DIVINE FEELINGS AND THEIR EFFECT

Alistair M. Brown

John 3: 35

John 16: 26-30

2 Corinthians 11: 2

Philippians 2: 19-21

         I seek the Lord’s help to speak from these scriptures about divine feelings, and the effect they are to have in us as believers.  As we speak about God’s feelings, we would think first of all of the great and blessed fact that God is love (1 John 4: 8); that is His nature; it is an unqualified statement.  We bless Him for the fact that He is love.  It would give us feelings of confidence in that blessed One.  Everything that God does is governed by the fact that He is love.  We read about that particularly in John’s first epistle, and also in his gospel.  We learn from John’s gospel that love was there before the foundation of the world.  Before there were any people, before there was any matter, before a physical creation existed and before time existed (they were all brought into being by the word of God), there was love.  One divine Person is able to say to another, “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17: 24.  Love was there: it was in expression between divine Persons.  What a thought that is!  It is not power that the Lord speaks of, or wisdom, or righteousness, but love is spoken of, love in expression and activity between divine Persons: “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”.  

         God’s love was so great that He needed to express it towards objects outside of Himself, and He had man in mind from the beginning.  First He made the physical creation as a theatre into which He would introduce mankind.  In the first chapter of Genesis we learn that God made things very favourable, and put man in the most favourable position.  Man was the object of God’s interest and of God’s love.  We know that he failed, and the close communications that God had sought with His creature at the first were disrupted through disobedience and sin.  But God’s heart did not change.  When God brought in man, He foresaw all that would take place.  But He was looking forward to something greater: He was looking forward to bringing in Christ.  That was God’s thought in making man: He had Christ in mind.  He is the Firstborn of all creation; He has the prime place in God’s mind in making man.  Christ is, of course, unique: He is not a creature, He is not a creation: but He is the Firstborn.  He is the pattern, the One that comes first.  He is also the One who drew out the unqualified and unconstrained love of God as Father.  As soon as that blessed One came into this scene at His birth; there was joy in heaven.  Then when He came out of the waters of baptism at the very beginning of His period of public ministry, the heavens were opened and that voice was heard, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Luke 3: 22.  The feelings of God the Father were poured out upon that One who so delighted Him. 

         It is wonderful to see that God has feelings.  He has feelings like no other: they are powerful, perfect and holy.  They all proceed from His heart of love, and Christ was the great Object of the expression of these feelings.  What satisfaction the Father had in that blessed One, whose private walk of thirty years under the eye of God was flawless and morally glorious at every step.  Every morning His ear was opened “to hear as the instructed”, Isa 50: 4.  He was wakened “morning by morning” by God.  What moral perfection, what flawlessness: the first time heaven had ever been able to take account of such a Person, a sinless, flawless, holy Man.  What it drew out was the love of God upon that blessed One: wonderful matter!

         God’s love is effective - it has results.  I draw attention to the action and the result that we read about in John chapter 3, “the Father loves the Son”; that is an unqualified statement.  How wonderful that is.  The footnote to John 21: 15 explains the word used shows this to be a matter of the Father’s settled disposition.  There was nothing whatsoever in the blessed Lord Jesus that could possibly interrupt the complacent, settled disposition of the Father’s love towards the Son, “the Father loves the Son”.  It is a continuing, uninterrupted flow of satisfied affection from the Father to that blessed One.  And then there is a result: it says, “and has given all things to be in his hand”.  The love is expressing itself in action, resulting from the complete confidence that the Father has in this blessed One.  The Father’s love puts Christ in a position of power and authority by giving all things to be in His hand.  What a matter that God should find a Man upon whom His love could rest fully and complacently and into whose hand He could commit everything with entire confidence.  What an object of the Father’s love, and what results!  The Scripture gives us some impression of the glory of who the Son is: He was the blessed and flawless Object of the love of heaven, the love of the Father; and He was entirely capable of fulfilling everything that the Father committed into His hand.  He was the Man who was accomplishing, and still accomplishes, everything for God, in a manner consistent with those characteristics that drew out the affection of the Father.  He is the Centre of the Father’s love and the Centre of the Father’s operations.  The Father does not have anyone else in mind: He does not have one who is the object of His affection, and another who is the man of power and wisdom and skill and energy to effectuate everything for Him.  No, He has one Man in mind, One in whom all these blessed glories and characteristics come together.  

         You and I have been brought by divine grace to know that wonderful Person as our Saviour and as Lord.  He who is the Centre of the Father’s affections has become the wonderful Object of our love, confidence and interest!  What a matter it is!

         Another example of the effectiveness of God’s love is in John 3: 16, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him may not perish, but have life eternal”.  What a full demonstration of God’s love that was: how active God’s love has become, active in the most remarkable sacrifice.  It is wonderful that God should give the One that He loved more than any, the One upon whom His love rested so fully and complacently, that One whose very flawlessness drew out His love.  The very same flawlessness that so drew out the love of God fitted His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  As sinless, He was able to bear the righteous judgment of God so that the guilt that was due to me - and which I could never bear - He bore instead.  What a matter!  The One who is the supreme Object of the Father’s love was given up in the love of God to secure men and women and children for God eternally.  What a demonstration, what a filling out of the love of God that He gave that One!  His love was effective in giving Christ.  Christ’s flawlessness was fully demonstrated in His obedience to the Father’s will and in His complete subjection that took Him to the cross.  The love of God was seen in the giving of Jesus, and His heart was never more satisfied in the blessedness and perfection of that beloved One than when He was upon the cross in complete subjection to the Father’s will.  The greatest suffering, the greatest test, brought out the fulness of His perfection and thus gave God further cause to love Him.  What matters these are for our hearts!  The way that God’s affections become effective in the hearts of people is through the demonstration of His love in the giving of Christ.  That giving draws out affection in the hearts of those who receive the word.  So that God’s love becomes effective, through Christ, in you and in me; what a wonderful thing that is!

         In John 16 we see how love had become effective in the hearts of the disciples.  Christ, in His availability and in His blessed, gracious humanity, had come near to these disciples and so appealed to their hearts that they had affection for Him.  That is another word for love.  The word used there is ‘phileo’, which is the intense love of friendship.  So here we have the One who is the Object of God’s love, and embodies it, walking in gracious, humble manhood in this scene and demonstrating the love of God in such a way that it had an effect in the hearts of those whom He drew round Him, those whom the Father had drawn to Him, John 6: 44.  So divine affections were at work, the Lord’s affections; then the Father drawing these disciples to Christ, and their hearts so affected that they have affection for Him.  Their devotion for Him was taken account of in heaven: the Father saw that they had had affection for Christ.  That leads to the Father having affection for them.  “The Father himself has affection for you, because ye have had affection for me”.  What a circle of love we see here: the Father, God Himself, is the source of it all, and that love is expressed in the One who is the Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Love is brought into expression and circulation in God’s disposition towards mankind, expressed in and by the Son.  But particularly it is known and expressed in the circle of His disciples who were devoted to Him.  The result was affection in their hearts towards Christ Himself.  He was the Centre of their circle; they formed a circle of love for Him.  The Father takes note of that and He Himself has affection for them because the disciples had affection for the Lord Jesus.  The result of that affection was that their eyes were opened to see and to believe that He came out from God.  They were beginning to see something of what was in God’s mind in giving this blessed One, and that He came out from God.  The Lord goes on to say, “I came out from the Father, and have come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father”.  He is making things known to them: He is making things known to those that love Him, things that concern His own relations with the Father and the mission that He had as the one who “came out from God and was going to God” (John 13: 3), and into whose hands everything had been committed.  As a result of affection in operation, He is able to share with His own these blessed spiritual insights of huge significance to heaven and to the heart of God.  How touching that the affection of God Himself, resting upon and expressed in and through the Son, has such an effect in the hearts of people that they form a circle of affection and confidence in which the blessed purposes of God can be made known and appreciated.  The result is that His disciples say, “Lo, now thou speakest openly and utterest no allegory”.  Their hearts and their minds were being opened up by the outpouring of the insights they were being given into the heart of God Himself, and into His purpose in sending the Son into the world.  “Now we know that thou knowest all things, and hast not need that anyone should demand of thee.”  The disciples’ hearts were being opened to appreciate the glory of the Lord Jesus, and they add, “By this we believe that thou art come from God”.  Their eyes were being opened to see something of who this One really was.  It would not be until later, after the Lord had gone on high and the incoming of the Holy Spirit, that they would fully understand who this One was.  Meantime their hearts were being prepared to see more and more of His glory.  

         Divine love was becoming effective in their hearts in this way.  I think these words “By this we believe that thou art come from God” would be taken account of in heaven.  The Father would hear these words.  These were thoughts that had until then been in the Father’s mind and heart, and had been shared with the Son; they had been until that time the subject of communication and shared enjoyment between the Father and the Son, but now the disciples were beginning to appreciate the greatness of who Christ is, and of His mission as having come from God and going to God.  That appreciation in turn brings out these words of the Lord Jesus, “Do ye now believe?” (v 31); and then He turns in prayer to the Father.  The impression I have, which I think is conveyed in the scripture here, is that the opening of the minds and the hearts of the disciples, seen in what they say to the Lord, is a consequence of what the Lord says to them as to their affection for Him and the Father’s affection for them.  Then immediately the Lord Jesus turns in thanksgiving and in prayer to His Father.  As we know, in His prayer in John 17, He speaks very largely of His own: it is a most wonderful matter.  And again verse 20 of John 17 brings you and me right into what the Lord has to say to the Father: “for those that believe on me through their word” includes us.  These scriptures help to show how the love that is flowing from the Father to the Son has expressed itself towards us in Christ, and has had and is having wonderful results in the hearts of the saints.  This was seen in these disciples.

         In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul speaks about certain feelings that he had.  He refers to jealousy; it is jealousy that is of God; so it is a divine feeling, and Paul shared it.  Jealousy is a consequence of love; ‘jealousy’ does not mean ‘envy’.  It is a feeling that God has.  We can infer this from what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11: jealousy is the feeling that God has towards the bride of Christ, towards the church, the assembly.  His jealousy is because He wants that blessed vessel to be wholly and entirely for Christ Himself as His counterpart.  That is part of His purpose in love, part of His thought in making man.  He had Christ in mind, and He had the assembly in mind, and together they fulfil God’s wonderful thoughts in love in making man.  In His love for Christ and for the assembly, “which he has purchased with the blood of his own” (Acts 20: 28), He is jealous.  What love that God should be prepared to give the blood of His own to purchase this vessel.  How do we feel about the assembly?  Do we share God’s view of the church that He has purchased with the blood of His own?  God does not want anything to come in to deceive, or spoil, or divert.  That is how Paul felt, too; the feelings of God were in Paul’s heart.  He spent time in God’s presence, and was told things that were told to nobody else, things that, “it is not allowed to man to utter”, 2 Cor 12: 4.  Paul had impressions from the Man in the glory, particularly impressions about the church.  He shared God’s feeling of love and jealousy for that vessel, and he laboured so that nothing should come in to corrupt or divert the assembly from being a chaste virgin for Christ.  “Assembly” means a body of people called out: to be only for Christ.  The feelings of God were burning in Paul’s heart as he wrote to these dear believers in Corinth.  The feelings that Paul had were the feelings of an apostle evidently, but they flowed from his heart as an exercised believer who desired that God’s feelings should be respected, honoured and answered to.  God’s feelings as to the assembly resonated in the soul of the apostle Paul.  It is to be the same with me: my feelings are to resonate as Paul’s did with the desire that saints should be, as a called-out company, set apart for the pleasure and honour of Christ.  Furthermore, I am to find my part in that company, and to promote its prosperity spiritually, because the feelings of God are so precious, and have had such a result in me and in my life.  The feelings of God are not ethereal; they have been expressed tangibly and concretely, and they have had and are having an effect.  They have had an eternal effect in the blood of Christ being given, “purchased with the blood of his own”, but they are having an eternal effect, too, in the hearts and souls of myriads of believers.  God’s feelings towards the church are feelings of love, and thus of jealousy.  He desires that the assembly should be according to His mind, and held wholly for Christ.  So, as Paul’s feelings had been so stirred up by these feelings of God, feelings of the Father, and the feelings of the Lord Jesus for His own, may ours be stirred up too.

         In Philippians 2 we read of Paul wanting to send Timothy to Philippi to bring back a report of how the dear brethren there were getting on.  He was looking forward to being refreshed by first hand news from Timothy, who cared “with genuine feeling how the saints get on”.  First of all, God cares how the saints get on.  A scripture that bear that out is in Deuteronomy 5 29, “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments continually, that it might be well with them and with their sons forever!”.  The feelings of God are conveyed in that expression, “Oh!”.  God’s desire for His people was that it might be well with them and their sons forever.  God’s feelings are magnanimous and extensive, and they have blessing in mind.  It is clear that God cares very much how the saints get on; His feelings are very definitely engaged in that matter.  How extensive God’s interest is in His people; every sorrow and every sadness is taken account of, every joy too.  God also takes account of every example of persecution; how many believers are being persecuted in this world today, some giving up their lives because of their faith; God cares about that.  So Timothy was a man who shared God’s feelings as to the saints.  Timothy was a man who had faith.  He was also afflicted by some cowardice: Paul has to speak to him about having “a spirit … of power, and of love, and of wise discretion”, not a spirit of cowardice, 2 Tim 1: 7.  That is like me.  Timothy was a faithful man, but he did suffer from certain doubts and fears.  However, he cared with genuine feeling how the saints got on.  Timothy’s heart had been so affected by the love of God expressed in Christ that he shared in his measure (and all we can do is share in measure) in the feelings of the Father Himself and of Christ for the saints.  He did not seek his own things, but the things of Jesus Christ: he was concerned about how the saints got on.  The love of God had been effective in Timothy’s heart, bringing out in what at one time had been an unregenerate heart - just like our hearts have been - features of the very feelings and love of God Himself.  

         I commend to each one of us that we might have feelings towards one another as Timothy had.  I do not think Timothy was partial; he cared with genuine feeling about all the saints, not just in Philippi.  He would care about them all in Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, and Lydia and her household, and the jailor and his household; and he would love them all.  If you went to the next locality, Timothy would know and love the saints there too; He cared with genuine feeling how the saints got on, not because he was naturally an affectionate kind of man, but because his heart had been affected by the outshining of the love of God and his feelings were, in their measure, like God’s feelings.  

         All of this starts with the God of love.  It has come into wonderful expression, perfectly and fully, in Christ, and it is being worked out under the hand of Christ here in this long period of grace and under the care of the blessed Holy Spirit.  Divine feelings are being worked out into effect now, and everything that is of God is being gathered up and it will come into expression in the day to come.  It will be maintained through eternity.  These feelings of which God is the author and source are returning and will return to Him.  Everything has come out from Him, and everything will return to Him; it will all be according to Him.  We thus see something of the scope, magnitude, and blessedness of what God has originated and what in His grace and mercy He has drawn us into.  He sustains us and will sustain us; so there is a full return to Him, and the God of love will dwell eternally with men in conditions of love.  There will be no distance then; God’s love will be fully requited.  Hearts will resonate, full of love towards Him.  We can enter into this even in the practical things that we have mentioned as to Paul and as to Timothy.  

         May these be real experiences to us, beloved, for the Lord’s name’s sake!

Grangemouth 

24^th January 2015