Romans 8: 35-37
2 Corinthians 5: 14-15
We had a fresh impression, dear brethren, on Lord’s day, of the love of Christ, and it led my mind along the lines suggested in these scriptures. It is a great matter that the love of Christ can be relied on, not only on Lord’s day morning but continually. It says in John’s gospel, “Jesus, knowing that He was about to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, loved them to the end”, John 13: 1. The idea is that He loved them through everything. It is a great matter to have such a love that we can always rely on, no matter what may come up, what circumstances may arise. The Lord was feeling for His own as left here; He was going to the Father and His own were to be left here. And we are left here in this world in the absence of Christ, and it is a great thing to know that whatever comes up, we have a resource in the love of Christ that is absolutely reliable. He has proved it in the way that He has gone to secure us, and how He continually serves us, “always living to intercede for” us, Heb 7: 25. I wondered if these two scriptures that we have read would suggest not only how the love of Christ is known and enjoyed, but that it has an effect upon us. We are left here and it is not like Lord’s day morning all the time, but we have the rest of the week to fill out, and I thought it is the effect of the love of Christ on our souls that would help us.
So in chapter 8 of Romans Paul says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” and he refers to these different things. I think it has in mind how we are left here in the place of testimony and these different things may be experienced, “tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? According as it is written, For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we have been reckoned as sheep for slaughter”. These things really refer to our position here in the testimony where Christ has been rejected. So he goes on to say, “But in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. Paul was victorious, and he says this not only for himself but includes others, “we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. It is not in our own strength, our own power at all, but we can be victorious over things that may arise that are adverse. As we are here going through this scene, things do arise that are adverse and are testing, but we can more than conquer; that is, we can be victorious. The Lord Jesus was victorious. That is the great matter to affect our souls that He was victorious; He went into death but came out of it victorious. In all that arose in His pathway before that, He was always marked by a sense of triumph. So Paul says, “in all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”. We can go through as superior to the circumstances. I think that is a very encouraging thing for ourselves whatever may arise, that we can go through as more than conquering “through him that has loved us”.
Now in 2 Corinthians 5, I thought we could see how the apostle was constrained by the love of Christ, and he brings in the plural, “the love of the Christ constrains us”. I think he would draw us into this. It was evident that he was constrained by the love of the Christ. It had such an effect on him, such an influence on his life; he was marked by the constraining power of the love of Christ. What a power it is, dear brethren, the power of the love of Christ. Paul lived on this principle as being affected by the love of Christ; so he says it “constrains us, having judged this”. We come to a certain judgment, “that one died for all, then all have died”. The death of Christ really proved that all lay in death. It proved that, a state of death, the state we are in by nature; it proved that. But we are not to remain that way: “he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”. So He died for all - what a claim He has on us, dear brethren - that “they who live should no longer live to themselves”; that is, that He has the supreme claim that we should no longer live to ourselves. Naturally we tend to be very self-centred and have ourselves as an object, and maybe to please ourselves, but the love of Christ is to affect us, His death is to affect us “that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised”.
So He has been raised and we have a link with a Man who has been raised, and who loves us. He is also a Man who has been raised and who lives for us. And so if we are going to live here it is no longer to live to ourselves but “to him who died for them and has been raised”. We have an object before us; the One who has died for us, the One who loves us, the One who lives for us. What a thing it is to go through life with an object like that; so that we have got Him before us. He always did the things that pleased the Father, and our object is to have Him before us, so that we are suitable to Himself as doing what pleases Him rather than ourselves.
May the Lord encourage us for His Name’s sake.
Dundee
12th April 2011