Now, I suppose I do not need to do more than point out that 'the love
of God' here means His to us, and not ours to Him, and that the
metaphor employed is but partially represented by that rendering
'shed abroad.' 'Poured out' would better convey Paul's image, which
is that of a flood sent coursing through the heart, or, perhaps,
rather lying there, as a calm deep lake on whose unruffled surface
the heavens, with all their stars, are reflected. Of course, if God's
love to us thus suffuses a heart, then there follows the
consciousness of that love; though it is not the consciousness of the
love that the Apostle is primarily speaking of, but that which lies
behind it, the actual flowing into the human heart of that sweet and
all-satisfying Love. This Divine Spirit that dwells in us, if we are
trusting in Christ, will pour it in full streams into our else empty
hearts. Surely there is nothing incongruous with the nature either of
God or of man, in believing that thus a real communication is
possible between them, and that by thoughts the occasions of which we
cannot trace, by moments of elevation, by swift, piercing
convictions, by sudden clear illuminations, God may speak, and will
speak, in our waiting hearts.
'Such rebounds the inmost ear
Catches often from afar.
Listen, prize them, hold them dear;
For of God, of God, they are.'
But we must not forget, too, that, according to the whole strain of
New Testament thinking, the means by which that Divine Spirit does
pour out the flashing flood of the love of God into a man's heart is,
as Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, by taking the things of Christ
and showing them to us.
Now, as I said about a former point of my sermon,
that the Apostle was taking for granted that this gift of the Spirit
belonged to all Christian people; so here again he takes for granted
that in every Christian heart there is, by a divine operation, the
presence of the love, and of the consciousness of the love, of God.
And, again, the question comes to some of us stunningly, to all of us
warningly, Is that a transcript of our experience? It is the ideal of
a Christian life; it is meant that it should be so, and should be so
continuously. The stream that is poured out is intended to run summer
and winter, not to be dried up in drought, nor made turbid and noisy
in flood, but with equable flow throughout. I fear me that the
experience of most good people is rather like one of those tropical
wadies, or nullahs in Eastern lands, where there alternate times of
spate and times of drought; and instead of a flashing stream, pouring
life everywhere, and full to the top of its banks, there is for long
periods a dismal stretch of white sun-baked stones, and a chaos of
tumbled rocks with not a drop of water in the channel. The Spirit
pours God's love into men's spirits, but there may be dams and
barriers, so that no drop of the water comes into the empty heart.
Our Quaker friends have a great deal to say about 'waiting for the
springing of the life within us.' Never mind about the phraseology:
what is meant is profoundly true, that no Christian man will realise
this blessing unless he knows how to sit still and meditate, and let
the gracious influence soak into him. Thus being quiet, he may, he
will, find rising in his heart the consciousness of the love of God.
You will not, if you give only broken momentary sidelong glances; you
will not, if you do not lie still. If you hold up a cup in a shaking
hand beneath a fountain, and often twitch it aside, you will get
little water in it; and unless we 'wait on the Lord,' we shall not
'renew our strength.' You can build a dam as they do in Holland that
will keep out, not only the waters of a river, but the waters of an
ocean, and not a drop will come through the dike. Brethren, we must
keep ourselves in the love of God.