Love stands at the head, and is the fontal source of all separate
individualised duties. Here Paul is not so much prescribing love as
describing the kind of love which he recognises as genuine, and the
main point on which he insists is sincerity. The 'dissimulation' of
the Authorised Version only covers half the ground. It means, hiding
what one is; but there is simulation, or pretending to be what one is
not. There are words of love which are like the iridescent scum on
the surface veiling the black depths of a pool of hatred. A Psalmist
complains of having to meet men whose words were 'smoother than
butter' and whose true feelings were as 'drawn swords'; but, short of
such consciously lying love, we must all recognise as a real danger
besetting us all, and especially those of us who are naturally
inclined to kindly relations with our fellows, the tendency to use
language just a little in excess of our feelings. The glove is
slightly stretched, and the hand in it is not quite large enough to
fill it. There is such a thing, not altogether unknown in Christian
circles, as benevolence, which is largely cant, and words of
conventional love about individuals which do not represent any
corresponding emotion. Such effusive love pours itself in words, and
is most generally the token of intense selfishness. 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.