Christian Love by F. R. Richmond

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 9, 1875

Christian Love.

By F. R. Richmond

That men may live happily in this world, it is necessary that they should move in harmony and be united. Strength and success in life depend largely upon union of action; and happiness, upon union of feeling. To produce this unity of action and feeling, various means have been devised by men in every age, but none have proved wholly effectual.

Secret societies have been formed, the members pledging themselves that they would defend and assist one another by oaths with no less penalty attached than to have their tongues cut out by the roots, or to have their hearts taken from their bodies; and yet, when personal interests have been at stake, these oaths have often been violated, and the members of these societies have become bitter enemies.

Trades unions often become divided; and, quite as often as otherwise, are the cause of discordant and disadvantageous movements.

Governments have been formed, seeming to possess all the strength of iron, with no means within the reach of human knowledge for ensuring their continued existence and prosperity left unemployed; yet they have stood only until the storms of time could wash away their sandy foundations. If not overthrown by other powers, they have, like the huge pile of snow that forms the avalanche, increased in size and power only to break and fall of their own weight. They have not been built on that strong foundation which is the only bond that can securely unite the subjects of a government.

But there is a government now being formed, the eternal existence, power, and glory of which, will be made sure by the bond of perfect Christian love. When a company is cemented together by this bond, it can never be divided nor overthrown. The reason that the churches of the present day are so divided and discordant, as bodies and as individuals, is that they lack this Christian love which they profess to have. Perhaps we can form a faint idea of what that love will accomplish by looking at what it has already done. Behold it as manifested in its great Author, who without a word of complaint left the beauty, happiness, glory, and honor of Heaven, to live a life of toil and hardships, and suffer the terrible agony of a death upon the cross, that a race of rebels might have pardon and eternal life. Can there be strife, contention, or anything but perfect union, where such love as this exists? This love will characterize the subjects of the heavenly government.

The working of Christian love is well exemplified in Paul's epistle to Philemon. It seems that Onesimus had been a servant of Philemon, but had run away from his master and made his way to Rome. The cause of his departure is not known. It may have been that Philemon had failed to always manifest that kind spirit which becomes a Christian master. Paul, in his epistle to the church at Colosse, of which Philemon was probably a member, exhorts masters to give unto their servants that which is just and equal.

It may be that Onesimus had that bitter hatred for Christianity that many do for the truth at the present time, and when his master embraced it, he, like Jonah, fled from the presence of the Lord. If this was the case, his flight was as fruitless as was Jonah's; for he was brought by some means under the influence of Paul's labors and so thoroughly converted that Paul loved him as his own son, and would gladly have retained him as his own companion.

Perhaps Onesimus was a profligate young man, thinking of nothing but the gratification of his present desires for pleasure, and, seeing an opportunity, he had seized a portion of his master's possessions to squander in some of the many ways offered for amusement and dissipation at the city of Rome. But he was arrested in his wild career by the preaching of Paul. He may have first been reduced to poverty. Whatever it was that he had taken from Philemon, he seems not to have been able to restore it; for Paul requests Philemon to put what he had wronged him or owed him to his own account. Here we see a great display of Christian love in Paul; in bonds as he was, he was ever ready to take upon himself the burdens of his brethren.

If Philemon had been too severe or overbearing, he had not been so far out of the way that Onesimus doubted his Christian character; for now with Paul's epistle in his hand, he was about to return, that he might receive forgiveness and be reconciled to him. Paul's confidence in Philemon as a Christian was such as to lead him to expect he would receive his formerly disobedient servant, “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved;” and he had such confidence in Onesimus as to trust that, though in time past he had been unprofitable, he would now be profitable to him.

What but Christian love could unite an offended master and a rebellious slave as brethren? How it must have cheered Paul in his bonds to see how this love was working in the hearts of these two of his converts. See how the love of Christ affected the heart of the keeper of the prison, so that he washed the stripes of Paul and Silas, and was ready to do all he could for their comfort.

It was this love that led Moses to leave the glory of Egypt—a magnificence and splendor of which we probably have but a faint idea—and suffer affliction with the people of God; and to choose rather to have his name blotted out of the book of God than to have rebellious Israel cut off. Christian love is the only basis, upon which permanent union and harmony can be established. It is the center of gravitation of the Christian universe. Soon there will be set up a kingdom that shall extend under the whole heavens, the subjects of which shall be united by this love. Those who obtain a place in that kingdom must now cultivate this love; for it will be the badge of all its people.

F. R. RICHMOND.

Brightwood, Mass.