'We love Him, because He first loved us.' There is a bridge wanted
between these two, and the bridge is supplied abundantly in this letter,
in entire harmony with the teaching of the rest of the New Testament.
Much has been said, and profitably said, with reference to the
modification of the general type of Christian teaching in the writings
respectively of Paul, Peter, James, and John. I thankfully recognise the
diversities. They are not divergencies; they are perfectly
complementary, and may all be made to harmonise. This Apostle of love
has also declared to us how it comes that the love which burns at the
centre of things, where there is a heart, kindles a responding love away
out on the circumference of things, where there are men with hearts; and
the bridge is--'We have known and believed the love that God hath to
us.' So says John. And Paul, the Apostle of faith, who sometimes seems
as if his only conception of the link of union between God and man was,
on the part of man, faith, responds when he speaks of a faith which
worketh, comes to energetic operation, through the love which it has
kindled.
So we come to this, that a simple trust in the love of God, as
manifested in Jesus Christ, our Lord, is the only thing which will so
deal with man's natural self-regard and desire to make himself his own
object and centre, as to substitute for that the victorious love to God.
You cannot love God, unless you believe that He loves you. You will
never be absolutely sure of that, unless you have learned it from the
Cross of Christ. You will not respond with the love that He desires, but
there will be a film between your ice and the fire that could melt it,
until that is swept away by the simple act of confidence in God
manifested to you in Jesus Christ. This is Christianity; this, nothing
less, is religion--to love God, because I believe that in Jesus Christ
God has loved me.
And that is the only thing that He desires or accepts. The Religion of
Fear; what is it? 'Thou wert an austere man ... and I was afraid.' Yes!
and what did you do when you were afraid? 'I hid my talent in the
ground,' and was utterly idle. Here rise, on either side of the valley,
two mountains--Ebal and Gerazim. From the one were thundered the curses,
from the other broke the benediction of the blessings; the one is
barren, the other is verdant--'which thing is an allegory.' The Religion
of Fear does nothing, the Religion of Love does all. The Religion of
Self-interest is narrow, poor, mostly inoperative of any lofty
enthusiasm or high nobleness of character. The Religion of Duty; 'I
ought to worship, I am bidden to do this, that, or the other thing,
which I do not a bit like to do. I am forbidden to do this, that, and
the other thing which I should very much like to do, if I durst'--that
religion is the religion of a slave; and there are hosts of us that know
nothing better. And so our Christianity is a feeble and an uncomfortable
thing; and there are little joy, and little subjugation of the will, and
little leaping up of the heart in glad obedience in it. I was talking to
a good, aged man, not long ago, whose religion was of a very gloomy
type. He said to me, 'As to love, I know next to nothing about it.' Ah!
brethren, I am afraid that is true about a good many of us who call
ourselves Christians.
Then let me say, too, that if we love Him, it will be the motive power
and spring of all manner of obediences and glad services. Love is the
mother-tincture, so to speak, which you can colour, and to which you can
add in various ways, and produce variously tinted and tasted and
perfumed commixtures. Love lies at the foundation of all Christian
goodness. It will lead to the subjugation of the will; and that is the
thing that is most of all needed to make a man righteous and pure. So
St. Augustine's paradox, rightly understood, is a magnificent truth,
'Love! and do what you will.' For then you will be sure to will what God
wills, and you ought.
If this be the summing-up of all religion, a practical conclusion
follows. When we feel ourselves defective in the glow and operative
driving power of love to God, what is the right thing to do? When a man
is cold, he will not warm himself by putting a clinical thermometer
into his mouth, and taking his temperature, will he? Let him go into the
sunshine and he will be warmed up. You can pound ice in a mortar, and
except for the little heat generated by the impact of the pestle, it
will keep ice still. But float the iceberg south into the tropics, and
what has become of it? It has all run down into sweet, warm water, and
mingled with the warm ocean that has dissolved it. So do not think about
yourselves and your own loveless hearts so much, but think about God,
and the infinite welling up of love in His heart to you, a great deal
more. 'We love Him, because He first loved us'; therefore, to love Him
more, we must feel more that He does love us.