Editorial by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 39.

Editorial.

By Editor

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable."—2 Tim. 3:16.

"FOR God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Such is God's love to us.

Note the fact that God's love is not transient passion, but abiding principle. It does not show itself in words alone, but in deeds. True it is that God has said in words from the beginning of the world that he loved man, but he has said it much louder in his wondrous works for the children of men, in the wise and beneficent law which he gave for man's conduct, in his long-suffering and tender mercy to man in sin and rebellion. He loved man, and his love was expressed in the doing.

But in all the early history of man God never said how much he loved man. The tenderest expressions which he could use, which man could understand, were used to show that he loved man; but when Jesus Christ his Son died upon the cross,—the symbol and climax of his sufferings for the race,—God then told man how much he loved him. It took the sacrifice of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the only-begotten Son of God, to prove God's love. And to-day the death of Christ stands as a pledge of God's love to us; for if God so loved us that he "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. And so he has; he has given us all things in giving Christ, "for it pleased the Father that in him [Christ] should all fullness dwell." This is God's love—love in principle, love in exercise, love in deed.

"We love Him," says an apostle, "because He first loved us." If God had not loved us we could never have loved him, nor anyone else save self; and self-love pure and simple is hatred of all things else. "Love is of God."

He who has love must obtain it from God. The actuating motive of God is love, for "God is love." He therefore who would have true love must be actuated by the same motive, ruled by the same spirit. So says the Scripture: "Everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." But it is through the Spirit of God that we are born (John 3:3-5), and it is through the Spirit of God brought into our hearts by faith that the love of God is shed abroad within us (Rom. 5:5), and that love in us will not be fleeting passion but an abiding principle.

If we have the same Spirit which actuated God in giving his Son, which actuated the Son in giving himself, that same Spirit will actuate us in like manner. Love in God is manifest in deed; so it should be in us. "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." That it is thus manifest is a proof that we are of God; for the apostle continues: "And hereby [that is, by the fact that our love moves us to deeds] we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him." 1 John 3:19, 20. Fruit bearing is the proof of the tree. Deeds are the proof of our love. And this fruit, these deeds, will be in harmony with the righteous requirements of God. Therefore the same apostle gives us the means of proving our love: (1) Everyone that loves God will also love the children of God; (2) that the proof that we love the children of God is the fact that we keep God's commandments; and (3) that the proof of our love to him, the only real expression of our love, is the keeping of God's commandments; "for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:1-3. Reader, have you this love? If not why not?