Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1982
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, September 11th, 1887, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”— John 15:9.
IN THE LOVE of Christ we find our best joy. The pastures of the Great Shepherd are wide, but the sweetest grasses grow close to his pierced feet. The love of Jesus is the center of salvation; it is as the sun in the midst of the heavens of grace. I trust that while I lead your meditations this morning towards this golden theme you will be able to enter in spirit into the heart and soul of it. Paul said, when he spake of marriage, “Behold, I show you a mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” There is always much that is mysterious here, but it is ever the mystery of love. You believe in this love; you know it; you have tasted it; and, therefore, I speak to an audience that will appreciate the subject, however faulty may be my handling of it.
Oh, for a higher experience! May the Lord at this hour conduct us into his banqueting-house, and rejoice us with his love, which is better than wine! Many of us will bring to the feast a keen appetite: this is all we can contribute, and even that is a gift of love. Oh, that we may have a quick eye to see the beauties of the Lord, and a discerning heart to perceive how his love to us enhances all his charms!
The love of Christ to his people is the sweetest, fullest, and most profitable theme that a preacher can bring before his people, and it is always a suitable and seasonable subject, whatever the condition of the congregation may be. But we greatly need the aid of the Holy Spirit to prepare our minds for the enjoyment of this truth. It is one thing to hear the outward sound of love, it is another thing to feel an inward sense of it. It is pleasant to hear the rippling of the brook; but if you are dying of thirst that silver music will not refresh you if you are unable to drink of the stream. Come, Holy Spirit, come! We beseech thee, take of the things of Christ, and glorify him by revealing them to our inmost souls!
I. We will plunge into the subject at once. Here is our first exhortation: LET US UNQUESTIONINGLY BELIEVE THAT JESUS LOVES US. That is to say, if we are indeed in him, he loves us infinitely. Our Lord is speaking here, not of his general love of benevolence, but of that peculiar and special affection which he bears to his own, of whom he says, “I have chosen you out of the world.” If we are in him, as the branches are in the vine, and if we prove the reality of that union by bringing forth the fruits of grace to his glory, then we are the objects of the Savior’s peculiar love. He speaks to us as a church, and to each one personally, and says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” O my hearer, does he speak thus to thee? Hast thou taken hold of Christ by faith? Has he saved thee? Is thy life derived from him? Is he thy hope, thy joy, thine all? If this be so, then doubt not that he speaks to thee with his own lips as well as out of this book of record. As truly as if he stood at thy side and grasped thy hand, and spoke, with his eyes looking into thine eyes with tenderness of love, he saith to thee, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”
That he truly loves us, we may confidently believe; for he himself is at pains to assure us of it in so many words. He does not leave it to an inference, although the inference might be safely drawn from the ten thousand love-deeds of his life and death; but he deliberately declares his love: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” Do you doubt his words?—words spoken in the solemn night of his agony, and registered in the volume of inspiration? Does not your heart respond to him, as he says, “I have loved you”? Do you not answer, “Ay, Lord, it is true indeed! There is little need for thee to tell me this with thy lips, for thou hast assured me of it by thy wounds. I know that thou lovest me. Oh, that I loved thee better in return!”
As if to confirm us in our belief beyond all wavering, and to lead out our hearts to behold the largeness of his affection, he quotes a parallel to his love of the most extraordinary kind. He looks not to the loves of earth, but to the greatest love of heaven, and says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” Beloved, you do not, dare not, could not, doubt the love of the Father to his Son. It is one of those unquestionable truths about which you never dreamed of holding an argument. Our Lord would have us place his love to us in the same category with the Father’s love to himself. We are to be as confident of the one as of the other. What a wonderful certainty is conveyed to us by this token! The Father regards with boundless love the Son, with whom he is in essential union, since they are one God; and as surely as this is the case, so surely does Jesus love the people whom he has taken into marriage union with himself for ever. Doubt not: it will be a sort of blasphemy to doubt after such a pledge as this. Think of it, and let your assurance become doubly sure.