"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--
"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you."--John xv. 9.
The Measure of Love.
This is the most wondrous verse in the Bible. Who can sound the
unimagined depths of that love which dwelt in the bosom of the Father
from all eternity towards His Son?--and yet here is the Saviour's own
exponent of His love towards His people!
There is no subject more profoundly mysterious than those mystic
intercommunings between the first and second persons in the adorable
Trinity before the world was. Scripture gives us only some dim and
shadowy revelations regarding them--distant gleams of light, and no
more. Let one suffice. "_Then_ I was by Him, as one brought up with Him,
and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him."
We know that earthly affection is deepened and intensified by increased
familiarity with its object. The friendship of yesterday is not the
sacred, hallowed thing, which years of growing intercourse have matured.
If we may with reverence apply this test to the highest type of holy
affection, what must have been that interchange of love which the
measureless lapse of Eternity had fostered--a love, moreover, not
fitful, transient, vacillating, subject to altered tones and estranged
looks--but pure, constant, untainted, without one shadow of turning! And
yet, listen to the "words of Jesus," As the Father hath loved _me_, _so_
have I loved _you_! It would have been infinitely more than we had
reason to expect, if He had said, "As my Father hath loved ANGELS, so
have I loved you." But the love borne to no finite beings is an
appropriate symbol. Long before the birth of time or of worlds, that
love existed. It was coeval with Eternity itself. Hear how the two
themes of the Saviour's eternal rejoicing--the _love of His Father_, and
His _love for sinners_--are grouped together;--"Rejoicing always before
HIM, _and_ in the habitable part of His _earth_!"
To complete the picture, we must take in a counterpart description of
the _Father's_ love to us;--"_Therefore_ doth my Father love me," says
Jesus in another place, "_because_ I lay down my life!" God had an
all-sufficiency in His love--He needed not the taper-love of creatures
to add to His glory or happiness; but He seems to say, that so intense
is His love for us, that He loves even His beloved Son _more_ (if
infinite love be capable of increase), because He laid down His life for
the guilty! It is regarding the Redeemed it is said, "He shall _rest_ in
His love--He shall rejoice over _them_ with singing."
In the assertion, "God is love," we are left truly with no mere
unproved averment regarding the existence of some abstract quality in
the divine nature. "Herein," says an apostle, "perceive we THE
LOVE,"--(it is added in our authorised version, "of God," but, as it has
been remarked, "Our translators need not have added _whose_ love, for
there is but one such specimen")--"_because_ He laid down His life for
us." No expression of love can be wondered at after _this_. Ah, how
miserable are our best affections compared with His! "_Our_ love is but
the reflection--cold as the moon; _His_ is as the Sun." Shall we refuse
to love Him more in return, who hath _first_ loved, and so _loved us_?
"NEVER MAN SPAKE LIKE THIS MAN."