The contents of the law is love, and it is therefore expressed with one word in Rom 13:9-10: “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love in essence has no other object than that which is most eminent, most cherishable, most satisfying, and unchangeable—which is God Himself. This love engenders love toward whatever God wills us to love—and thus toward our neighbor. Prior to the fall, Adam knew and was united to God in an immediate sense, and he also loved God in an immediate sense. However, after the fall man lives in enmity toward God and does not love Him. When God grants His children the privilege to be permitted and able to love Him again, then such occurs by reason of the mediation of a Mediator who has removed the enmity and who restores the elect again into friendship with God. This friendship is exercised by faith, by which the regenerate person, receiving the merits of Christ as a ransom, finds peace with God, enjoys the love of God toward him, and in having fellowship with God increasingly loves Him. Faith thus stirs up love and makes it active. In this respect “faith … worketh by love” (Gal 5:6). This is what distinguishes the love of believers from the love which Adam had. All love which is divorced from and functions apart from faith is no true love. Natural men may write and speak of love, but it is only the work of blind men. They may refer to God as “dear Lord” and imagine that they love God, but they deceive themselves—they do not love God. They may judge that God is to be loved and be rationally motivated to conduct themselves in a manner which resembles this, but their heart is cold and void of love.
Love Toward God Defined
Love is the sweet motion of the heart toward God—infused into the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit—whereby they, by virtue of union with Him and in view of His perfections, delight themselves in God, and in a joyous embrace of His will, fully surrender themselves to His service.
(1) Love is a motion. Love is compared to fire; fire is swift in its motion and love is likewise vehement in its motion. “For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame” (Song 8:6). Love is a sweet motion. The heart is subject to many and various motions; some are grievous and some are joyous. Love refreshes the heart and is a sweet motion. Among men it is sweeter to love than to be loved. “O love, for delights!” (Song 7:6).
(2) Love has God as its object. Man has the aptitude to love and is inclined to love. Being ignorant of the worthiness and preciousness of God, however, he chooses something physical to be an object of love. He is remarkably attached to physical things in an inordinate manner, so that he corrupts himself and abuses that glorious principle that is within him. However, when the believer begins to perceive who God is, all that was beautiful and delightful before loses its luster. He withdraws his love from it—yes, he cannot love it, for he hates it, as it is opposed to the love of God. Instead, God becomes and remains the object of his love; he rejoices that he may love God, and he cannot be satiated in this love. It grieves him greatly that he does not love God more; God is and remains the most eminent of all objects that He can love. Yes, He is the only object and he does not wish to delight in anything except it be for God’s sake. “O love the Lord, all ye His saints” (Ps 31:23); “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength” (Ps 18:1). God is the object of love because He is God—and thus, for His own sake and because He is worthy of it. All that can generate love is to be found in God. “God is love” (1 John 4:19. Our love is set in motion by His love toward us. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Our love is also kindled by the benefits of God. “I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications” (Ps 116:1); “O love the Lord … for the Lord preserveth the faithful” (Ps 31:23). These are indeed stimuli, but the basis and actual reason for love is God Himself—because He is God, is love, is adorable, and is worthy. The purpose of this love is not to acquire something else as a result of this—for then there would be something superior to God which one loved more.
(3) This love is neither begotten by our own activity or ability, nor can a creature give it to us. A heavenly minded minister may preach with a heart of love about love, but he is not able to kindle love in anyone’s heart. Love is not for sale for all the belongings of one’s house, but is only a free gift of God. The Holy Spirit kindles this divine spark in the heart of man. “Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom 5:5); “And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God” (2 Thess 3:5); “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart … to love the Lord thy God” (Deut 30:6).
(4) The Holy Spirit, kindling love in the hearts of God’s children, operates in harmony with man’s nature. Man cannot love what he does not know and his love cannot go beyond that which he knows. The Holy Spirit thus also works this love by the medium of knowledge. God gives enlightened eyes of understanding to His children. He reveals Himself to them, they know His perfections, and the love of God is thus kindled in them. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8); “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matt 22:37).
(5) God is a consuming fire to man who has sinned. Man cannot approach unto God, and even though God is most adorable, he nevertheless cannot love God. Love strives for union. The perception that one who is adorable and has power over us, were to hate us and take vengeance upon us, would thus cause us to flee. Therefore, a union must first be established. Union between God and the sinner is brought about by the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. He brings them to God (1 Pet 3:18) and in Him they become one with God. “… that they also may be one in us … I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:21, 23). Man can only love God when he can consider God to be his God, for otherwise the presence of God causes him to fear and flee from Him. Reverence and love go hand in hand, but fear and love cannot coexist. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18). From man’s side this union with God comes about by faith. By faith the soul approaches unto God. “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him” (Eph 3:12). By virtue of this union, one begins to love God. Love will then endeavor to exercise this union more and more and to preserve it—this being an exercise of friendship as between friends and between a father and children. “He (Abraham) was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23); “I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15).
(6) To love God is a privilege of the elect. They, as others, were the children of wrath. However, God draws them out of the state of sin, gives them life and a childlike disposition, and thus also a loving heart. Since they are born of God, and since God is love, their nature resembles the nature of their heavenly Father, and they love Him. Their intellect, will, and affections have not only been rendered capable, but they are also active in love toward God. It is not sufficient for them to nourish love within, but they are active in manifesting this with their tongue, eye, and entire body. They are thus known as lovers of God and are therefore also referred to as “those that love.” “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil” (Ps 97:10); “They that love His name shall dwell therein” (Ps 69:36).