Teacher with Children Reading the Bible in a Jungle SchoolBible World
4:81 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
God Himself in His very essence and character is love, a living, active, giving life that flows out to all His creatures unchangingly like light from the sun. That love was shown toward us in that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation for sins, that we might live through Him and have everlasting life by believing. All true love originates with Him and comes from Him, so whoever truly loves is born of God and knows God, while whoever does not love does not know God. There is no loveless Christian, for a heart where Christ dwells cannot remain cold and destitute of love, and to claim faith or love for the unseen God while hating a seen brother is a fatal deception. His law expresses that same character, with its whole nature and its two great principles being love to God and love to others. When the great controversy is finished and sin is no more, the whole clean universe from the smallest atom to the greatest world will openly declare in perfect joy that God is love.
God's Nature Is Love
God in Himself, in His very essence, nature and character, is love, and that love is not mere feeling but a living, active, giving principle shown in action that guides the life wherever true love exists. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love, with love and light and joy flowing out from Him to all His creatures like rays of light from the sun. He is love in nature and in law, and this has always been true and always will be true, for the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose ways are everlasting, does not change, and with Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning. That love belongs to His nature, which is revealed in His holy law and through all His works and dealings with humanity. His character is published in nature as well as in revelation, displaying tender, fatherly care and desire to make His children happy and linking humanity to Himself by unnumbered tokens in heaven and earth in lofty mountains, fruitful valleys, broad deep ocean, sunshine and rain, every opening bud, petal of every flower, and spire of grass. Even though sin's curse made the earth bring forth thorns and thistles and appointed toil, flowers still grow upon thistles and roses hide thorns, so this world is not all sorrow and misery. The same love governs His commands, for His prohibitions, injunctions and revealed will do not merely display authority but aim at His children's well-being, and He never requires them to give up anything it would be for their best interest to keep. That love makes the best of what appears as injury, gives no occasion for triumph to evil, does not make the worst appear or expose weakness to enemies, but mends, restores and heals those who err, and this healing saves souls and hides a multitude of sins.
All true love is of God, originates with Him and comes from Him because His very nature is love, so everyone who truly loves is born of God and knows God, while he who loves not knows not God. This was proved and displayed by God sending His only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him and have atonement for sins, and therefore if God so loved people they ought also to love one another. John urged this constant exercise of brotherly love up to the day of his death because brotherly love was waning in the church, and his letters to the churches are filled with this thought of constant need. Truly loving God must be shown in lovingkindness of heart, judgment and righteousness to all, in loving one another not in word or in tongue only but in deed and in truth, even laying down life for the brethren and giving to a needy brother rather than shutting up compassion. Those who live in this love live in God and God lives in them, and when members unite in sanctified cooperation with Christ He lives and works in them, giving power to reach Christian perfection as they keep Jesus as their pattern and are changed into His likeness by beholding Him. Completeness of Christian character is reached when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within, with heaven's sunshine filling the heart and showing in the life. Everyone who truly knows God and is born of God will love God and fellow men with patience, long-suffering, unselfishness and self-sacrifice as Christ came to reveal that love, and loving in this way does not work against a person's own interest but fulfills God's purpose for him, subdues and softens and breaks the heart, kills self, brings true happiness and gladness, and makes life a sacred trust to be spent in helping, strengthening and ministering to others.
Love is power, bloom and grace, and a reviving essence that makes the heart sing. It operates to make all things diviner, pours like fire and dew through hearts, refines the soul, and is the beauty of God to which all other graces are lesser. It lifts even humble peasants and makes them kings and priests. Divine love is life itself, and that love would flow out in mercy toward others. A person who lives for self rejects that divine love and in rejecting love rejects life, choosing earthly things and earthly wealth over spiritual life and perishing with the earthly, for covetousness cuts the soul off from life, while Christ's spirit gives and sacrifices for others.
God loves sinful, mortal, weak, perverse and needy people not because their character is attractive or because they are good or lovable, but because He is love and because they are needy and need a Saviour and Redeemer to rescue them from Satan, to whom they had been sold through the belief of the first parents in his lie. He first loved needy sinners and proved His love by purchasing the gift of everlasting life for them at infinite cost, and sins are forgiven only by accepting the provision He has made. That love makes Him Father to His children, pitying them as a father pities his children, and gives comfort and strength sufficient for every earthly trial. It means Jesus loves His followers personally, does not forget them, and cares for them with the tenderness of a mother caring for her child, and it is their privilege to have the peace of Christ, to rest content, and to be happy in His love. To belong to Him as His jewels people must be good and do good and cannot live out the character of Satan and still be counted worthy.
God is the source of all affection, pity, compassion and love shown on earth, and human love is only a small measure beside the love in His heart. His love continually strengthens the weak and gives courage to the wavering, and knowing Him is inseparable from love. Christ presents God as Father so that minds weakened by sin can trust in His loving character. God is also light, and the Father is light and love in contrast to the popular doctrines of the age. Denying God's love as revealed in Scripture was the beginning of a great apostasy, whereas God revealed His love by giving His Son so fallen humanity could be saved and return to loyalty to Him, and this revelation has power to save fully. Satan had cast a hellish shadow, a thick darkness over the throne of God to hide God from human sight and knowledge, and Christ rolled it away to reveal the throne and the Father to the world, clothing His divinity with humanity to bring that love into clear evidence of light that humanity can comprehend, and that revelation puts in the heart the prayer of Moses for God to show His glory.
Love Given in Christ
God's love was made visible toward humanity in that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world so that people might live through Him, not because humans first loved God but because He loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, giving everlasting life to whoever believes. Love is of God because God is love, so everyone who truly loves is born of God and knows God, while whoever does not love does not know Him. Those who live in this love live in God and God lives in them, and when believers unite in sanctified cooperation with Christ He lives and works in them to bring them to Christian perfection as they keep Jesus as pattern and are changed by beholding Him. If God so loved, people ought also to love one another, not in word or tongue only but in deed and truth, even to laying down lives for the brethren and refusing to shut up compassion from a needy brother, for this is the perpetual life of the church to love God supremely and others as self. Though no one has seen God at any time, if believers love one another God dwells in them and His love is perfected in them, and they know they dwell in Him and He in them because He has given of His Spirit, applying the blood of the spotless Lamb to their own hearts with life and hope springing up as they behold Christ the Sun of Righteousness.
The gift of the Son did not create God's love but was given because He already loved so greatly with tender love toward people, a love that amazed angels. In that love the Son suffered both with and for humanity, and the Father, the heart of unmeasured love, suffered with Christ in Gethsemane and on Calvary and in Christ paid the price of salvation so believers may have everlasting life.
Before the foundation of the world, in counsel between the Father and the Son in the secret chambers of the Most High and in the covenant of peace to save a lost world, the Father gave Himself in the gift of His only-begotten Son as Substitute and Surety and ransom for a fallen race, devising the plan of redemption in union with the Son. Christ knew the Father from that counsel, while the world has not known Him because it measures Him by finite measurement and misjudges and misinterprets His truth and righteousness as if He were unloving and ready to break out in vindictive wrath upon sinful creatures.
Christ's coming, life, and death at Calvary make that love undeniable, settling the dispute about God's character before heavenly beings and all who behold the Savior. He revealed God to the world as loving, merciful, tender, and compassionate, clearing away the darkness that had obscured the Father and showing Him as light and the light of life. Satan had cast a hellish shadow and thick darkness over the throne of God to hide Him from human sight and knowledge, but Christ by clothing divinity with humanity rolled it away and brought that love into clear evidence of light that humanity can comprehend, putting in the heart the prayer of Moses to see God's glory. Denying that love was at the root of the great apostasy, yet through Christ's gift and death fallen humanity receives a powerful revelation of that love and an opportunity to return to allegiance.
By superhuman efforts constantly expended through Christ at infinite cost, God has done everything possible to reclaim the human race as lost sheep returned to their Shepherd, purchasing everlasting life at an infinite price paid by God and His Son. That love without parallel is constantly expended for men through Christ, with the heavenly universe in constant activity in behalf of the sons of men to convict sinners of sin, and the cry of despair calls forth God's tenderest love as salvation freely bestowed upon all who believe. In the gift of His Son every provision is made for every moral and spiritual necessity so people may be prepared for the courts of heaven, and through Christ serving as officiating priest in the heavenly sanctuary faith in Jesus and repentance of sins are possible. Through human agents cooperating with God, Christ brings fallen people into close fellowship and union with divinity, joining willing souls to Himself and binding them to His great heart of infinite love so they are attached to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls and may regain their first perfection and stand complete in Christ through well-directed effort, with true happiness found only in Jesus whose great love cannot be satisfied without people.
At the cross are seen together both God's hatred of sin, as strong as death, and His love for sinners, stronger than death, beyond understanding, and revealed in Christ's life of self-denial and death. There God is made known as truth, light, and love, offering abundant forgiveness without making His law ineffective, for He abhors sin yet loves the sinner.
In that great gift and in the crucifixion on Calvary His holiness and love are exemplified together and His justice and love are expressed, with justice and truth meeting together and bringing God's love and justice into harmony through the cross as the means of salvation by faith in its saving power so the sinner need not perish. This testimony binds law and gospel together in a perfect whole that must go throughout the length and breadth of the world, impressing every heart opened to receive it and giving light and understanding to the contrite and simple, so that those who receive Christ receive power to become sons of God with a faith that appropriates the richest gifts and gives grace for grace to others. That God is love does not mean He has no perfect standard of righteousness or definite requirements; the revelation of His love in giving His Son to die the shameful death of the cross shows He has a standard of character which required a life of ignominy, suffering, and humiliation and the death of the cross to pay the penalty of the broken law and heal transgressors. His love is immeasurable to those who repent, but His justice is firm and uncompromising toward those who abuse His longsuffering love, so that if men continue to resist light and evidence and exhaust His forbearance and mercy then will come the ministry of wrath.
Love Seen in Creation
God's character as love is published in nature as well as in revelation, and the beauty and life of nature testify to His tender, fatherly care and His desire to make His children happy. The lofty mountains, fruitful valleys, and broad, deep ocean, sunshine and rain gladdening the earth, hills and seas and plains, every opening bud, the petal of every flower, and every spire of grass, lofty green trees, singing birds, colors, fragrance, and perfuming flowers declare that love is His nature, linking humanity to Himself by unnumbered tokens in heaven and earth. Every good gift comes from Him as the source of life, wisdom, and joy, wonderfully adapted to the needs and happiness of men and all living creatures, supplying daily needs and satisfying the desire of every living thing. The beautiful things of nature are His gift to show His power and His love for mankind and to give children evidence of His love as Creator, whom they are to love because He first loved them, yet nature reveals His love without holding His personal presence, for God in person is not in flower or leaf or tree. He made man perfectly holy and happy and the earth without decay or curse, and woe and death came only by transgression of His law.
Though sin's curse caused the earth to bring forth thorns and thistles, flowers still grow upon the thistles and roses hide the thorns. The cursing of the ground and the life of toil and care with difficulties and trials were appointed for man's good as training to uplift him from the ruin of sin. Nature still holds messages of hope and comfort, so though fallen this world is not all sorrow and misery.
The same love governs His commands, for His prohibitions, injunctions, and revealed will do not merely display authority but have the well-being of His children in view in this life and the life to come. He never requires them to give up anything it would be for their best interest to keep, He takes no pleasure in human misery but delights in the happiness of obedient beings, and faith in His love and overruling providence lightens burdens of anxiety and care and fills the heart with joy and contentment in the highest or the lowliest lot. True religion brings man into harmony with His physical, mental, and moral laws and directly promotes health, lengthens life, heightens enjoyment of blessings, and opens a never-failing fountain of happiness, while thinking and acting contrary to His will does the greatest injury to the soul, no real joy is found in the path He forbids, and the path of transgression leads to misery and destruction. The laws enacted by the Father are wise and just and good, His blessing attends those vitally connected with Him who administers the law and those who obey it with a perfect heart, and the ten commandments give to all the principles of His character for guidance in all transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving.
He cares for the creatures He has formed and pities them as a father pities his children, bestowing love that makes believers sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Because His hand holds even trials, disappointments, and afflictions, they are to be accepted as from a Father and as a cross held out by a Father's hand, trusted in darkness as well as in daylight as working for good and met with grateful praise. Remembrance of the love expressed by the cross of Calvary, where He spared not His own Son, guarantees He will with Him freely give all things, giving comfort and strength sufficient for every earthly trial and reason for gladness rather than mourning and complaint even when confidence is shaken by human choices.
In love He gives His beloved sleep in death, so that the long night of waiting until the morning of the resurrection is only a moment to them, and in love He will send Jesus very soon to gather His loved ones home to be together.
Knowing God Means Loving
He who loves is born of God and knows God, while he who does not love does not know God, because love is of God whose very nature is love, so knowing Him is inseparable from loving others and love must be cultivated as evidence of belonging to Him. That love was manifested in sending the only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him, not because humans first loved God but because He loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, giving everlasting life to whoever believes. When believers love one another God dwells in them and His love is perfected in them, and by the Spirit given to them they know they dwell in Him and He in them. Truly loving God must therefore be shown in lovingkindness of heart, judgment and righteousness to all, and in sanctified cooperation with Christ that keeps Jesus as the pattern until beholders are changed into His likeness unto Christian perfection. If love for God cannot exist apart from love for a brother, failure to cherish Christlike love for one another leaves the case to go against such a one in the courts of heaven.
There is no such thing as a loveless Christian, for a heart in which Christ dwells cannot be cold and stern and destitute of love. Completeness of Christian character is reached when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within, with heaven's sunshine filling the heart and appearing in the life, and a heart filled with purposeful compassion for the perishing reflects God's character in fruitful work. To suppose a person can have faith unto eternal life or truly love God without Christlike love for brethren is a great and fatal deception that leaves the claim to know God empty and vain. Without this charity taught and practiced daily in the fullest sense, free from selfishness and pride, concealing one's own righteous acts and avoiding all that draws attention to self through close assimilation to Christ's character, all pretension to the Christian name is vain. He who loves God and neighbor is filled with light and love, with God in him and all around him, loving those around him as precious souls for whom Christ died.
No one who fails to love a brother who is seen can love God who is unseen, and to claim love for God while hating a brother is false and a lie. God commands that whoever loves God must also love his brother, and not loving a brother proves not knowing God and not belonging to Him. Cain belonged to the wicked one because his works were evil, and in jealousy and anger over accepted worship he hated and killed his righteous brother Abel, and that hatred showed he did not know God. The love meant does not compromise with sin but flows from a heart loving God supremely and neighbor as self, proved by works that love a brother as Christ loved in His meekness and gentleness, losing sight of self for Jesus, refusing jealousy like Cain, and bringing the best offering in the spirit of the slain Lamb. The message from the beginning is to love one another.
Knowing God therefore requires loving one another not in word or in tongue only but in deed and in truth. This means even laying down lives for the brethren and giving to a needy brother rather than shutting up compassion, with practical care for a brother in need and lovingkindness to all. Failure to do so leaves one abiding in death. Such love in the heart brings the whole person into harmony with the divine life.
This love is the test and measure of genuine religious experience, conversion and sanctification through the truth, and the rule for all conduct fashioned after the divine Pattern, revealing genuine conversion whatever a person professes. Christ's love in the heart works like leaven and like bread for spiritual life, binding believers to Christ and to each other like threads of gold, giving sanctification and the faith that works by love and purifies the soul, implanting a new nature in which the grace of Christ grows. Its presence is the test between true religion and counterfeit: revealing love for God and His truth and loving neighbor as self proves true religion, shown in self-forgetfulness amid daily activities and running like a thread of gold through everyday contact, not in mere external forms or religion shut away to grow, while loving self supremely, seeking own enjoyment disregarding others' good, hating those who refuse to sustain a wrong course, and cloaking soul-destroying selfishness with religious forms proves its lack. Genuine conversion is proved by loving one another as brethren with pity and courtesy, treating every soul carefully because each was so precious that God gave His only-begotten Son and Christ died for them, and working like ministering angels for souls reveals Christ's love as the sign of discipleship, whereas strife, contention, discord, envy, evil surmising, bitterness, and speaking or thinking evil of anyone prove its absence. True knowledge of God takes hold of the whole person with living active faith, bringing every organ, power and ability into conformity with His will, keeping the salt's savor, beholding Jesus and becoming changed into His likeness with sanctified eyes and ears that will not contemplate evil, rest upon iniquity, feed upon what is not elevating and ennobling and purifying and refining, or imagine, speak or think evil. The full breadth of this love was learned by the disciples only after Christ's sufferings, crucifixion, resurrection, appearance to the five hundred in Galilee, ascension, and the resting of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, proving Christ formed within, the hope of glory.
God can only be understood and beheld by a heart freed from selfishness, for only the unselfish, humble, trustful, pure heart sees Him as He truly is, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Until selfishness is renounced His loving nature cannot be understood, because the self-seeking spirit judges God to be altogether like itself. Those whose affections flow toward mere human objects and earthly things and idols rather than things above, whose professed truth has not subdued and sanctified the heart and does not control the will, do not have the Saviour's love in them, but leave some idol holding the temple of the heart with devotion due to God alone, so the heart stays closed against the truth and Christ is not in the soul as the hope of glory though outward appearance looks like devoted Christianity. He cannot be found out by learning or science. Christ does not try to prove the mystery of God nor make His power and greatness the chief theme, but reveals a love beyond all measurement, speaking of God most often as Father and of Himself as Elder Brother, that minds weakened by sin may be encouraged to grasp that God is love, be inspired with confidence toward Him, take hold of His strength and make peace with Him.
Truth is the revelation of God and therefore truth is love. To receive truth in its purity and loveliness is to receive love, and Christians must present this love to the world and form characters after the divine similitude in mercy and love, for to accept a theory of truth while excluding mercy and love from character is to reject God Himself. Denying God's love as revealed in Scripture was the beginning of a great apostasy. God revealed His love by giving His Son so fallen humanity could be saved and return to loyalty and allegiance to Him, and this revelation has power to save fully; He is also light. If God were not love all must have perished, and His love in giving His Son so believers should not perish but have everlasting life is the reason humanity lives, for His character is mercy and love and He cares for and loves those who believe in Christ as personal Saviour as He loves His only-begotten Son.
The love of God is knowledge received through real religious experience, and those who have received it can teach it to others. To know Him is to receive His love into the heart and represent His character as sons and daughters of His royal family by learning of Him daily and doing His will. The Word of God is the channel through which this divine love is communicated to man, and God's truth is the medium by which the intellect is reached. That received love is an active power for good that quickens the faculties of the mind and the powers of the soul and enlarges the capacity for feeling and for loving, so whoever loves God supremely will love all the children of God. The Holy Spirit is given to the human agent who works in cooperation with divine agencies and transforms mind and character, enabling man to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and perfect love can be enjoyed only through belief of the truth and reception of the Holy Spirit. Every soul is saved through love, and true conversion changes selfishness into sanctified affection for God and for one another. Where this spirit pervades, with respectful approach, considerate courtesy in every position of trust that wins confidence and respect, and sincere affection without pretense toward fellow workers revealing toward others the same love each desires for himself, institutions become a representation of heaven on earth and a perpetual testimony of what sanctifying truth does when practiced by the receiver.
Love Law and Justice
God's law expresses His character, and because His character is love its nature is love. Its two great principles are love to God and love to other people, and love fulfills the law. The ten commandments give to all men, women and children the principles of His character for guidance in all transactions and dealings with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving. Knowing God is necessary for keeping His law, which is a transcript of His character, for to know God is to love God and fellow men as self and to live out the law with strictest integrity with no robbery toward God or man. Those who love God keep His law and commandments and unify on the truths that called them out from the world, and their harmony convinces the world that God sent His Son to save sinners.
Love fulfills that great standard only as men love God with all heart, might, mind and strength and their neighbors as themselves. This love means loving God supremely with wealth of affection flowing without restraint in this divine channel, and loving neighbor as self in self-forgetfulness and in deeds amid the activities of life and everyday contact with others, running like a thread of gold through daily experience. It does not compromise with sin but flows from a heart loving God supremely, revealed in love to brethren and sisters rather than seeking what is agreeable, respectable, profitable, pleasant, convenient or advantageous for self. It bears fruit in loving what God loves because God loves it, and love for brethren is essential for daily happiness in this life and in the life to come. Its presence is the test between true religion and counterfeit, while loving self supremely, seeking own enjoyment disregarding the good of others, hating those who refuse to sustain a wrong course, and cloaking soul-destroying selfishness with religious forms proves its lack.
That God is love does not mean He has no perfect standard of righteousness, no definite requirements, or that love is weak sentiment treating good and evil alike. His government has real requirements necessary to bring people into harmony with Him, conduct in this life bears on eternal destiny because people reap what they sow, and deliberate disregard for His commands brings consequences. The revelation of His love in giving His Son to die the shameful death of the cross shows He has a standard of character which required ignominy, suffering, humiliation and death to pay the penalty of the broken law and heal transgressors. His love does not excuse sin or make Him weak toward evil, for His law records every offense and sinners receive the penalty of their sin, yet His love and justice together lift up those who turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. If men continue to resist light and evidence they will exhaust His forbearance and mercy and then will come the ministry of wrath, for His love is immeasurable to those who repent but His justice is firm and uncompromising to those who abuse His longsuffering love.
He is not unloving and ready to break out in vindictive wrath upon sinful creatures. He is not a cruel, revengeful tyrant who delights in suffering and plunges into hell with satisfaction those who do not please Him to writhe in eternal flames and unutterable anguish. All that He created was pure, holy and lovely until sin was brought in by the first great rebel. Cruelty is satanic, for Satan himself is the enemy who tempts man to sin and then destroys him if he can, exulting in the ruin he has wrought, and would sweep the entire race into his net were it not for the interposition of divine power. Satan clothes God with his own attributes and darkens the Bible's message of love, representing Him as stern and revengeful in order to shake confidence in the Creator, cause doubt of the wisdom of His government and the justice of His laws, justify his own malignity and rebellion, and lure souls away from allegiance by contrasting his own mild sway with the decrees of Jehovah.
The evil in the world does not come from His hands but from the great adversary whose constant work is to deprave man and enfeeble and pervert his faculties. Because God is love He has not left men in the ruin wrought by the fall. As Heavenly Father He has placed every facility and faculty within reach so that through well-directed effort they may regain their first perfection and stand complete in Christ. He expects each person to do his part as His purchased possession that cost God and His Son Jesus Christ an infinite price.
Love Vindicated Forever
When the great controversy is finished and sin and sinners are no more and the entire universe is clean, the truth that God is love will stand openly proved. Then one pulse of harmony and gladness will beat through the vast creation as life and light and gladness flow from the Creator throughout illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things animate and inanimate, in unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, will declare that God is love. What He made will itself affirm His character when the dominion is restored and all is made clean.
Christ's coming and death at Calvary already make that love undeniable. Before heavenly beings and all who behold the Savior, the dispute about God's character is settled by the cross. By love's self-sacrifice the government of God stands justified, Satan's charges are refuted and his own character is unveiled. Because of that revelation rebellion can never arise again and sin can never again enter the universe, and through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By that self-sacrificing love the inhabitants of earth and heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union.
Living Out Brotherly Love
John pressed the constant exercise of brotherly love to the very day of his death because that love was waning in the church, and his letters are filled with this thought that love is of God because God is love, proved by God sending His only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him as the propitiation for sins, not because people loved God but because He loved them. If God so loved, those so loved ought also to love one another, and though no one has seen God, loving one another shows God dwells within and His love is perfected and confirmed by the gift of His Spirit by which it is known that believers dwell in Him and He in them. This work in heart and mind is the perpetual life of the church to love God supremely and to love others as self, binding law and gospel together in a perfect whole to go throughout the world giving light to contrite hearts, received not as nominal faith or legal religion but as faith appropriating God's richest gifts and pleading to give to others grace for grace. Fellow believers as members of one family and children of the same Father are to be closely united, so that their conduct shows faith is changing their hearts under the watch of others, seeing the bright rays of the Sun of Righteousness with life and hope springing up as they behold Christ and apply the blood of the spotless Lamb to their own hearts.
God and Christ are love, and all who love and work in harmony with Christ keep peace on the true pattern of vital tenderness born of God rather than building on false theory to ruin the soul. When His Spirit rules, those truly connected with God cannot remain at variance or at odds, but are brought into harmony, love and unity, for God's nature is benevolence and mercy. Bound together in holy union by the golden chain of love, laying aside selfishness, enmity, little grievances and misunderstandings, those bought with a price become one as Christ is one with the Father and give evidence to the world that God sent His Son, convincing the world as they unify on truth, while a loving spirit toward brethren discourages jealousy and mistrust. Satan uses circumstances, confusion, worries and cares to kill love for God and brethren, and where that love is not glowing on the altar of the heart a person becomes cold, hard, unsympathetic and iceberg-like, but all who have Christ abiding by faith love the brethren with a faith that works by love and purifies the soul.
To know God is to be like-minded with Him, forbearing, courteous and Christlike in spirit, words, deportment and manner toward brethren at all times and under all circumstances. This forbids crowding and pushing others because they do not see alike, treating them discourteously when they differ, thinking unkindly of them, climbing upon the judgment seat to censure or condemn, or using position or office to exercise power over conscience, and such a course is inexcusable even if their views are questionable. Disagreement never justifies pushing, ridiculing, misrepresenting or condemning, but requires Christlike courtesy and kindness even when beliefs differ.
This love must be real and unselfish, and there is very little of it, for knowing God is shown by such love and whoever does not love does not know God. It is a heavenly-grown plant the unconverted heart cannot produce, living and flourishing only where Christ reigns, a power that does good and nothing else, acting without seeking reward, growing stronger through action and extending to others, prevailing where argument, authority and force fail. God values the love behind a deed more than the amount accomplished, and love alone gives efficiency to every work of mercy, uniting the finite with the infinite so receivers become channels passing His love and supply onward through effort, self-denial and sacrifice, with God's way of working by love to draw hearts and expel sin, requiring love as the controlling power in every department.
It means not looking only on one's own things nor closing the eyes to others' interests, but exercising disinterested liberality and sharing abundance with struggling institutions and people that should live and prosper, and success increases in proportion as this is done while seeking only one's own advantage displeases God. True love is scarce and must fulfill the great standard of the law by loving God with all heart, might, mind and strength and neighbor as self, which is glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will, glorifying the Lord when the great end of His law is achieved. It is the Holy Spirit's work age to age to implant love as the living principle of brotherhood leaving no nook for selfishness, bringing heaven's order, harmony, wisdom, mercy, refinement, noble principles, courtesy and charity into every family, church and institution to fit people by divine discipline for heaven, for Jesus prepares mansions for those preparing through His love and grace while selfish, rough, unkind and self-exalting persons will not compose God's family nor see the kingdom unless changed to be meek, sincere and simple as a little child. This love of God's character must be cultivated and made visible in compassionate, tender, generous and fair dealings, for when neglected its opposite develops, and people and institutions persisting in loveless conduct must change or their light and heaven's blessing will be withdrawn.
It is shown in purposeful compassion for perishing souls and in Christlike deeds, for a heart filled with this love reflects God's character, produces fruitful work, fulfills the law, and without it the claim to know God is empty. It deals justly and tenderly because fellow beings are redeemed by Christ's blood, with supreme love for God seeking humanity's highest good, while its lack is selfish self-love destroying Christlikeness, departing from righteousness and blinding to required perfection. In caring for needy children it must act from love not mere duty, because Christ died for them, purchased them, and expects them loved as He loved the sinful and wayward, requiring effort, self-denial and self-sacrifice yet small compared with giving His only Son, and only this principle makes mercy effective. It treats every soul carefully as precious enough for God to give His Son, loves to a purpose, shares gifts freely beyond a favored few, leads sinners to Christ's ideal by grace enabling them to reach it, gives the Bread of Life, and works like ministering angels for salvation as the sign of discipleship.
Religion is love expressed in thoughtful kindness, gentle courtesy and the end of quarrels at home and in church. Knowing God transforms into His image and purity, changing speech from cheap and common words, hasty censure and passionate spirit which come not from Him but from the enemy of all good, to patience, mercy as Christ is merciful, kindness, pity, tender-heartedness and firmness as a rock to principle. Cherishing love in kind, tender, sympathetic words accords with God's character, while harshness and accusation are of the devil. That love which is God in essence makes the best of apparent injury, gives Satan no triumph, does not make the worst appear nor expose weakness to enemies, but mends, restores and heals the erring, saving souls and hiding a multitude of sins. Cheerful, hopeful words talking faith and love glorify God.
In marriage and the home His grace and the Redeemer's strength enable husband and wife to keep the pledge to make each other happy, refusing selfish love shut up to themselves and sharing affection, kind words, sympathy, appreciation, cheer and helpful deeds that bring happiness to lonely struggling people, lighten weary burdens and find true happiness in unselfish ministry under Christ's Spirit with the law of kindness on the lips in forbearance as those born again to help crooked lives become straight in God. Love must stand by justice as its twin sister lest stern justice shut love out, opening the heart to the genial glad rays of the Sun of Righteousness to bring softening influence instead of anxiety over worldly things and rigid economy, joining strictness with patience, tenderness, faith, prayer, encouragement and a gentle winning spirit that has transforming power upon children and makes home a sunny, holy, consecrated Bethel. True affection is the better nature of childhood to be encouraged with the tender spirit of Jesus and angelic sympathy, not discouraged and repressed lest the better nature be stifled into hard-hearted cold selfishness ruining happiness unless divine love melts it. The heavenly Father must be presented to children as a God of love not tyranny, and Jesus as their best Friend to whom they can bring trials and sorrows for sympathy, keeping the family altar and bringing them to Him in faith to become His children and followers.
In schools and institutions to dwell in love is to dwell in God, with constant forgiving love binding erring souls instead of casting them away when law is disregarded. It joins firm impartial justice with mercy, never standing aloof, indifferent, unapproachable, harsh or censorious, but takes youth as they are, bears patiently with ignorance in dull scholars, deals tenderly with sensitive nervous students, and faithfully corrects wrong in a way binding the reproved still closer in heart. It deals with youth of fewer advantages and less favorable surroundings as Christ deals with the erring, bearing with perversity and rebellion with love that does not grow cold and efforts that do not cease, never giving the sinner to Satan's buffeting but standing with open arms to welcome the erring, rebellious and even apostate, representing Christ by precept and example without shame before His judgment seat, rather than hasty suspension or expulsion, with careful consideration, sympathy, gentleness, tenderness, compassion and forbearance. Heaven-born love strikes deeper than surface, seeks not its own, is not puffed up nor unseemly, and entered by practice advances Christian character and molds others while selfishness and human dignity are expelled.
As the life and very essence of Christianity and not merely one part, because love is God's nature, it makes every follower a channel of light disciplined by God, trained by the Spirit and aided by heavenly agencies to co-labor in winning souls from error and sin to truth and holiness, best resembling Christ in mind and spirit to seek and save the lost with benevolence, tender sympathy and love for souls. Failing to love proves not knowing God, for knowing Him frees from selfishness to love God supremely and neighbor as self as Christ delighted in God's will making the Father's will His food, and this pure sanctified humble love in a lifework like Christ's is a sacred fragrance filling the house that alone wins souls, while talk, Pharisaism, self-praise, eloquence, knowledge, devotion, talents and endowments without love are nothing and no missionary succeeds without cherishing it, for love seeks not its own glory but is kind, not easily provoked and thinks no evil. Received love is active power quickening mind and soul, enlarging capacity for feeling and loving, so whoever loves God supremely loves all God's children with respectful approach, considerate courtesy winning confidence, and sincere affection without pretense, making institutions a representation of heaven and perpetual testimony of sanctifying truth practiced, each revealing the love desired for self. A heart filled with Jesus fastens on Him supremely so affection flows in this divine channel without restraint or danger, learned beginning with fear of the Lord and study of God's plans where each as member of one whole must not break bonds without harming character and snaring others. Contemplation of Calvary stirs the soul, transforms character from quick temper, harshness, pride and independence to willing allegiance at Jesus' feet, reproducing unselfish tenderness, patience, goodness and entreating effort for perishing souls, testifying in spirit, word and action by helping one another, so from one reflecting Christ's righteousness flows warmth bringing sunshine of His love making others better as they hear loving words and see loving actions and know Christ has been learned.
Cultivating love is connected with spiritual strength over the powers of darkness, for one who does not love does not know God whose nature is love. Knowing that God is love remains certain even when people lose confidence through their own choices, supporting confidence in Him and giving reason for gladness rather than mourning and complaint. He has proved love by loving the weak, perverse and sinful, Jesus loves followers personally without forgetting them and cares with a mother's tenderness, and it is their privilege to have Christ's peace, to rest content and be happy in His love cherished more deeply.
Its absence is proved by strife, contention, discord and speaking or thinking evil of anyone, showing genuine conversion is lacking, while its presence is proved by loving one another as brethren with pity and courtesy. Envy, evil surmising and bitterness likewise mark its lack, whereas love lays aside selfishness, enmity, grievances, jealousy, mistrust and suspicion for loving confidence and tender cherishing toward brothers and sisters. First revealed in the home, it then bursts its bonds to become a working power in church, neighborhood, community and nations, binding in holy union those bought with a price.
God Himself in His very essence and character is love, a living, active, giving life that flows out to all His creatures unchangingly like light from the sun. That love was shown toward us in that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation for sins, that we might live through Him and have everlasting life by believing. All true love originates with Him and comes from Him, so whoever truly loves is born of God and knows God, while whoever does not love does not know God. There is no loveless Christian, for a heart where Christ dwells cannot remain cold and destitute of love, and to claim faith or love for the unseen God while hating a seen brother is a fatal deception. His law expresses that same character, with its whole nature and its two great principles being love to God and love to others. When the great controversy is finished and sin is no more, the whole clean universe from the smallest atom to the greatest world will openly declare in perfect joy that God is love.
God's Nature Is Love
God in Himself, in His very essence, nature and character, is love, and that love is not mere feeling but a living, active, giving principle shown in action that guides the life wherever true love exists. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love, with love and light and joy flowing out from Him to all His creatures like rays of light from the sun. He is love in nature and in law, and this has always been true and always will be true, for the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose ways are everlasting, does not change, and with Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning. That love belongs to His nature, which is revealed in His holy law and through all His works and dealings with humanity.
His character is published in nature as well as in revelation, displaying tender, fatherly care and desire to make His children happy and linking humanity to Himself by unnumbered tokens in heaven and earth in lofty mountains, fruitful valleys, broad deep ocean, sunshine and rain, every opening bud, petal of every flower, and spire of grass. Even though sin's curse made the earth bring forth thorns and thistles and appointed toil, flowers still grow upon thistles and roses hide thorns, so this world is not all sorrow and misery. The same love governs His commands, for His prohibitions, injunctions and revealed will do not merely display authority but aim at His children's well-being, and He never requires them to give up anything it would be for their best interest to keep. That love makes the best of what appears as injury, gives no occasion for triumph to evil, does not make the worst appear or expose weakness to enemies, but mends, restores and heals those who err, and this healing saves souls and hides a multitude of sins.
All true love is of God, originates with Him and comes from Him because His very nature is love, so everyone who truly loves is born of God and knows God, while he who loves not knows not God. This was proved and displayed by God sending His only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him and have atonement for sins, and therefore if God so loved people they ought also to love one another. John urged this constant exercise of brotherly love up to the day of his death because brotherly love was waning in the church, and his letters to the churches are filled with this thought of constant need. Truly loving God must be shown in lovingkindness of heart, judgment and righteousness to all, in loving one another not in word or in tongue only but in deed and in truth, even laying down life for the brethren and giving to a needy brother rather than shutting up compassion. Those who live in this love live in God and God lives in them, and when members unite in sanctified cooperation with Christ He lives and works in them, giving power to reach Christian perfection as they keep Jesus as their pattern and are changed into His likeness by beholding Him. Completeness of Christian character is reached when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within, with heaven's sunshine filling the heart and showing in the life. Everyone who truly knows God and is born of God will love God and fellow men with patience, long-suffering, unselfishness and self-sacrifice as Christ came to reveal that love, and loving in this way does not work against a person's own interest but fulfills God's purpose for him, subdues and softens and breaks the heart, kills self, brings true happiness and gladness, and makes life a sacred trust to be spent in helping, strengthening and ministering to others.
Love is power, bloom and grace, and a reviving essence that makes the heart sing. It operates to make all things diviner, pours like fire and dew through hearts, refines the soul, and is the beauty of God to which all other graces are lesser. It lifts even humble peasants and makes them kings and priests. Divine love is life itself, and that love would flow out in mercy toward others. A person who lives for self rejects that divine love and in rejecting love rejects life, choosing earthly things and earthly wealth over spiritual life and perishing with the earthly, for covetousness cuts the soul off from life, while Christ's spirit gives and sacrifices for others.
God loves sinful, mortal, weak, perverse and needy people not because their character is attractive or because they are good or lovable, but because He is love and because they are needy and need a Saviour and Redeemer to rescue them from Satan, to whom they had been sold through the belief of the first parents in his lie. He first loved needy sinners and proved His love by purchasing the gift of everlasting life for them at infinite cost, and sins are forgiven only by accepting the provision He has made. That love makes Him Father to His children, pitying them as a father pities his children, and gives comfort and strength sufficient for every earthly trial. It means Jesus loves His followers personally, does not forget them, and cares for them with the tenderness of a mother caring for her child, and it is their privilege to have the peace of Christ, to rest content, and to be happy in His love. To belong to Him as His jewels people must be good and do good and cannot live out the character of Satan and still be counted worthy.
God is the source of all affection, pity, compassion and love shown on earth, and human love is only a small measure beside the love in His heart. His love continually strengthens the weak and gives courage to the wavering, and knowing Him is inseparable from love. Christ presents God as Father so that minds weakened by sin can trust in His loving character. God is also light, and the Father is light and love in contrast to the popular doctrines of the age. Denying God's love as revealed in Scripture was the beginning of a great apostasy, whereas God revealed His love by giving His Son so fallen humanity could be saved and return to loyalty to Him, and this revelation has power to save fully. Satan had cast a hellish shadow, a thick darkness over the throne of God to hide God from human sight and knowledge, and Christ rolled it away to reveal the throne and the Father to the world, clothing His divinity with humanity to bring that love into clear evidence of light that humanity can comprehend, and that revelation puts in the heart the prayer of Moses for God to show His glory.
Love Given in Christ
God's love was made visible toward humanity in that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world so that people might live through Him, not because humans first loved God but because He loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, giving everlasting life to whoever believes. Love is of God because God is love, so everyone who truly loves is born of God and knows God, while whoever does not love does not know Him. Those who live in this love live in God and God lives in them, and when believers unite in sanctified cooperation with Christ He lives and works in them to bring them to Christian perfection as they keep Jesus as pattern and are changed by beholding Him. If God so loved, people ought also to love one another, not in word or tongue only but in deed and truth, even to laying down lives for the brethren and refusing to shut up compassion from a needy brother, for this is the perpetual life of the church to love God supremely and others as self. Though no one has seen God at any time, if believers love one another God dwells in them and His love is perfected in them, and they know they dwell in Him and He in them because He has given of His Spirit, applying the blood of the spotless Lamb to their own hearts with life and hope springing up as they behold Christ the Sun of Righteousness.
The gift of the Son did not create God's love but was given because He already loved so greatly with tender love toward people, a love that amazed angels. In that love the Son suffered both with and for humanity, and the Father, the heart of unmeasured love, suffered with Christ in Gethsemane and on Calvary and in Christ paid the price of salvation so believers may have everlasting life.
Before the foundation of the world, in counsel between the Father and the Son in the secret chambers of the Most High and in the covenant of peace to save a lost world, the Father gave Himself in the gift of His only-begotten Son as Substitute and Surety and ransom for a fallen race, devising the plan of redemption in union with the Son. Christ knew the Father from that counsel, while the world has not known Him because it measures Him by finite measurement and misjudges and misinterprets His truth and righteousness as if He were unloving and ready to break out in vindictive wrath upon sinful creatures.
Christ's coming, life, and death at Calvary make that love undeniable, settling the dispute about God's character before heavenly beings and all who behold the Savior. He revealed God to the world as loving, merciful, tender, and compassionate, clearing away the darkness that had obscured the Father and showing Him as light and the light of life. Satan had cast a hellish shadow and thick darkness over the throne of God to hide Him from human sight and knowledge, but Christ by clothing divinity with humanity rolled it away and brought that love into clear evidence of light that humanity can comprehend, putting in the heart the prayer of Moses to see God's glory. Denying that love was at the root of the great apostasy, yet through Christ's gift and death fallen humanity receives a powerful revelation of that love and an opportunity to return to allegiance.
By superhuman efforts constantly expended through Christ at infinite cost, God has done everything possible to reclaim the human race as lost sheep returned to their Shepherd, purchasing everlasting life at an infinite price paid by God and His Son. That love without parallel is constantly expended for men through Christ, with the heavenly universe in constant activity in behalf of the sons of men to convict sinners of sin, and the cry of despair calls forth God's tenderest love as salvation freely bestowed upon all who believe. In the gift of His Son every provision is made for every moral and spiritual necessity so people may be prepared for the courts of heaven, and through Christ serving as officiating priest in the heavenly sanctuary faith in Jesus and repentance of sins are possible. Through human agents cooperating with God, Christ brings fallen people into close fellowship and union with divinity, joining willing souls to Himself and binding them to His great heart of infinite love so they are attached to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls and may regain their first perfection and stand complete in Christ through well-directed effort, with true happiness found only in Jesus whose great love cannot be satisfied without people.
At the cross are seen together both God's hatred of sin, as strong as death, and His love for sinners, stronger than death, beyond understanding, and revealed in Christ's life of self-denial and death. There God is made known as truth, light, and love, offering abundant forgiveness without making His law ineffective, for He abhors sin yet loves the sinner.
In that great gift and in the crucifixion on Calvary His holiness and love are exemplified together and His justice and love are expressed, with justice and truth meeting together and bringing God's love and justice into harmony through the cross as the means of salvation by faith in its saving power so the sinner need not perish. This testimony binds law and gospel together in a perfect whole that must go throughout the length and breadth of the world, impressing every heart opened to receive it and giving light and understanding to the contrite and simple, so that those who receive Christ receive power to become sons of God with a faith that appropriates the richest gifts and gives grace for grace to others. That God is love does not mean He has no perfect standard of righteousness or definite requirements; the revelation of His love in giving His Son to die the shameful death of the cross shows He has a standard of character which required a life of ignominy, suffering, and humiliation and the death of the cross to pay the penalty of the broken law and heal transgressors. His love is immeasurable to those who repent, but His justice is firm and uncompromising toward those who abuse His longsuffering love, so that if men continue to resist light and evidence and exhaust His forbearance and mercy then will come the ministry of wrath.
Love Seen in Creation
God's character as love is published in nature as well as in revelation, and the beauty and life of nature testify to His tender, fatherly care and His desire to make His children happy. The lofty mountains, fruitful valleys, and broad, deep ocean, sunshine and rain gladdening the earth, hills and seas and plains, every opening bud, the petal of every flower, and every spire of grass, lofty green trees, singing birds, colors, fragrance, and perfuming flowers declare that love is His nature, linking humanity to Himself by unnumbered tokens in heaven and earth. Every good gift comes from Him as the source of life, wisdom, and joy, wonderfully adapted to the needs and happiness of men and all living creatures, supplying daily needs and satisfying the desire of every living thing. The beautiful things of nature are His gift to show His power and His love for mankind and to give children evidence of His love as Creator, whom they are to love because He first loved them, yet nature reveals His love without holding His personal presence, for God in person is not in flower or leaf or tree. He made man perfectly holy and happy and the earth without decay or curse, and woe and death came only by transgression of His law.
Though sin's curse caused the earth to bring forth thorns and thistles, flowers still grow upon the thistles and roses hide the thorns. The cursing of the ground and the life of toil and care with difficulties and trials were appointed for man's good as training to uplift him from the ruin of sin. Nature still holds messages of hope and comfort, so though fallen this world is not all sorrow and misery.
The same love governs His commands, for His prohibitions, injunctions, and revealed will do not merely display authority but have the well-being of His children in view in this life and the life to come. He never requires them to give up anything it would be for their best interest to keep, He takes no pleasure in human misery but delights in the happiness of obedient beings, and faith in His love and overruling providence lightens burdens of anxiety and care and fills the heart with joy and contentment in the highest or the lowliest lot. True religion brings man into harmony with His physical, mental, and moral laws and directly promotes health, lengthens life, heightens enjoyment of blessings, and opens a never-failing fountain of happiness, while thinking and acting contrary to His will does the greatest injury to the soul, no real joy is found in the path He forbids, and the path of transgression leads to misery and destruction. The laws enacted by the Father are wise and just and good, His blessing attends those vitally connected with Him who administers the law and those who obey it with a perfect heart, and the ten commandments give to all the principles of His character for guidance in all transactions, to be taught to children and to form the standard of all dealing with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving.
He cares for the creatures He has formed and pities them as a father pities his children, bestowing love that makes believers sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Because His hand holds even trials, disappointments, and afflictions, they are to be accepted as from a Father and as a cross held out by a Father's hand, trusted in darkness as well as in daylight as working for good and met with grateful praise. Remembrance of the love expressed by the cross of Calvary, where He spared not His own Son, guarantees He will with Him freely give all things, giving comfort and strength sufficient for every earthly trial and reason for gladness rather than mourning and complaint even when confidence is shaken by human choices.
In love He gives His beloved sleep in death, so that the long night of waiting until the morning of the resurrection is only a moment to them, and in love He will send Jesus very soon to gather His loved ones home to be together.
Knowing God Means Loving
He who loves is born of God and knows God, while he who does not love does not know God, because love is of God whose very nature is love, so knowing Him is inseparable from loving others and love must be cultivated as evidence of belonging to Him. That love was manifested in sending the only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him, not because humans first loved God but because He loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, giving everlasting life to whoever believes. When believers love one another God dwells in them and His love is perfected in them, and by the Spirit given to them they know they dwell in Him and He in them. Truly loving God must therefore be shown in lovingkindness of heart, judgment and righteousness to all, and in sanctified cooperation with Christ that keeps Jesus as the pattern until beholders are changed into His likeness unto Christian perfection. If love for God cannot exist apart from love for a brother, failure to cherish Christlike love for one another leaves the case to go against such a one in the courts of heaven.
There is no such thing as a loveless Christian, for a heart in which Christ dwells cannot be cold and stern and destitute of love. Completeness of Christian character is reached when the impulse to help and bless others springs constantly from within, with heaven's sunshine filling the heart and appearing in the life, and a heart filled with purposeful compassion for the perishing reflects God's character in fruitful work. To suppose a person can have faith unto eternal life or truly love God without Christlike love for brethren is a great and fatal deception that leaves the claim to know God empty and vain. Without this charity taught and practiced daily in the fullest sense, free from selfishness and pride, concealing one's own righteous acts and avoiding all that draws attention to self through close assimilation to Christ's character, all pretension to the Christian name is vain. He who loves God and neighbor is filled with light and love, with God in him and all around him, loving those around him as precious souls for whom Christ died.
No one who fails to love a brother who is seen can love God who is unseen, and to claim love for God while hating a brother is false and a lie. God commands that whoever loves God must also love his brother, and not loving a brother proves not knowing God and not belonging to Him. Cain belonged to the wicked one because his works were evil, and in jealousy and anger over accepted worship he hated and killed his righteous brother Abel, and that hatred showed he did not know God. The love meant does not compromise with sin but flows from a heart loving God supremely and neighbor as self, proved by works that love a brother as Christ loved in His meekness and gentleness, losing sight of self for Jesus, refusing jealousy like Cain, and bringing the best offering in the spirit of the slain Lamb. The message from the beginning is to love one another.
Knowing God therefore requires loving one another not in word or in tongue only but in deed and in truth. This means even laying down lives for the brethren and giving to a needy brother rather than shutting up compassion, with practical care for a brother in need and lovingkindness to all. Failure to do so leaves one abiding in death. Such love in the heart brings the whole person into harmony with the divine life.
This love is the test and measure of genuine religious experience, conversion and sanctification through the truth, and the rule for all conduct fashioned after the divine Pattern, revealing genuine conversion whatever a person professes. Christ's love in the heart works like leaven and like bread for spiritual life, binding believers to Christ and to each other like threads of gold, giving sanctification and the faith that works by love and purifies the soul, implanting a new nature in which the grace of Christ grows. Its presence is the test between true religion and counterfeit: revealing love for God and His truth and loving neighbor as self proves true religion, shown in self-forgetfulness amid daily activities and running like a thread of gold through everyday contact, not in mere external forms or religion shut away to grow, while loving self supremely, seeking own enjoyment disregarding others' good, hating those who refuse to sustain a wrong course, and cloaking soul-destroying selfishness with religious forms proves its lack. Genuine conversion is proved by loving one another as brethren with pity and courtesy, treating every soul carefully because each was so precious that God gave His only-begotten Son and Christ died for them, and working like ministering angels for souls reveals Christ's love as the sign of discipleship, whereas strife, contention, discord, envy, evil surmising, bitterness, and speaking or thinking evil of anyone prove its absence. True knowledge of God takes hold of the whole person with living active faith, bringing every organ, power and ability into conformity with His will, keeping the salt's savor, beholding Jesus and becoming changed into His likeness with sanctified eyes and ears that will not contemplate evil, rest upon iniquity, feed upon what is not elevating and ennobling and purifying and refining, or imagine, speak or think evil. The full breadth of this love was learned by the disciples only after Christ's sufferings, crucifixion, resurrection, appearance to the five hundred in Galilee, ascension, and the resting of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, proving Christ formed within, the hope of glory.
God can only be understood and beheld by a heart freed from selfishness, for only the unselfish, humble, trustful, pure heart sees Him as He truly is, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Until selfishness is renounced His loving nature cannot be understood, because the self-seeking spirit judges God to be altogether like itself. Those whose affections flow toward mere human objects and earthly things and idols rather than things above, whose professed truth has not subdued and sanctified the heart and does not control the will, do not have the Saviour's love in them, but leave some idol holding the temple of the heart with devotion due to God alone, so the heart stays closed against the truth and Christ is not in the soul as the hope of glory though outward appearance looks like devoted Christianity. He cannot be found out by learning or science. Christ does not try to prove the mystery of God nor make His power and greatness the chief theme, but reveals a love beyond all measurement, speaking of God most often as Father and of Himself as Elder Brother, that minds weakened by sin may be encouraged to grasp that God is love, be inspired with confidence toward Him, take hold of His strength and make peace with Him.
Truth is the revelation of God and therefore truth is love. To receive truth in its purity and loveliness is to receive love, and Christians must present this love to the world and form characters after the divine similitude in mercy and love, for to accept a theory of truth while excluding mercy and love from character is to reject God Himself. Denying God's love as revealed in Scripture was the beginning of a great apostasy. God revealed His love by giving His Son so fallen humanity could be saved and return to loyalty and allegiance to Him, and this revelation has power to save fully; He is also light. If God were not love all must have perished, and His love in giving His Son so believers should not perish but have everlasting life is the reason humanity lives, for His character is mercy and love and He cares for and loves those who believe in Christ as personal Saviour as He loves His only-begotten Son.
The love of God is knowledge received through real religious experience, and those who have received it can teach it to others. To know Him is to receive His love into the heart and represent His character as sons and daughters of His royal family by learning of Him daily and doing His will. The Word of God is the channel through which this divine love is communicated to man, and God's truth is the medium by which the intellect is reached. That received love is an active power for good that quickens the faculties of the mind and the powers of the soul and enlarges the capacity for feeling and for loving, so whoever loves God supremely will love all the children of God. The Holy Spirit is given to the human agent who works in cooperation with divine agencies and transforms mind and character, enabling man to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and perfect love can be enjoyed only through belief of the truth and reception of the Holy Spirit. Every soul is saved through love, and true conversion changes selfishness into sanctified affection for God and for one another. Where this spirit pervades, with respectful approach, considerate courtesy in every position of trust that wins confidence and respect, and sincere affection without pretense toward fellow workers revealing toward others the same love each desires for himself, institutions become a representation of heaven on earth and a perpetual testimony of what sanctifying truth does when practiced by the receiver.
Love Law and Justice
God's law expresses His character, and because His character is love its nature is love. Its two great principles are love to God and love to other people, and love fulfills the law. The ten commandments give to all men, women and children the principles of His character for guidance in all transactions and dealings with one another, from which there can be no sinless swerving. Knowing God is necessary for keeping His law, which is a transcript of His character, for to know God is to love God and fellow men as self and to live out the law with strictest integrity with no robbery toward God or man. Those who love God keep His law and commandments and unify on the truths that called them out from the world, and their harmony convinces the world that God sent His Son to save sinners.
Love fulfills that great standard only as men love God with all heart, might, mind and strength and their neighbors as themselves. This love means loving God supremely with wealth of affection flowing without restraint in this divine channel, and loving neighbor as self in self-forgetfulness and in deeds amid the activities of life and everyday contact with others, running like a thread of gold through daily experience. It does not compromise with sin but flows from a heart loving God supremely, revealed in love to brethren and sisters rather than seeking what is agreeable, respectable, profitable, pleasant, convenient or advantageous for self. It bears fruit in loving what God loves because God loves it, and love for brethren is essential for daily happiness in this life and in the life to come. Its presence is the test between true religion and counterfeit, while loving self supremely, seeking own enjoyment disregarding the good of others, hating those who refuse to sustain a wrong course, and cloaking soul-destroying selfishness with religious forms proves its lack.
That God is love does not mean He has no perfect standard of righteousness, no definite requirements, or that love is weak sentiment treating good and evil alike. His government has real requirements necessary to bring people into harmony with Him, conduct in this life bears on eternal destiny because people reap what they sow, and deliberate disregard for His commands brings consequences. The revelation of His love in giving His Son to die the shameful death of the cross shows He has a standard of character which required ignominy, suffering, humiliation and death to pay the penalty of the broken law and heal transgressors. His love does not excuse sin or make Him weak toward evil, for His law records every offense and sinners receive the penalty of their sin, yet His love and justice together lift up those who turn to Jesus in repentance and faith. If men continue to resist light and evidence they will exhaust His forbearance and mercy and then will come the ministry of wrath, for His love is immeasurable to those who repent but His justice is firm and uncompromising to those who abuse His longsuffering love.
He is not unloving and ready to break out in vindictive wrath upon sinful creatures. He is not a cruel, revengeful tyrant who delights in suffering and plunges into hell with satisfaction those who do not please Him to writhe in eternal flames and unutterable anguish. All that He created was pure, holy and lovely until sin was brought in by the first great rebel. Cruelty is satanic, for Satan himself is the enemy who tempts man to sin and then destroys him if he can, exulting in the ruin he has wrought, and would sweep the entire race into his net were it not for the interposition of divine power. Satan clothes God with his own attributes and darkens the Bible's message of love, representing Him as stern and revengeful in order to shake confidence in the Creator, cause doubt of the wisdom of His government and the justice of His laws, justify his own malignity and rebellion, and lure souls away from allegiance by contrasting his own mild sway with the decrees of Jehovah.
The evil in the world does not come from His hands but from the great adversary whose constant work is to deprave man and enfeeble and pervert his faculties. Because God is love He has not left men in the ruin wrought by the fall. As Heavenly Father He has placed every facility and faculty within reach so that through well-directed effort they may regain their first perfection and stand complete in Christ. He expects each person to do his part as His purchased possession that cost God and His Son Jesus Christ an infinite price.
Love Vindicated Forever
When the great controversy is finished and sin and sinners are no more and the entire universe is clean, the truth that God is love will stand openly proved. Then one pulse of harmony and gladness will beat through the vast creation as life and light and gladness flow from the Creator throughout illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things animate and inanimate, in unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, will declare that God is love. What He made will itself affirm His character when the dominion is restored and all is made clean.
Christ's coming and death at Calvary already make that love undeniable. Before heavenly beings and all who behold the Savior, the dispute about God's character is settled by the cross. By love's self-sacrifice the government of God stands justified, Satan's charges are refuted and his own character is unveiled. Because of that revelation rebellion can never arise again and sin can never again enter the universe, and through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By that self-sacrificing love the inhabitants of earth and heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union.
Living Out Brotherly Love
John pressed the constant exercise of brotherly love to the very day of his death because that love was waning in the church, and his letters are filled with this thought that love is of God because God is love, proved by God sending His only-begotten Son into the world that people might live through Him as the propitiation for sins, not because people loved God but because He loved them. If God so loved, those so loved ought also to love one another, and though no one has seen God, loving one another shows God dwells within and His love is perfected and confirmed by the gift of His Spirit by which it is known that believers dwell in Him and He in them. This work in heart and mind is the perpetual life of the church to love God supremely and to love others as self, binding law and gospel together in a perfect whole to go throughout the world giving light to contrite hearts, received not as nominal faith or legal religion but as faith appropriating God's richest gifts and pleading to give to others grace for grace. Fellow believers as members of one family and children of the same Father are to be closely united, so that their conduct shows faith is changing their hearts under the watch of others, seeing the bright rays of the Sun of Righteousness with life and hope springing up as they behold Christ and apply the blood of the spotless Lamb to their own hearts.
God and Christ are love, and all who love and work in harmony with Christ keep peace on the true pattern of vital tenderness born of God rather than building on false theory to ruin the soul. When His Spirit rules, those truly connected with God cannot remain at variance or at odds, but are brought into harmony, love and unity, for God's nature is benevolence and mercy. Bound together in holy union by the golden chain of love, laying aside selfishness, enmity, little grievances and misunderstandings, those bought with a price become one as Christ is one with the Father and give evidence to the world that God sent His Son, convincing the world as they unify on truth, while a loving spirit toward brethren discourages jealousy and mistrust. Satan uses circumstances, confusion, worries and cares to kill love for God and brethren, and where that love is not glowing on the altar of the heart a person becomes cold, hard, unsympathetic and iceberg-like, but all who have Christ abiding by faith love the brethren with a faith that works by love and purifies the soul.
To know God is to be like-minded with Him, forbearing, courteous and Christlike in spirit, words, deportment and manner toward brethren at all times and under all circumstances. This forbids crowding and pushing others because they do not see alike, treating them discourteously when they differ, thinking unkindly of them, climbing upon the judgment seat to censure or condemn, or using position or office to exercise power over conscience, and such a course is inexcusable even if their views are questionable. Disagreement never justifies pushing, ridiculing, misrepresenting or condemning, but requires Christlike courtesy and kindness even when beliefs differ.
This love must be real and unselfish, and there is very little of it, for knowing God is shown by such love and whoever does not love does not know God. It is a heavenly-grown plant the unconverted heart cannot produce, living and flourishing only where Christ reigns, a power that does good and nothing else, acting without seeking reward, growing stronger through action and extending to others, prevailing where argument, authority and force fail. God values the love behind a deed more than the amount accomplished, and love alone gives efficiency to every work of mercy, uniting the finite with the infinite so receivers become channels passing His love and supply onward through effort, self-denial and sacrifice, with God's way of working by love to draw hearts and expel sin, requiring love as the controlling power in every department.
It means not looking only on one's own things nor closing the eyes to others' interests, but exercising disinterested liberality and sharing abundance with struggling institutions and people that should live and prosper, and success increases in proportion as this is done while seeking only one's own advantage displeases God. True love is scarce and must fulfill the great standard of the law by loving God with all heart, might, mind and strength and neighbor as self, which is glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and good will, glorifying the Lord when the great end of His law is achieved. It is the Holy Spirit's work age to age to implant love as the living principle of brotherhood leaving no nook for selfishness, bringing heaven's order, harmony, wisdom, mercy, refinement, noble principles, courtesy and charity into every family, church and institution to fit people by divine discipline for heaven, for Jesus prepares mansions for those preparing through His love and grace while selfish, rough, unkind and self-exalting persons will not compose God's family nor see the kingdom unless changed to be meek, sincere and simple as a little child. This love of God's character must be cultivated and made visible in compassionate, tender, generous and fair dealings, for when neglected its opposite develops, and people and institutions persisting in loveless conduct must change or their light and heaven's blessing will be withdrawn.
It is shown in purposeful compassion for perishing souls and in Christlike deeds, for a heart filled with this love reflects God's character, produces fruitful work, fulfills the law, and without it the claim to know God is empty. It deals justly and tenderly because fellow beings are redeemed by Christ's blood, with supreme love for God seeking humanity's highest good, while its lack is selfish self-love destroying Christlikeness, departing from righteousness and blinding to required perfection. In caring for needy children it must act from love not mere duty, because Christ died for them, purchased them, and expects them loved as He loved the sinful and wayward, requiring effort, self-denial and self-sacrifice yet small compared with giving His only Son, and only this principle makes mercy effective. It treats every soul carefully as precious enough for God to give His Son, loves to a purpose, shares gifts freely beyond a favored few, leads sinners to Christ's ideal by grace enabling them to reach it, gives the Bread of Life, and works like ministering angels for salvation as the sign of discipleship.
Religion is love expressed in thoughtful kindness, gentle courtesy and the end of quarrels at home and in church. Knowing God transforms into His image and purity, changing speech from cheap and common words, hasty censure and passionate spirit which come not from Him but from the enemy of all good, to patience, mercy as Christ is merciful, kindness, pity, tender-heartedness and firmness as a rock to principle. Cherishing love in kind, tender, sympathetic words accords with God's character, while harshness and accusation are of the devil. That love which is God in essence makes the best of apparent injury, gives Satan no triumph, does not make the worst appear nor expose weakness to enemies, but mends, restores and heals the erring, saving souls and hiding a multitude of sins. Cheerful, hopeful words talking faith and love glorify God.
In marriage and the home His grace and the Redeemer's strength enable husband and wife to keep the pledge to make each other happy, refusing selfish love shut up to themselves and sharing affection, kind words, sympathy, appreciation, cheer and helpful deeds that bring happiness to lonely struggling people, lighten weary burdens and find true happiness in unselfish ministry under Christ's Spirit with the law of kindness on the lips in forbearance as those born again to help crooked lives become straight in God. Love must stand by justice as its twin sister lest stern justice shut love out, opening the heart to the genial glad rays of the Sun of Righteousness to bring softening influence instead of anxiety over worldly things and rigid economy, joining strictness with patience, tenderness, faith, prayer, encouragement and a gentle winning spirit that has transforming power upon children and makes home a sunny, holy, consecrated Bethel. True affection is the better nature of childhood to be encouraged with the tender spirit of Jesus and angelic sympathy, not discouraged and repressed lest the better nature be stifled into hard-hearted cold selfishness ruining happiness unless divine love melts it. The heavenly Father must be presented to children as a God of love not tyranny, and Jesus as their best Friend to whom they can bring trials and sorrows for sympathy, keeping the family altar and bringing them to Him in faith to become His children and followers.
In schools and institutions to dwell in love is to dwell in God, with constant forgiving love binding erring souls instead of casting them away when law is disregarded. It joins firm impartial justice with mercy, never standing aloof, indifferent, unapproachable, harsh or censorious, but takes youth as they are, bears patiently with ignorance in dull scholars, deals tenderly with sensitive nervous students, and faithfully corrects wrong in a way binding the reproved still closer in heart. It deals with youth of fewer advantages and less favorable surroundings as Christ deals with the erring, bearing with perversity and rebellion with love that does not grow cold and efforts that do not cease, never giving the sinner to Satan's buffeting but standing with open arms to welcome the erring, rebellious and even apostate, representing Christ by precept and example without shame before His judgment seat, rather than hasty suspension or expulsion, with careful consideration, sympathy, gentleness, tenderness, compassion and forbearance. Heaven-born love strikes deeper than surface, seeks not its own, is not puffed up nor unseemly, and entered by practice advances Christian character and molds others while selfishness and human dignity are expelled.
As the life and very essence of Christianity and not merely one part, because love is God's nature, it makes every follower a channel of light disciplined by God, trained by the Spirit and aided by heavenly agencies to co-labor in winning souls from error and sin to truth and holiness, best resembling Christ in mind and spirit to seek and save the lost with benevolence, tender sympathy and love for souls. Failing to love proves not knowing God, for knowing Him frees from selfishness to love God supremely and neighbor as self as Christ delighted in God's will making the Father's will His food, and this pure sanctified humble love in a lifework like Christ's is a sacred fragrance filling the house that alone wins souls, while talk, Pharisaism, self-praise, eloquence, knowledge, devotion, talents and endowments without love are nothing and no missionary succeeds without cherishing it, for love seeks not its own glory but is kind, not easily provoked and thinks no evil. Received love is active power quickening mind and soul, enlarging capacity for feeling and loving, so whoever loves God supremely loves all God's children with respectful approach, considerate courtesy winning confidence, and sincere affection without pretense, making institutions a representation of heaven and perpetual testimony of sanctifying truth practiced, each revealing the love desired for self. A heart filled with Jesus fastens on Him supremely so affection flows in this divine channel without restraint or danger, learned beginning with fear of the Lord and study of God's plans where each as member of one whole must not break bonds without harming character and snaring others. Contemplation of Calvary stirs the soul, transforms character from quick temper, harshness, pride and independence to willing allegiance at Jesus' feet, reproducing unselfish tenderness, patience, goodness and entreating effort for perishing souls, testifying in spirit, word and action by helping one another, so from one reflecting Christ's righteousness flows warmth bringing sunshine of His love making others better as they hear loving words and see loving actions and know Christ has been learned.
Cultivating love is connected with spiritual strength over the powers of darkness, for one who does not love does not know God whose nature is love. Knowing that God is love remains certain even when people lose confidence through their own choices, supporting confidence in Him and giving reason for gladness rather than mourning and complaint. He has proved love by loving the weak, perverse and sinful, Jesus loves followers personally without forgetting them and cares with a mother's tenderness, and it is their privilege to have Christ's peace, to rest content and be happy in His love cherished more deeply.
Its absence is proved by strife, contention, discord and speaking or thinking evil of anyone, showing genuine conversion is lacking, while its presence is proved by loving one another as brethren with pity and courtesy. Envy, evil surmising and bitterness likewise mark its lack, whereas love lays aside selfishness, enmity, grievances, jealousy, mistrust and suspicion for loving confidence and tender cherishing toward brothers and sisters. First revealed in the home, it then bursts its bonds to become a working power in church, neighborhood, community and nations, binding in holy union those bought with a price.