.
1. What it is not. The prayer is not that the Father’s love may be set upon them, or move towards them, but be “in” them. Christ did not die to make His Father loving, but because His Father is loving.
2. This love is of a very peculiar sort. “The love wherewith Thou hast loved Me.”
(1) Our Lord desires us to have a distinct recognition of the Father’s love to Him. God never loved anything as He loves Christ, except His people, and they have had to be lifted up to that position by the love which the Father has to His Son.
(2) You are to have in your heart a sense of the Father’s love to you, and to recollect that it is precisely the same love wherewith He loves His Son. When there was a choice between Christ and His people which should die of the two, the Father freely delivered up His own Son that we might live through Him.
(3) We are to give back a reflection of this love, and to love Jesus as the Father loves Him. The Father is the Sun and we are the moon, but the moonlight is the same light as the sunlight. The moon has not a ray of light but what came from the sun, and we have not a live coal of love to Christ but what came from the Father. We are as the moon, shining by reflected light, but Jesus loves the moonlight of our love and rejoices in it.
(4) This love of the Father in us is to go beaming forth from us to all around.
3. This indwelling of the Father’s love in us has the most blessed results.
(1) Has an expulsive result. As soon as ever it gets into the heart it says to all love of sin, “Get thee hence: there remains no room for thee here.”
(2) A repulsive power by which it repels the assaults of sin.
(3) An impulsive power. It is as when an engine receives fire and steam, and so obtains the force which drives it. Then have you motive power, then are you urged on to this and that heroic deed which, apart from this sublime love, you never would have thought of.
(4) How elevating it is. How it lifts a man up above self and sin; how it makes him seek the things that are above!
(5) How purifying it is!
(6) How happy it makes the subject of its influence! If you are unhappy you want mole of the love of God.
III. THE COMPANION OF LOVE. “I in them.” Catch those two words. Here is “love” and. “I”--love and Christ come together. Oh, blessed guests!
1. We are sure that He is where love is; for, where there is love there is
(1) Life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, I am the Life.
(2) The Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative.
(3) Faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith.
(4) God, for God is love.
2. You need not go abroad to find the Lord Jesus Christ. He lives within you.
(1) What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. “I in them.” Then it is no more “I” in weakness, but, “I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.”
(2) Hence we gather the security of the believer.
(3) We should give Christ good entertainment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Spiritual illumination and Divine love
I. THE GREAT SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL ILLUMINATION. “I have declared to them Thy name.” The name was the Jewish formulary for God; His perfections, glory, grace.
1. That the saving knowledge of God comes to us by direct communication from Christ. Not by wisdom, virtue, strength of our own; “for the world by wisdom knew not God,” but from the discovery which Christ makes by His word and Spirit: “I have declared.” See it in the woman of Samaria--in His patience with the disciples. It is Christ’s prerogative to convey the saving knowledge of God to the mind; it is our privilege to seek that knowledge from Him.
2. That we need spiritual illumination from above, not only at our first conversion, but through the whole progress of our spiritual life. “I have declared--and will declare it.” Paul prays for the Ephesians that God would give them the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of Him--and yet they knew Him already. Paul, who was taught not of men, but of Christ Himself, and was even caught up to the third heaven, puts himself among the number of them who know only in part; and this will be true of the most learned and holy men to the last hour of life.
3. It becomes us to acknowledge our ignorance, and to implore Divine teaching. This is a promise to be pleaded in prayer. We are like babes, unskilful in the word of righteousness. The best persons and the best churches still need more light. It is not enough that Christ has declared to them, but He must still declare--not indeed new truths, new essentials of salvation, but He conveys new impressions of truth to the mind; new aptitudes to receive, to appropriate, to exemplify and apply truth.
II. THE GREAT LOVE WHICH GOD BEARS TO HIS CHILDREN It is here compared to the love which God bears to Christ. This love is said to be in them, just as Christ is said to be in them. By God’s love to Christ, learn His love to you.
1. This love is ancient in its date. “Thou hast loved Me from the foundation of the world” (Pro_8:22; Pro_8:31).
2. Unlimited in its degree. As you can place no limit to God’s love to the Mediator, so you can place no limit to His love to the people He has redeemed. Many would discourage the hopes of God’s children. Satan himself would rob them of consolation. False systems of religion do this.
3. Enlightened in its exercise. God’s love to Christ was enlightened, and His conduct towards Him was regulated with a view to the office He was to sustain, and He allowed Him to pass through scenes of pain, poverty, temptation. So He does us: much tribulation.
4. Constant in its duration. It is an everlasting love. (The Evangelist.)
