Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1539
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 23, 1880
“The disciple whom Jesus loved; who also leaned on His breast at supper.” John 21:20.
Our Lord loved all His disciples—“having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” He said to all the Apostles, “I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his Lord does: but I have called you Friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” And yet within that circle of love there was an innermost place in which the beloved John was favored to dwell. Upon the mountain of the Savior’s love there was a knoll a little higher than the rest of the mountain and there John was made to stand, nearest to his Lord. Let us not, because John was specially loved, think less, even in the slightest degree, of the love which Jesus Christ gave forth to the rest of His chosen. I take it, Brothers and Sisters, that those who display an extraordinary love to one are all the more capable of great affection to many and, therefore, because Jesus loved John most, I have an enhanced estimate of His love to the other disciples.
It is not for a moment to be supposed that any one suffered from His supreme friendship for John. John was raised and they were not lowered, but raised with him. All Believers are the dear objects of the Savior’s choice, the purchase of His blood, His portion and inheritance, the jewels of His crown. If, in John’s case, one is greater in love than another, yet all are eminently great and, therefore, if it should so happen that you dare not hope to reach the height of John and cannot look to be distinguished above others as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” yet be very thankful to be among the brotherhood who can each say, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” If you have not attained unto the first three, be happy to belong to the host of those who follow the Son of David.
It is a matchless privilege and an unspeakable honor to enjoy the love of Jesus, even if you march among the rank and file of the armies of love. Our Lord’s love to each of us has in it heights immeasurable and depths unfathomable. It passes knowledge. Yet would I not utter this word of good cheer to make you remain at ease in a low state of Grace—far rather would I excite you to rise to the highest point of love—for if already the Lord has loved you with an everlasting love, if already He has chosen you and called you and kept you and instructed you and forgiven you and manifested Himself to you, why should you not hope that another step or two may yet be taken and that you may climb to the very highest eminence? Why should you not, before long, be styled like Daniel, a “man greatly beloved”? Or like John, “that disciple whom Jesus loved”?
To be loved as John was, with a special love, is an innermost form of that same Grace with which all Believers have been favored. You must not imagine, when I try to exhibit some of the lovable traits of John’s character, that I would have you infer that the love of Christ went forth towards John in any other way than according to the Law of Grace, for whatever there was that was lovable in John it was worked in him by the Grace of God. Under the Law of Works John would have been as surely condemned as any of us and there was nothing legally deserving in John. Grace made him to differ, just as truly as Grace separates the vilest sinner from among the ungodly. Though it is granted that there were certain natural characteristics which made him amiable, yet God is the creator of all that is estimable in man and it was not till the natural had been, by Grace, transformed and transfigured into the spiritual that these things became the subject of the complacency of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, we do not speak of John today as if he were loved because of his works, or stood higher in the heart of Christ on the ground of personal merit, of which John might glory. He, like all the rest of his brethren, was loved of Jesus because Jesus is all love and chose to set His heart upon him. Our Lord exercised a sovereignty of love and chose John for His own name’s sake. And yet, at the same time, there was created in John much that was a fit object for the love of
Christ. The love of Jesus was shed abroad in John’s heart and thus John himself was made fragrant with delightful odors. It was all of Grace—the supposition of anything else is out of place! I look upon this special form of our Lord’s love as one of those “best gifts” which we are bid earnestly to covet—but most emphatically a gift and not a wage or a purchasable commodity.
Love is not bought. It never talks of price or claim. Its atmosphere is free favor. “If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.” The most supreme love is to be sought for, then, after the analogy of Grace, as gracious men seek greater Grace and not as legalists chaffer and bargain for reward and desert. If ever we reach the upper chambers of Love’s palace, Love, herself must lead us up the stairs! Yes, and be to our willing feet the staircase itself. O for the help of the Holy Spirit while we speak upon such a theme!