James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Thessalonians 4:9 - 4:9

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James Nisbet Commentary - 1 Thessalonians 4:9 - 4:9


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BROTHERLY LOVE

‘But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.’

1Th_4:9

‘Taught of God to love one another!’ It was a new lesson. The Old World had nothing to show that was like it. A little society of men and women in a Greek city, under the Roman rule, sending a contribution to those who were poorer than themselves in other Greek cities, some thirty or forty miles away.

I. Brotherly love the note of Christian society.—This brotherly love was the first note of the primitive Christian society. This was so because that society was formed with the special purpose of continuing in the world the life of Christ. Christ’s life was preeminently a life of helpfulness. And this life of His was not lost to the world when He ascended into heaven. On the contrary, it was expanded into the life of a society created expressly to represent Him on earth, and to reproduce His service to others on a larger scale and in an abiding form. It was to grow and grow till it covered the world, and had absorbed into the life of service the whole of our humanity, making it one man in Christ. In this way, as St. Paul said, the Church was the fulfilment of Christ.

II. It is true fellowship.—It was not a mere sentiment; it was actual helpfulness, literal sharing, true fellowship. They had been taught of God to love one another, and they did it. The world saw what it had never seen before. ‘See how these Christians love one another!’ they exclaimed. The world saw, and shuddered at it. For a society like this, with ramifications all over the empire, bound by these ties of mutual support, its members ready to do or suffer anything for each other, what might it not accomplish? Its power was omnipotent; nothing could stand against it, unless it could be crushed in its youth.

III. The evil of internal division.—If the purposes of God to the world through the Church had not been hampered, and thwarted, and thrown back by human frailty and by the wiles of the Devil, the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which we still say that we believe, must have proved irresistible. Two thousand years would have been more than enough to win the world for Christ. But you know the sad story. The mantle of Christ is rent, and faith can scarce bear the strain of this lifelong punishment. And the worst of it all is that we do not see the sin of it, but as it is written, ‘My people love to have it so.’

IV. Get back to the ideal.—Is it wonderful, in face of this spirit of division and of antagonism, that serious men should come to the conclusion that Church life is no longer a way of blessing and of peace? We have brought it upon ourselves by our forgetfulness of Christ’s primary lesson of self-sacrifice, service, love. We must get back to the ideal of the earliest days. We must pray that this ideal may rise once more before our minds, that we may no longer be content with our divided state; that the Holy Spirit of fellowship may brood over the chaos and confusion of our English religious life, and uplift out of it, as He only can, order, and harmony, and love. With the Holy Spirit of unity as our teacher, we may once more be taught of God to love one another.

—
Dean Armitage Robinson.

Illustration

‘The world tried to crush the early Church by fire and sword, but the blood of “the martyrs was the seed of the Church.” The more they trod on it the stronger it grew, till it claimed at last, under Constantine, to be recognised as the only true religion of the empire itself. A little later Julian—who had been trained as a Greek, but afterwards endeavoured to resuscitate the old Roman religion, and therefore was called the Apostate—Julian, knowing the secret of the strength of Christianity, endeavoured to defeat it by copying it. But the spirit of fellowship could not be created by imperial edicts any more than it can be to-day by Acts of Parliament. The world could only be one man in Christ, and Julian miserably failed. “Oh, Galilæan, Thou hast conquered!” he was reported to have said with his last breath. The fact was true, whether the story be historical or not. The life of Christ reproduced in the Church His Body, and His fulfilment was divinely strong. They had been taught of God to love one another.’