LIVING IN THE LOVE OF GOD
Neil C McKay
2 Corinthians 3: 2-6, 15-18, 4: 1-2 (to “shame”), 5: 14-21
I received a touch recently as to the Lord Jesus as the One who alone was fully able to make known the love of God. What an amazing matter that God should be made known! He desired to have man before Him for His pleasure, and that involved that He must make Himself known to man, that man must know who He is in order to be intelligently for Him, to honour and worship Him. God being love - the essence of His nature - that love must be understood, and it presented a great question: how was that love to be expressed and known?
Moses was the mediator of the old covenant, between God and man, and came down the mountain with the tables of stones in order that man should recognise what God required from him in order to be in relationship with Him. God required a certain standard of behaviour from man, but all that Moses could do was to bring the stone tables; he could not effect anything in man’s heart. But the new covenant, or the teaching of the new covenant, involves, not that God’s requirements should be made known, but that God Himself should be fully expressed. That involved the Lord Jesus not only in His life here, but in going to the cross and bearing the wrath of God against sin and sins, meeting that whole matter, and going into death and the grave. The fulness of the love of God involved that the Lord Jesus went the full way to express that God loved us, that God “yea, has not spared his own Son, but delivered him up for us all”, Rom 8: 32. So that the Lord Jesus in His life, and in His death, has made known the love of God in its entirety; a most amazing matter! If we want to understand or know what the love of God is we see it and we find it in that blessed Man!
It is then also most remarkable that, as the Mediator of the new covenant, which we touched on in Hebrews, “he is mediator of a better covenant”, (chap 8: 6), and “to Jesus, mediator of a new covenant”, (chap 12: 24), the Lord is not only able to express that love towards us but He is able to make it effective in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He is able to write it by the Spirit in our hearts through new covenant ministry, and is able to give effect to that love, to make it effective in us; and to make us appreciate that love. One of the early things we get in Romans is that the Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (chap 5: 5); think of the stability in that God loves us, and His love is towards us: the Mediator of the new covenant would help us understand that. He would give us the great assurance that the love of God is entirely towards us; and now through this character of ministry, the ministry of the love of God towards men, it is being made effective in the hearts of men; men are being affected by the love of God. It may seem somewhat abstract, but it is not: what makes a real difference in our affections and our souls is something of the knowledge and experience that divine love is towards us and that divine Persons love us; it actually has an effect in us. It transforms us: “But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed”. This is in contrast to what they saw in Moses. Moses came down shining with somewhat of the glory of God, having been with God, and the people could not look on it because of their conscience and what they were. But the believer is changed; there is another order of manhood there now; he has the Holy Spirit; he is able to live and feed on Christ and be changed.
I do not think what we read at the end of verse 18 refers exclusively to what we enjoy at the Lord’s supper. It refers to what is available to believers: the glory of the Lord is available for us to look on and to enjoy, to see that the love of God shines there in that blessed Man! It is “the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth …”, (2 Cor 4: 6); there is a shining into the hearts of men now! I think that we can see the importance of that, the influence of the love of God in a believer’s life. As long as we live our life in regard to the first covenant, that is, governed by the idea that God is expecting something of man in the flesh, then we will always be in bondage. God is expecting nothing of man in the flesh; He has done away with that man entirely. He is fully satisfied in Christ; He has found everything in Christ, and if He finds delight in us, what He finds delight in is that which is of Christ, Christ in us, features of Him. Therefore, we grow in this by feeding on Christ, and we learn to appreciate and respect what we see in Christ. The world did not respect Christ - the humility, the going-down mind, going on to the cross and being crucified, the words of grace; the world did not respect that. The world respects the teaching of great men, the feats of sports men, of politicians, the proud postulating of men’s ideas: the world respects that. The believer does not; he recognises that that is man after the flesh. What the believer learns to love and respect is the supreme manhood as seen in Christ, the blessedness of that kind of Man; the believer appreciates that and grows to be like Him.
I think this outshining of divine love is followed through in in the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation means that we are to be here for God’s pleasure. As we see by scripture, God has effected reconciliation by Jesus Christ. Mr Raven said (vol 11 p35) that reconciliation means that God has entirely removed one order of man and now He has another order of man before Him for His pleasure eternally: there is great stability in that! We do not need to look for anything in that first order of man; God has entirely removed that order of man! What God is looking for and what He finds pleasure in, is Christ and the order of man that He finds in Christ and in the saints, “that we might become God’s righteousness in him”.
So God has shown and expressed His love so fully towards us in that blessed Man, and the answer to it is that we please Him, that we become reconciled to God in practical effect, we become like Christ. We feed on Him and we value that blessed love. If we do enjoy communion, it involves that we live our lives in the consciousness that divine Persons love us without reserve. Divine Persons love us! And if we lived out lives in the light of that, the value and joy of that, I think it would help us in practical reconciliation, being here for the pleasure of God. The present love of the Lord Jesus towards us gives us such a great lever to do everything just to please Him. And reconciliation involves that we do things to please God; we are here for the pleasure of God because we love Him since He has shown forth His love so perfectly and so fully in that blessed Man. These things are not doctrinal; they are immensely practical. I feel the value and the test of them because so often I do wrong. I know it is wrong, and my conscience tells me it is wrong, and I think to myself God would not be pleased with that, and I am right: He would not be pleased with that! But nonetheless in going to Him immediately I can find in repentance before Him that His love is towards me, and He would help me in every way.
Our brother mentioned Gilgal, and covered many practical matters; it is very helpful to go over these principles, long held and long stood for. There is a need of being before God in regard to these things. The morning and evening lamb involves that we speak to divine Persons in prayer at the beginning and the end of each day; and that our appreciation of what we enjoyed in the morning would be the same at the end of the day. Also, when we go to bed at night (and pray at the side of our beds no doubt; or we should!), we go over the day and recap before God all that we have done; it has struck me how important that is. It is important to start the day well and speak to God about the Lord, and go over what we have appreciated in our morning reading, and ask for help in the day, and seek help for the family and the brethren; all these things. It is important to go out of the door having a good link with God, seeking to please Him for the day, and appreciating all that Christ has done. But it is important also at the end of the day to go over these things with God, and what our experience has been in the day with God. I think it makes our link with God real. Maybe if we were honest with ourselves, in our experience, in going over our omissions or our faults before God to get everything clear, we go over the same thing that we did wrong yesterday, and the day before: but it is important to do it nonetheless! If we keep going over these things with God we will recognise that there is a fault there, and we see that God will help us in judging that matter; God recognises our weaknesses. Gilgal is an important place to go; it keeps things right with God and your relationship with Him, and if it is the same fault again and again, maybe God is saying something to you!
Therefore you can see the great importance of these practical matters in scripture that ministers of the recovery have set out for us; how important and how real they are. They were brethren that lived in the love of God, and went through these things in experience, and we are to learn from them. I trust that through these few simple words we are encouraged to live our lives in the love of God, to keep short accounts, and to keep near to divine Persons in communion and prayer.
May we do so for His Name’s sake.
Word in a Ministry Meeting - Glasgow
7th June 2016