THE LIFE OF LOVE by W. A. Alway

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 36.

THE LIFE OF LOVE.

By W. A. Alway

God’s life of love can never be reduced to writing as an abstract thing. Words may, or may not, express to man the power of that life, according as the man is or is not connected, by an inner experience, with the Source of that life. When God himself came down to earth and proclaimed his law, he did not attempt to reduce to words, spoken or written, the eternal principles of love and positive virtues demanded of all intelligent beings, but simply enunciated the prohibitions which marked the boundary line between sin and righteousness, and life and death. As well might the artist attempt to reproduce God upon the canvas, as language to express the fulness of love. Love is a life, and is to be lived, not written.

The apostles wrote a few chapters from the life of Him who was the living manifestation of the Father’s love, but when the last one had completed his task he added: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” John 21:25. That was a life of love. It could not be written out, yet it could be lived; for said Paul, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Gal. 2:20. He desired that every thought should be brought into captivity to that life. Glorious captivity of love! To be a captive of love is to be eternally free.

Love is a perfect law: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Chapter 5:14. The first and great commandment of the law is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” All that there is of man is swallowed up in that first requirement. It is the captivity of the soul to God. It is necessarily first because the fulfilment of the second is impossible without the fulfilment of the first. He who does not first love God, and love him completely, can not love his fellow-men as himself; but he who does possess that love will love the universe, because God’s love is universal. It will even extend to his enemies; for “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:8. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.” John 3:16. The manifestation of love toward our brother is but the reflection of God’s love that fills the whole being when wholly surrendered to him. “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also,” and, “If God so loved us, we ought to love one another.”

Absolute Submission the Foundation of Perfect Love.

Where perfect love exists there will be found the complete submission of both parties of the compact the one to the other, not a forced but a willing submission. Many feel an aversion to the use of that term as indicating a condition of weakness or slavery. There are perhaps no scriptures more often criticized than those that speak of the submission of the wife to the husband in the marriage relation—as tho it were possible to know the joy of true love without submission. We forget also that the command that follows, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it,” implies the complete submission of the husband to the wife. It is only when life is thus swallowed up in life, by a complete and mutual submission, that the union of love is possible. It is impossible to truly love without the surrender of the life, with all its powers, to the object of that love. The smallest reserve may destroy the joy of such a union.

Is this, therefore, the basis of God’s love to man? We answer, Yes. In the creation of man God poured out the fulness of his own life. It was the union of the Creator with the creature, through a mutual submission in a union of everlasting love. This surrender of life came first on the part of God, for “he giveth to all life.” Was this surrender complete on the part of God? Let Calvary answer. Let the blood-sweat of Gethsemane answer. Let Joseph’s new tomb answer. Let God himself answer. For “he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Rom. 8:32. “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” 1 Cor. 3:21–23. It is therefore plain that the demand of the submission of his creatures is but the reflection of a primary and greater submission on his own part. Calvary did not bring into existence the principle of submission in the character of God; it simply revealed more clearly what had always been from eternity the actuating motive of his being.

True submission is not weakness; it is strength. To submit is godlike; to rebel is Satanic. If we could but catch a glimpse of the true meaning of godly submission, it would cease to have any unpleasant sound to the ear. It is the point at which the human and divine meet. Through it man is united with a power that is above every principality and power. By means of it man opens the door of his heart to the real presence of the life of God. It is the point of distinction between genuine faith and obedience, and the false. A faith that does not submit is merely the belief possessed by the demons of darkness; for they believe and tremble, but never have submitted. It is through the complete submission of the soul to Christ that he is crowned Lord of all, and given his rightful supremacy in all things.

The intrinsic value of any action depends not so much upon the outward form of the act itself as upon the motive that prompted it. For “tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and tho I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” 1 Cor. 13:3. Paul was forced to declare that all his outward display of righteousness was loss before he could

win Christ. He shows that the failure of his brethren, the Pharisees, to attain to the righteousness of God lay in the fact that they would not submit. All works wrought at the point of the complete submission of the life to God, and therefore the production of love, are as eternal as God, by whose Spirit they are wrought. They may be unnoticed and unpraised by the children of men. The instrument through whom they are wrought may be despised, and covered with ignominy and scorn, yet when the veil of futurity is drawn aside, and all things appear as they really are, those humble deeds will flash forth as diadems of eternal glory.

Influence of Submission upon Character.

It is often urged that it was necessary that sin should exist in order that character should be perfectly developed. It is argued that man would be weak if it were not for his resistance to temptation. Strength of character does not come from resistance of the evil, but from the choice of the right. Submission to the good must precede the triumph over evil; for it is the good alone that can overcome evil.

All that is necessary, therefore, in order that character may be perfectly developed, is the opportunity to submit by a willing choice to the Author of all good. This opportunity was granted to man in the beginning, and through a constant exercise of submission it was possible for Adam and all his posterity to have revealed continually the eternal character, power, and goodness of the Creator. As the angels “do always behold the face of our Father which is in heaven,” receiving from that glorious presence, life and power, so that wherever his Spirit was to go, there they went as the appearance of a flash of lightning, so man was to live in the presence of God, which, in his innocence and purity, was to be to him fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore. That presence was to be to him life,—wisdom and righteousness working through the human instrument reflecting the glory of the Creator.

W. A. Alway.