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Berean Expositor Volume 4 & 5
LOVE.
"Though 1: . . . understand all mysteries. . . . and
have not love, I am nothing" (I Cor. 13: 2).
pp. 54-55
We are daily adding to our knowledge of the deeper teaching of the Word; fresh
beauties shine forth from the sacred page; we seek increasingly "rightly to divide the
Word of truth," and with this increased knowledge and light one might be led to imagine
that spiritually nothing much was left to be desired. As we read the Scriptures, however,
light and knowledge are not put foremost, love is first and greatest and must be in all
times the criterion of our true spiritual advancement. When the Lord was questioned by
the lawyer as to which was the great commandment in the law, He replied:--
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets" (Matt. 22: 37-40).
It should be observed that heart love comes before that of the soul, or of the mind. It
is comparatively easy to love with the mind, to love in "word," or in "tongue," but to love
"in deed and in truth" (I John 3: 18) necessitates the activity of the heart. When we
notice the prayers of the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1: and 3:, we find that while "the
knowledge of Him" and "to know what is the hope of His calling" are prominent in the
first prayer, love figures very largely in the second, "rooted and grounded in love," and
"to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ." In the practical section of Ephesians
(4: - 6:) the apostle exhorts the believer to a worthy walk, and the central occurrence of
the word "walk" in that section is the exhortation to:--
"Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour" (Eph. 5: 2).
This high standard is the basis of the apostle's appeal in Eph. 5: 25, "Husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it." When the apostle would
pray for the advancement of the Philippians, although he desired them to have
"discernment" and ability to "try the things that differ," these were not the initial
petitions. The Spirit of God knew only too well that discernment without love is
withering and harsh, and knowledge without love but ministers to pride; therefore the
apostle was led to pray first and foremost for the overflowing of their love, "And this I
pray, that your love may abound yet more and more" (Phil. 1: 9). In the Epistle to the
Colossians the apostle speaks of putting on the new man, and as a climax says, "And
above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness" (Col. 3: 14).