Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

We have now come to the second section of the second part of this epistle. The first section of the second part shewed us the workings of the divine life; this section shows us how we get that life.

How do we obtain it? Not by our getting up to God; but by God coming down to us. To make us partakers of His nature, He worked to get down to us. I should like to shew you the arrangement of the subject here, before going into the details. God is seen at work in this section in two stages, to bring His love down to us; then His love is seen quite getting into us, and afterwards His Spirit dwelling in us, and we in Him; and in two stages more we are seen to be fully in the position in which His love has placed us. There are two stages in His love descending to reach us; two stages in His love in us indwelling; and two stages ascending to bring us up there; there are many other points; but I speak of these first. For instance, there is the word “perfection,” a word some are afraid of; but we should not be afraid of anything that is in the bible.

Now look at verse 7, which ought to be the commencement of the chapter. For the first six verses belong properly to the argument of the preceding chapter. “Beloved;” that is not an unmeaning expression, when we find it in God’s Word. We are apt to use it as a formal introduction; but not so God. It is the same as in chapter 3 verse 1, “Ye loved ones.” He has been saying, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,” and then He goes on to say, “Ye loved ones, now are ye the sons of God.” God addresses us by all these terms of endearment,— “little children,” “sons,” “loved ones,” and how blessed! it is all in Christ our Lord.

Let us look at the first stage in the descending scale of God’s love. Verse 8: “God is love,” and if we are His children, we must have His nature. In chapter 1 we are told that “God is light; “here it is, “God is love.” Truth is two-sided; we must not lean on one side and ignore the other; that is the cause of all error. Heresy is just a selection of truth. The statement in verse 8, “God is love,” refers to God’s love coming forth to meet us; it introduces the descending scale of God’s love. In verse 9 the love is “manifested.”

There are three manifestations mentioned in the New Testament. Here is one—“In this was manifested the love of God.” The second is in John 14:21, “I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him; “and the third is in 1 John 3:2, “When He shall be manifested.” I beg you to remember that these three must be maintained in their divine order, their proper order, otherwise you may get into mistakes. I have often heard people say, “I want a manifestation of the love of God;” but they forget that God not only does a thing, but He does it in order. Now we find that God’s manifestation of His love in John 14 is dependent on our obedience; “I will manifest Myself,” He says, “to the obedient disciple.” In this Christ is one with the Father; but in this first manifestation, God sent His Son without any obedience on our part; that is past; the second is continually going on; and the third is future, “When He shall be manifested.” There is the divine order of the three manifestations of God, one past, one present, one future. If there is anyone here who says,” I want a manifestation,” are you thoroughly established in this, that the love of God was manifested? If you want a manifestation before being saved, God has given you an overwhelming manifestation of His love. It would be a disparagement of the manifestation of Himself that He has already given, if He were to give you a second before you have believed the first. You must begin with the gift of God, the gift of His Son, His only Son. God does love us, and He has manifested that love.

The second manifestation is one of obedience, that is, it is dependent upon the obedience of a Christian; but if you want a private manifestation of Christ, before seeing the overwhelming manifestation of God’s love in the gift of His Son, this would be a slight upon that Son of His. Are you clear on the first point? Do you see that God in love to you gave His Son? Do you say, “God gave His Son to bear the sin of a sinner like me? “If so, you will obey Him; then you will get the second, and you will have the third in time; but to apprehend the second and third, you must begin at the beginning. In verse 10 we get the second stage in the manifestation of God’s love. You observe there are two stages in the descending scale of God’s love, as if the Holy Ghost would fix our thoughts on the gift of the Son at all, apart from His sin-bearing, apart from His dying on the cross. Look at the two, at Bethlehem and at Calvary. The Holy Ghost suggests, in the first place, the greatness of the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ at all; and then shows him to us as the propitiation for our sins. Now you observe that God has so arranged it that we live, and that we have love in us. It is God working to make us His children. The nature of God is in us, and that gives us a very important principle, now-a-days, to observe, namely, that in divine life there is love and joy. Hence some persons are mistaken as to the non-eternity of punishment. True there is no life but in Christ, but life and existence are totally different. There is so much wretchedness in the world; we are prone to say it is life; but there is no love in it. The world itself is almost driven to feel, that life is one thing, and existence is another; and so it is said of some, “They have a bare existence.” Even in animal life, God seems as if He showed that life was a different thing from existence; life is existence with joy. When a lamb is born, how it begins to leap about the fields; when a little kitten is horn, how it begins to gambol about your fireside; then life is seen to be beyond existence, there is an element of joy in it, and how much more with eternal life—life in Christ! All exist; the wicked, when they are brought out of their graves and stand before the great white throne, are four times called “the dead; “yet surely they are living in some sense when coming out of the graves and going into the lake of fire.

And so, as God works on, the purpose of the Son of God is that we might live through Him.

In verse 9, “the only-begotten Son” is the title given to the Lord Jesus; but that title is changed now by His resurrection. When it was love descending, it was “the only begotten;” but that is not His only name now; in resurrection He is the “first-begotten from the dead.” (Colossians 1:18.) God, for you, as it were, gave a new title to Christ in Colossians, when He shows that He regards that blessed Lord Jesus as having actually communicated His own life, and that He is not only “the only begotten; “but, as also having communicated His own nature, He is the first begotten, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.

“In this was manifested the love of God.” You observe there is nothing here about taking away sins. The fact that Christ came is a proof of God’s love; but that love had not reached us. Were Christ here in the flesh, as He was when, on one occasion, seated on Jacob’s well, or as when walking in the Temple, it would be a manifestation of the love of God; it would not be that full manifestation which has descended to our need, which has come down where the sinner is; there would still be a great gulf between the Lord Jesus and us; for He is holy, and we are sinners. The Lord Jesus comes where the sinner is, and He must come lower than into the world. Nearly all the error of the Romanists, Ritualists, and Unitarians, springs hence—that the Lord Jesus coming into the world, identified Himself with the human race. No; it was in death and resurrection He has got His people identified with Himself. Apart from death He has not reached us. And when they invent a religion, which links Him in with us because He took human nature, they forget the fact that He was a holy man, and that we are not by nature holy men, but wretched sinners. The Holy Ghost says, Here is love for you! “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” There is the love in its descending scale; it has reached us—“a propitiation for our sins;” “Christ was made sin for us.” I have often observed, that when Christians talk about these things, the truth is so strong, so extreme, they wince at it. I have observed Christians speak of Christ as hanging upon “the accursed tree;” that is not the language of Scripture; Scripture does not say the tree was cursed; but He who hung upon it was cursed; not the tree, but the holy, blessed, pure One, was made a curse for us; the Holy Ghost says it. He was not only accused; but was “made a curse.” There is strength of language there, which I am sure everyone here would scruple to use, unless the Holy Ghost said so; as if all the sin of us all was upon Him. Oh, Lord, Thy love is indeed great! Going down till He could not get lower. “Christ made sin for us,” there is the love of God “perfected; “it has come down “perfectly.” If we are Christians at all, it is because His love has got down as low as it could possibly get. God’s love could get no further than for the only-begotten Son of the Father to become a curse for us, that He might be able to say, “Come, ye blessed children of My Father.” There is love which is perfect; it has come right down to us.

God did not ignore that we were sinners; He did not ignore the fact that we had departed from Him. We were sinful; so He who knew no sin, was “made sin,” was “made a curse “for us, and thus His love was perfected. The Lord Jesus could not go lower than He did, and now He has come so low, that whenever anyone hears the gospel he hears this word, “We have seen and do testify, that the Father sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins;” by coming down into our true position, and taking our sin upon Him, He came to be the Saviour of the world. I do think, after all, that there is nothing so comforting as the consciousness that God did not blink the fact that we were sinners, that He distinctly looked at that, and made provision for it; and now, though I condemn myself; and though God’s law and the world condemn me; and I was altogether opposed to God; yet the Lord Jesus can fold me to His bosom, and say, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” The blessed Lord Jesus has come in truth, come in light; yet that Holy One can speak a word of divine grace to my spirit, such as no one else could say—as He could not have said, if He had not come into my true condition, and been made a curse for me.

Oh! it is a fearful responsibility to reject the gospel. If a man hear the gospel, and turn a deaf ear to it, it is not then merely that he is a fallen creature; for God has made a provision for him as such; the love of Jesus has come down so low, that even for the vilest sinner there is mercy, if he accepts that salvation. The ground of condemnation in the New Testament, the reason why men are self-condemned, is not that they have done this, that, or the other; for all sin there is provision; but there is no provision for the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so, as one has said, “It is not the sin-question, but the Son-question,” between God and the world, and according to whether you receive Him or not, you have condemnation or salvation,— “Whosoever shall confess,” etc. (verse 15.) “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” Now as to this love indwelling in us. In the first place, we must see that God’s love has perfectly, actually reached us in our lost condition. Then we know and believe the love of God. Then it is not only “to “us (verse 16), but in us
en hjmin. At length it is perfected in us. Now His Spirit can and does dwell in us, even causing us to begin to dwell in God. Nor is this a matter of great and advanced attainment. On the contrary, the Word says that whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. Thus the second process—the manner of God’s love getting into you—is evident. For He wants you, yourself. He will rest in His love to you, and bring you at length to rest in His love, too.

Now, we can look at the love ascending. The first statement is introduced (as was the first view of the descending love of God) by those words, “God is love.” That is a barbarous translation in verse 17 —” Herein is our love; “it should be, “Love with us.” It is the love of God seen to be perfect in its heights, as in its depths. That love was not all seen in fixing the Son on the cross; there is another side; putting you on the throne; that is the other side—and, in one sense, the higher. Christ coming into your place is not the end of His work; there is also the bringing you into His own position, as in that passage already quoted—“He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” There is God’s object, there is the ascending scale.

“Herein is love.” I could beg those of you who wish to understand the apostle John, to rub out that word “our.” Herein is God’s love perfected in its height. The idea comes in, too, that “as He is, so are we in this world.” What a grand statement that is! Who can worthily expatiate upon it! I feel it to be altogether beyond me. Altogether associated with the Lord Jesus! It reminds me of what I told you on the first chapter, where He was the Son, come down that we might have fellowship, or partnership, with the Father, and be one with Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, instead of attemping to set forth this oneness with Christ, in any words of mine, I will just refer you to one chapter in the gospel of John, where the Lord Jesus Himself states, in seven different ways, our identification with Himself. In evidently the crowning chapter of the gospel (the 17th chapter) there are the words, “as,” or “according as,” seven times. There is the same life: “As thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him, (verse 2); the same bond of union, (verse 11); the same separation from the world, (verse 14); the same sending out into the world, (verse 18.) How is Christ one with the Father? By the Holy Ghost. You are one with Christ by the Holy Ghost. We are not united to Christ by faith; but by the Holy Ghost. It would be a poor thing to be united to Christ by faith; there is a time when faith shall not be. Do you think our union will end then? No, it is by the Holy Ghost. Then, as to the separation from the world. We are not of the world, for the simple reason that we have died out of it, and are born again. I have not got to mend the world by concerts and philanthropic devices, etc.; the world is doomed; so far from its being mended, it is utterly evil, and the thing is impossible. What I have to do, is to stand out of it, and lift other people out of it, if I can; and the more we know the mind of God, the more we shall see this. We have not to vote for members of parliament, or get up penny readings. Christ did not do that. Christ conquered the world by hanging on the cross. And we are as Christ, identified with Him, and separate from the world. After separation from the world, then we are sent into it. The order of God is very beautiful; we are first thoroughly separated from the world, and then sent into it. We are not to take any lower ground than Christ, because we have the same Spirit as Christ. We are not living down here; we are to bless the world, but as Christ did. Oh that men would reverence God’s order. They go into the world, and try to improve it. If I am a Christian, I am neither whig nor tory, neither Englishman nor Frenchman. I have nothing to do with the world, but to bless it from Christ’s own stand-point. Fifthly: there is the same actual union now as God with Christ (verse 21), “That they all might be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee.” I am trying to shew you that we are identified with Christ, even in this world. There is the same identification and union with Christ, as Christ has with God. Christ came into our place, took our curse, our sin,. our doom, with the purpose to bring us into this position, the same position as Himself; “as He is, so are we in this world.” Look at those words, “The glory which Thou gavest me,” etc, (verse 22.) Sixthly, there is a union fraught with future blessing, a union to be developed in the future with God, Christ will be known as one with the Father, and so shall we, (verse 23.) Then, seventhly, “Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved me.” It is so like God to keep the best wine till the last. Do we believe this? For this is in the gospel; these are not my words; I am trying to give you simply the solemn utterances of the Holy One. It occurred to me that in enlarging on this subject, I could not do better than give the exact words of the Lord Jesus. In these seven things, He Himself in His prayer says, that “as He is, so are we in this world.” Is not this love indeed?

Now observe; before I go further I must ask your attention to a fact. In the two stages of love descending, God began with the higher and went down to the lower; Jesus Christ came into the world; then, takes our sins. Now, in the ascending scale, God begins at the top, and then comes down a stage, in order to balance with the other two. “Herein is love,” that we saw perfected in its height in identifying us with the Son of God: “As He is, so are we even in this world,” even in the midst of our cares and our perplexities. And then He comes a stage lower; the word is now, “There is no fear in love.” This is love perfected in its heights as well as in its depths; it casts out fear, because fear hath torment. I am only now speaking of the stages of the scale. God first shews He has put you in association with the risen Lord, though you are yet in this world; now then He goes a stage lower, and He says, “You will not be afraid of anything that comes upon you in the world, if so be you are in My love.” As if He had said, “My son, you will not be afraid of anything in the world.” God’s love casts out fear; it is incompatible with it, because fear (as it ought to be rendered) hath punishment. God beholds us as one with His Son, and He cannot punish us. You will be afraid of nothing, because there is no fear in love. You cannot be afraid of poverty, if you are perfected in the love of God. Do you think that God could ever let His Son die of hunger or thirst? And do you think that God could let you starve for want of exercising His almightiness to give you a loaf? You will not be afraid of anything that could happen; there is no fear in love; and if God loves Christ, He must love you; as much as God loves Christ, He loves you. Do you think Christ could have starved? or can the devil hurt Him? I do not say that we apprehend it. “He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” If you and I are fearing, it merely shows that our heads have got beyond our hearts; it merely shews that we are not established in the love of God as we should be.

After an address I gave on this subject elsewhere, a lady came to me and said, “I do not think I am perfected in the love of God; for there is a big dog at my neighbour’s house, and I believe it bites people, and every time I pass the house I fear.” But one perfected in the love of God will say, “God will take care of me; all I have to do is to try and please Him and mind His will, and not care about myself; even my character I should leave to God, and care only to please Him, my Saviour and Friend. What a grand position for the family is set forth in the second part of this epistle! The family in the world are “as Christ” in this world! Oh perfection of love!

But how am I to get perfect? Do you say, I don’t believe in perfection? We have no need to be afraid of anything in Scripture; and if Arminians and Wesleyans wrest the words of God, we will look them full in the face, and lean on all sides of truth. Perfection I take to be this: God reveals Himself in a given form, and then the believer is said to be perfected when there is a full correspondence on our part to that revelation. For instance, we read in Genesis that God said to Abraham; “I am the Almighty God: walk before Me, and be thou perfect; “the idea there is, You need not care for the goods of Sodom; I am the Almighty God, and I will take care of you; confide in My almightiness. When God said to Abraham, “Be perfect,” He meant, walk in correspondence with the revelation. I illustrate it thus: suppose you have a looking-glass, and present a particular object before it; there is a perfect correspondence between the object and the glass. God ever presents Himself before the believer as the object for him to gaze upon. Perfection is correspondence to the revelation. So “be you perfect,” (Matthew 5:48); don’t insist upon your rights; for your Father is not doing that now. God is exhibiting grace; you are His child; don’t insist on your rights. Again, look at Hebrews 9:9, 10, “Perfect as pertaining to the conscience.” There is a reference to the act of Christ sat down as the Sin-purger, and presented to your gaze. “When He had purged your sin, there was not so much as a spot of sin upon Him; for if there were, He could not be there. Look at that object, and you will have a perfect conscience; you will see there is no such thing as sin upon you; for if there were, God could not look at His Son at all. Therefore, if my gaze is upon Christ, the Sin-purger, my conscience is clean. There is the Object that God puts before my soul—Christ the Sin-purger; and if it be a question of my sin, it is gone. It is not that I have not committed sin; but, gazing upon Him, I am clean as He is that is on the throne. That is what is meant by a perfect conscience; not that there is no sin; but that you are perfect according to that Object beheld by you.

The perfection of love here is somewhat different. It is the presentation of God as love. We have just seen that the love of God was perfected; God in this epistle of John presents Himself as love; so now it is seen that His love is perfected upward, when the Christian is seen as Christ, and as one with Christ: and the love is perfected downward, for God in His love could not get lower; Christ got underneath your sins; and then God put you as high as His Son. Well then, observe, perfection here is when there is a correspondence of soul to this revelation. Observe these two facts: when you believe in Christ, God’s love gets into you; it has been tapping at the door of your heart (it may be for years) every time you heard the gospel; but when you believe, and take the full salvation, the love of God gets into you; when at last you see that the precious Son of God His own self died for you on the cross, the love of God has got right into you; and so, observe, it is said of every Christian, that God’s love is perfected in him, (verse 12); if we love one another, that is a proof that divine love has perfectly reached us—the love of God in its descending scale must have got into you, (commonly called conversion). But it is quite another thing to get fully into the love of God. I will read two Scriptures on this point. Romans 5:5: “The love of God is poured out (Greek) in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us; “that is God’s love, not ours. God’s love is poured into your heart. Once you were hard, and thought perhaps you were a reprobate; but the love of God, like an avalanche, has come down, and broken down every obstacle, and it has got right into your heart. The love of God is shed abroad in your heart; every Christian can say that,—“I know the love that God hath for me.” But then there is another stage, and that is, have you been fully brought into the love of God? Turn to 2 Thessalonians 3:5: “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God;” there you have exactly the reverse doctrine to that of Romans 5. Do you see that in Romans, the love of God is contemplated as having obtained an entrance into your heart; but here the prayer of the apostle is, that you may be perfected in the love of God; there is all the difference in the world between the two; and every time you look at God’s love, you will find a driblet of love at least gets further in your heart. You little know how much God loves you; you little see how much is involved in the Holy Ghost being in you; and you are to apprehend that God’s love is perfected in you; for it has reached you in the depth of your misery; and you should then seek to be perfected in the love of God. This you see, when you are conscious that God has put you in association with His Son up there; and then, what is most important, not only has the love of God got into you; but you are in a new element, and as a child you are quite at home in it. Once, it seemed too good to be true, more than you really could conceive, that Jesus came to save you by hanging on the cross; but God says, “I have a deal more to tell you, more love than that; but you cannot bear it now.” God wants you to live, and breathe, and spread out in that love —“rooted and grounded in love;” have the roots spread out in all directions? First it was a tiny feeling—“God loves me,” a tiny root; but it grew, and the more you live upon Him, gazing on His love, the more you will be perfected in love. Have you observed, that in Ephesians 3 the believer is contemplated as placed in the very centre of the love of Christ; not the brink, but the centre is the believer’s stand-point, and from this stand-point he may look at the height, length, breadth, and depth of love, as if, whichever way he looks, he is fronted by love in all directions. We may be as full of joy, as free and easy as possible, and the more we get into His love, the more we are at home in it. The believer is made one with the Son of God Himself, and He apprehends all God’s love perfected in its height. As you perceive this, you will not be in spirit fancying yourself in danger, wrapping yourself up in doubt, fencing yourself in apprehension. Every Christian has God’s love perfected in him; but it is not said of every Christian that he is perfected in the love of God. God loves the “fathers,” the “young men,” the “little children,” as He loves His Son; but the babes know less of His love than the young men do, and the fathers know more of the love than the young men. The mother loves the babe, and knows all about it; but the babe knows it not. We have not to earn the love, but to apprehend it more. We are not afraid of the word perfection. I think I see more of the love of God to me than ever I did; and oh, I feel sure that my Father would tell me more of His love, if I would only keep my eye fixed on Jesus Christ. If I look on the Son, and see how God loves the Son, I may sing, “Such is His love to me.” If we have a shadow of fear of anything harming us, or of any good thing being denied us, we are not perfected in love. God says to us, “You are not perfected in My love, you are a little bit afraid to trust Me.” I am sometimes reminded of that text, “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.” I never heard of a mother loving her child so much as to count the hairs on its head; but God does it for His children, and not with one only, but with all His children. Oh, how dear we must be to God! If we could only give up this hesitation and doubt, and gaze more upon this love, we should come to be more at home in it.

So far, then, as I know, I have cleared the matter. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “Believe ye not that I am in my Father.” In the epistle it is the love to the sons, God in the believer, and the believer in God. Do you see its connexion with the gospel? yet it is an advance upon it; there it is the “only-begotten Son,” and, “who is in heaven,” as He said to Nicodemus. But now at length the word spoken of us here is, “God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” These are divine, precious realities, and may God the Holy Ghost help us to apprehend them, and live in the power of them, and so go out into the world remembering we are the sons of God, one with God for ever, through Christ.