Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1257
“Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, you would love Me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of Myself, but He sent Me.” John 8:42.
THE order of salvation is, first, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we obtain a change of heart as His gift, and then that renewed heart loves the Lord Jesus in whom it has believed. Faith leads the train of Divine Graces, not love. It would not be preaching the Gospel to say to men, “Love Christ.” Love to Jesus is an after growth. To preach the Gospel is to cry, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” The faith which saves is not, however, a mere credence of facts in which men feel no interest. It is a hearty trustfulness in Jesus for blessings of which we feel the need and it is, in every case, an operative faith—a faith which works—and works by love. If you have, indeed, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul, then you are a child of God, for, “to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”
If you are a son of God, you love your Father. And it is a rule that “he that loves Him that begat loves Him, also, that is begotten of Him.” So that true faith is the evidence of our sonship and sonship with God is attended with love— which love to the Father leads to the love of His Son, Jesus Christ. By this, then, shall you judge your faith this day, whether it is the faith of God’s elect or not. If it is a cold assent of the understanding, it will not save you. But if it is a warm allegiance of the heart, then it is, indeed, the faith which is of the operation of the Spirit of God.
I intend, this morning, to speak about our love to Christ. it may help you if I give you the outline, first, of what I have to say. Love to Christ is, in itself, essential. Secondly, love to Christ is the test of sonship, as the text informs us. And therefore, thirdly, love to Christ is a test which it is important for us to apply to ourselves at this time.
I. LOVE TO CHRIST IS, IN ITSELF, ESSENTIAL. There are some Graces in which a man may be deficient and though he may be the worse for that deficiency, still he may be a Christian. But love to Jesus is an essential Grace, a Grace of the heart, lying near the vitals of piety, so that the lack of it is fatal. You must love Jesus Christ if you are, indeed, alive unto God. Now observe, first, that the absence of love to Christ is the loss of one of the greatest of spiritual pleasures. We ought to pity, as well as to blame the man who does not love Jesus Christ. Alas, poor soul, into what a state has he fallen that he should not be able to love Him who is “altogether lovely,” nor to admire Him who is the “Chief among ten thousand”?
I met, not long ago, with a lady who had lost her taste and smell—a somewhat singular affliction. The fairest rose in the world cannot salute her nostrils with its pleasant perfume. The most dainty flavor that ever delighted men’s palate has no charms for her. She is dead to those pleasures and I could not but sympathize with her in her loss. Yet, after all, this loss of pleasurable sensation is a trifle—it will only last for a few years—and when this brief life is over she will possess every desirable faculty.
But what a terrible thing to be unable to perceive the fragrance of the name of Jesus, which is as ointment poured forth! What sorrow is yours if you are unable to taste the sweet flavor of the bread of Heaven, or the richness of that wine on the lees well refined which makes the saints of God so glad! I had rather be blind, deaf and dumb and lose my taste and smell, than not love Christ! To be unable to appreciate HIM is the worst of disabilities, the most serious of calamities. It is not the loss of a single spiritual faculty, but it proves the death of the soul! It evidences the absence of all that can make existence worth the having, for he that has not the Son has not life—and the wrath of God abides on him.
The absence of the love of Christ in the soul, again, is a sign of very grievous degradation. It is the mark of the animal that it cannot enter into intellectual pursuits. You may put before it the most delightful of studies, but the swine can
never realize mental pleasure. It would be its degradation that it cannot, if, indeed, it had been originally intended for such pursuits. Man was made for the highest and most elevated enjoyment, the enjoyment of the Presence of God and the admiration of His infinite perfections. And when he loses this power to appreciate, admire and love his God, he sinks from his high calling to a level with the brutes.
If an angel could be lowered into a dog and yet could worship God and love Christ, he would scarcely have fallen at all, compared with the fatal descent of a man who is plunged into such a stupor of evil that he cannot perceive the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ! We greatly pity those poor creatures of our own race who are unable to reason, but what shall we think of those who cannot love, or rather cannot love where love should center? To the poor idiot you may read the most charming lines of Milton, but he cannot rise to a sense of sublimity. You may afterwards pour into his ears the pleasing sweetnesses of Wordsworth, or the fascinating allegories of Bunyan, but he smiles at you vacantly and you perceive that his imbecile mind is incapable of comprehension.