Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 455
“And to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” Ephesians 3:19. IT is the distinguishing mark of God’s people that they know the love of Christ. Without exception all those who have passed from death unto life, whatever they may not know, have learned this. Without exception, all those who are not saved, whatever they may know besides, know nothing of this. An ungodly man may know something about Christ’s love. He may believe in the fact of it. He may perceive something of the theory of it. He may even be able to follow Believers in certain’ expressions of its enjoyments. But to know the love itself, to taste its sweets, to realize personally, experimentally, and vitally, the love of Christ as shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, is the privilege of the child of God, and of the child of God, alone. This is the secure enclosure into which the stranger cannot enter. This is the garden of the Lord, so well protected by walls and hedges that no wild boar of the woods can enter. Only the redeemed of the Lord shall walk here. They, and only they, may pluck the fruits and content themselves with the delights thereof. We may begin the exercises of this evening with a question of self-examination, and we may continue them throughout the whole service, trying to press that question home to your consciences—Do I know the love of Christ? Have I felt it? Do I understand it? Do I feel it now? Is it now shed abroad in my heart? Do I know that Jesus now loves me? Is my heart quickened, and animated, and warmed, and attracted towards Him through the great Truth of God that it recognizes and rejoices in—that Christ really loves me, and has chosen me, and set His heart upon me? We have started the first point. Every child of God knows the love of Christ. We advance another step. All the children of God do not know this love to the same extent. There are in Christ’s family babes, young men, strong men, and a few who are fathers. Now, as they grow and progress in all other matters, so they most certainly make advances here. Indeed, an increase of love, a more perfect apprehension of Christ’s love, is one of the best and most infallible gauges whereby we may test ourselves whether we have grown in Divine Grace or not. If we have grown in Grace, it is absolutely certain that we shall have advanced in our knowledge and reciprocation of the love of Christ. Many here present have believed in Jesus and they know the love of Jesus. But oh, they know it not as some others here do who have gone into the inner chamber and have been made to drink of the spiced wine of Christ’s pomegranate! Some of you have begun to climb the mountain, and the view which lies at your feet is lovely and passing fair. But the landscape is not such as would greet your eyes if you could but stand where advanced saints are standing now—and could look to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south—and see all the lengths and breadths and depths and heights of the love of Christ which passes knowledge. To change the figure—the love of Christ is comparable to Jacob’s ladder. Some of us are standing on the lower rungs, and there are others who are ascending and who rest half way. Others, still, are getting up so high that we can scarcely see them by reason of the dimness of our sight. And there are some, perhaps at this hour, who have just reached the topmost rung of this knowledge and are now stepping, as it were, into the arms of Christ who awaits them at the top! They have attained unto their perfection. Here they shall find repose. They shall rest in His love and with the eternal songs of Heaven they shall rejoice forever and forever. I want, tonight, to bring you, who are the people of God, to the bottom of the ladder. I want to encourage you to put your feet upon the first rung of it. And then go step by step with you, till, I hope, before we have done, if God the Holy Spirit is with us here, we shall have gotten very high up that ladder. And then we shall go away hoping never to come down again, only wishing, with Peter, that we may tarry on the mount and build for us tabernacles that we may sit on the summit of the mountain with our Lord forever. I. Well then, to come first of all to the bottom of the ladder. One of the lowest ways of knowing the love of Christ may be described as the doctrinal method—very useful one—but nothing to be compared to those that we shall have to mention afterwards. If a man would know the love of Christ, he should endeavor to study the Word of God with care, attention, constancy, and with dependence upon the Spirit’s illumination that he may be enabled to understand aright. It is well for a Christian man to be thoroughly established in the faith once delivered to the saints. It is an ill day for a man when he ceases to hold fast to the form of sound words which was delivered to us by Christ Himself and His holy Apostles. Depend upon it, doctrinal ignorance will always make Churches weak. But where saints are fed upon the finest of the wheat, and are made to suck of the honey out of the rock, and to eat of the manna and fatness of Gospel doctrine, they will, all other things being equal, become the strongest and most valiant Believers on the face of the earth. There is a tendency in these times to depreciate the value of Gospel doctrines. Oh, I beseech you, be not led astray by this error. There are in the Word of God certain things really taught. Do not believe that the Bible is a lump of wax to be shaped just as you please. Do not imagine that, “Yes,” is right, and that “No,” which contradicts it, is right, too. The Lord has written this Book intending to teach us something, and a moderate understanding, sanctified by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will enable you to know what the Lord does mean to teach you, especially upon such a vital point as this. Do not, I beseech you, say, “Oh, it does not much matter what doctrines I hold.”