The Divine Prototype of Love
Prof. T. Christlieb. 1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. "If God so loved us." How? The preceding verse shows us some of the glorious traits of this love. 1. Its greatness and depth. One may dip out the ocean with a shell sooner than exhaust the ocean of God's love with the little bucket of human conceptions. It is as boundless as God Himself, for "God is love" (ver. 8). But the apostle puts into our hand a scale to measure even such greatness (ver. 9). Is there for a father a greater offering than to give up his only son? "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." The greatness of this Divine love ought also to be the motive to and the example for our love to our neighbour. (1) Surely the motive. How often are we stirred to love by beauty merely, by talent, or other excellences, or even sometimes by pleasing weaknesses; but not first and foremost by the thought that God the Lord in Christ went after him in love! (2) And our example. We are by nature egoists. "For all seek their own" (Philippians 2:21). The soul of God's whole activity, from the creation to the new creation, is love. And now has God, indeed, opened "the bowels of His mercy and compassion" (Luke 1:78), and in Christ given Himself, His best, His heart, to men for their own; so that "whosoever receiveth Christ receiveth the Father that sent Him" (Luke 9:49). But we? Even when we make our loving sacrifices, we keep back to ourselves the greater part of ourselves. Do thou, my hard, selfish heart, with thy scanty, wretched love, which scarcely ever deserves the name, be transformed after this great, Divine pattern! But love shames us yet in many other things. We are further amazed at — 2. The all-embracing extent of this love. God sent His Son into the world. He gave Him not to some few, but to all. How often our love suffers from a miserable straitness of heart! Towards some, sometimes towards those who love us, we are very kind and pleasing, but towards others indifferent. Some attract us, numberless others are repulsive. And oh! what wretched pettinesses often suffice to lock up our hearts so that not the least drop of love can flow out! God's love did not suffer itself to be held back, nor to set itself any bounds: it embraced all, even its enemies. God finds people enough to love His beautiful and richly-gifted children; but few whose love goes far enough to receive the miserable ones also. If we desire to do what is pleasing to God's heart, let us also love those whom no one else is likely to love! And if our courage fails us for this — for such love requires much courage — let us look up to the primal example of God's love, which condescended to this miserable world. 3. The clearness and calmness of God's love. The greater and stronger the love of men, so much the harder for it to remain clear and calm. The bleeding Lamb of God on Calvary shows not only how deeply and all inclusively, but also how clearly, and soberly, and holily God loves the world. He will heal its sin and guilt, and therefore He suffers the Lamb to bleed. He must judge while He heals, and He heals while thus judging. Thus clear and calm, too, was the love of Christ, in all its greatness. How He loved His disciples, and yet how soberly and calmly He pointed out to them their errors! "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Do we do it? Alas, how rare among us is that great and therefore sober love which steadily seeks to make our neighbour better! Either we continue clear and calm, and our love is, commonly, very lukewarm; or else it is great and warm, while we are as it were blind and dull. 4. Its unselfish disinterestedness. We love those who please us, who love us, or from whom we expect love. Therein appears the interestedness of our love. God loves those who love Him not; from whom, moreover, He can have no great hopes of love. Just as unselfish, too, is Christ's love. In all His life of love He never seeks His own gain — not His honour, not His advantage, not His proper esteem, but only the honour of the Father and the salvation of the world. He puts away all self-help from His love (Matthew 4:3, etc.; 26:53, etc.); renounces the applause of the great masses, especially of the rulers; and walks the way of self-abnegation and the Cross. "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another" — so unselfishly, so disinterestedly. How rare is the love in which one thinks not of himself, but only of the welfare of another; which forgets one's self, seeks stillness and retirement, lets not its left hand know what its right hand doeth; yes, even expects nothing for itself, because it has its own reward in itself; which therefore rewards evil with good, which blesses them that curse us, and does good to them that hate us! 5. The steadfastness and faithfulness of the love of God; which is not less worthy of imitation. Only the unselfish love "never faileth." Selfish love, in its very selfishness, has a worm in itself which speedily gnaws away its life. The purer love is, the less it changes. Because God's love is without any mixture of impure self-seeking, therefore is it so steadfast. (Prof. T. Christlieb.) Parallel Verses KJV: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. WEB: Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.