The Cross and the Church (continued)
The Love of Christ
It seems hardly necessary to gather up what is in the New Testament to show that, like as Christ was here as the life and light of men, so He was here as the embodiment and expression of the love of God. This is all so well known. In the same way it would be unnecessary to cite the much Scripture which shows that it is by that love that the Church proves Him to have been sent of God (John 17:21).
There are however, some things in this connection which need fresh emphasis, if not an indicating of their implications. Seeing that we are dealing with the Church and the Cross, we can find all that is necessary in that part of the New Testament where this is brought to its fullest expression. In the Letter to the Ephesians it is most impressively made clear that even
Light is Based Upon Love
"Ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend ..." (Ephesians 3:17, 18).
Earlier in the letter we have these words: "having the eyes of your heart enlightened ..." Then what immense things follow as to be known by the Church! We do not dwell upon them, but upon this fact, that light, knowledge, is the fruit which springs from rooting in love. It would seem that God only gives - but gives abundantly - spiritual knowledge to those whose main characteristic is love. Love for Him, yes! but love for His own and for all men.
"I love the Father" (John 14:31).
"The Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things ..." (John 5:20). So Christ attributed His own knowing all things from the Father to mutual love between them. But Christ was the personal embodiment and manifestation of God's love for the elect and for the world (John 3:16; 17:23). John is known as the Apostle of love. What a wealth of spiritual light has come to us through him! Paul was behind no one in this matter of Divine love and has given us the classic of all time as to it (1 Corinthians 13). What fullness and depths of revelation the Church owes to hem!
A scientist may describe a tear in terms of water, salt, and mucus, but the mother or lover understands it in terms of its real meaning. A head knowledge is no knowledge at all in spiritual values. Only the knowledge which comes through the heart - travail, suffering, longing, heartbreak over souls, toward the Lord - is vital knowledge. How much of the wealth of knowledge possessed by John, Paul, and others came out of their heart travail for the Church? Take that out, and there is not much left.
Love Buildeth Up
"... the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Ephesians 4:16).
You might not have thought of that when considering the material for building the Church. Truth, yes! Teaching, yes! Knowledge, yes! But the Holy Spirit singles out love for the main emphasis. Ephesus evidently stood for something in the matter of spiritual values. The fact that the Holy Spirit was so unrestrained in giving such light, light exceeding anything else in the whole Bible, is a fairly good proof of capacity. How well we know that when we minister in the Spirit we have liberty or restraint governed by the spiritual capacity of our hearers. We would often go further, but we just cannot. It comes back at us. At other times or places we can go all the way. Paul was just caught away with superlatives which piled themselves one upon another when he wrote that letter. The longest sentence without a full period in the Bible is found there. He could not stop for the rules and regulations of punctuation. Surely the explanation of this release of the Lord is found in His address to Ephesus in the Revelation - "Thou didst leave thy first love." "Thy first love." There must have been something very precious to the Lord at the beginnings of the church in Ephesus. It is like the cry and sob of a broken-hearted lover, whose love moves into jealousy and heat against the detractor and the unfaithfulness. He sees the triumph of the "god of this world' in blinding the mind, and is angry with Ephesus for complicity with him. Well, much, very much, can be added on this matter, but enough! Remember that the way in which the Church will be built inwardly and outwardly will not be along by meetings, conferences, addresses, teaching, nor by campaigns, but by the bathing of all in love, and sometimes just pure love with lectures.
But - and is it necessary to say it? - this love is the fruit of a deeply crucified life. It is only in a true and adequate apprehension and appreciation of the Cross that the heart is enlarged to all men. 'Love to the loveless.' It is only as the Cross has struck deeply at the roots of pride, personal interest, ambition, reputation, selfishness, and concern for something less than the whole purpose of God, that God will really build His Church. The Church is the Lamb's wife. It is a love matter! These two are one. She takes her very object in life from Him. She leaves all personal and former interests and relationships, and they two become one flesh.
"As he is, even so are we in this world." This oneness has been wrought by the Cross in which they were made one in death, burial, resurrection and ascension.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 27 - "The Cross and the Nations")
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