The Characteristic Element of the Christian Life
H. W. Beecher. Ephesians 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man… Love was the design of the Old Testament economy as much as it is of the New. But, while they contemplate the same thing, they do so from different points of view. The economy employed by the Old Testament to bring men up spiritually into that condition in which they should live by love, succeeded only in getting men to live by conscience. Christ came under new conditions, and with new influences, and re-asserted the grand truth that the economy of God in life began with the manifestation, first, of the Divine nature. He taught men that God was love; that love was the essential characteristic element of the Divine nature; not that there were not justice, and reason, and intelligence, and many noble attributes; but that these were all enfolded in love, and that they acted under the influence of love, which was the characteristic element of divinity. Christ's own character, also, and His peculiar life work, were manifested round about this centre of love. For by love God sent Him; and He executed the errand on which He was sent in the spirit of self-sacrificing love. 1. A true Christian has, or may have, large elements of reason and knowledge; of veneration and worship; of faith and aspiration; of activity and obedience; of earnestness and zeal; and yet not one of these, nor all of them, will make him a Christian, until the soul pours a whole summer of love round about them. Then the presence of this love in the midst of these other qualities will determine that he is a Christian. It is not knowledge that is evidence that you are a Christian; it is not a sense of duty; it is not mere outward conduct of any sort; it is the benevolent tendency of the heart; it is the soul's sweetness and love power. 2. The peculiar Christian graces which are enjoined upon us in the Bible are all love children. Not only are they to be known by their likeness to love, but they cannot be born without love. And there is not a Christian grace that is not easy to those who love enough. I have sometimes stood and marvelled at the vastness of the water wheel that lay silent by the side of the mill, and wondered by what power it could be turned. Meanwhile there was the trickling of water through a small pipe, which fell on the far side of it, and did not stir it. At last the miller went to the gate further up, and lifted it, and the flood poured down in larger measure; and the moment enough water had flowed into it, the great slave wheel began instantly to toil and turn; and all day, and all night, and so long as the water continued to pour upon it, it ground out its treasure, singing and spilling its musical water as it rolled round. And so it is with that wheel of the soul, in its revolutions of daily life. If the stream of love pours on it abundantly, how, it revolves! How does it work out every interior fruit of the heart and life, only so that the stream of love pours on it! 3. We can trace, in the light of this truth, the progress of Christian life, or growing in grace. The test that you are growing in grace is that you are growing in more perfect moral qualities in the direction of love. 4. And as it is in the individual, so it is collectively, or in Churches. The spread of Christianity is to be measured by the spread of its distinctive spirit. As growth in conscience, or reason, is no evidence of growth in grace with the individual, so growth in these things is no evidence of growth in grace with the Church. Growth in beneficence is the test in both cases. The Church is taking possession of the world, not geographically, but in the degree in which it is able to stimulate and maintain the summer of benevolence among men. The union of Christians — and of Churches, for that matter — is to come from this characteristic spirit of love, or from nothing at all. And the aggression of the Church on the world will be victorious only when a whole Christianity brings the whole human soul to bear upon the world in the power and plenitude of love. And we are talking about the Church owning the world. Christian hearts will own the world, but Christian Churches never will. For, when we take the world captive, it will be by the subduing power of Christian love. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: WEB: until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;