Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2444
“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you: continue you in My love.” John 15:9.
THE Savior was about to leave His disciples and this was the hardest trial which they had ever experienced. As there could be no trial to them like the loss of the Savior’s Presence, it was at this time Jesus brought forth His richest consolation. He seems to have kept the best wine and the most potent cordial till the time when their spirits most required to be comforted. He said to them more fully than He had ever said it before, “Take this for your comfort—live upon it while I am absent from you. Live upon it always—that as the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.”
But what is this richest of all cordials? What is this marrow and fatness? It is the assurance of His love to us and surely there cannot be a more delightful thought that can fill the soul of a mortal than this—“The Son of God loves me.” Did you ever sit down for half an hour and try to masticate and digest this thought? That God should pity me, I can understand, being so far inferior to Himself and so full of misery. That He should be generous to me, I can comprehend, from the liberality and bounty of His Nature and from my great necessities. But that He should love me is amazing! I cannot see anything lovely in myself and there are many who see that there is much ugliness about me—and I do not doubt that there is—and yet He who knows me better than I know myself and is not unmindful of my infirmities and weaknesses says He loves me! He does not put me at arm’s length and then feed me from His bounty—that would be gracious—He opens wide His bosom and takes me into His heart! He closes the golden doors and takes me in to dwell forever, that in the ivory palaces I may be made glad with the cassia and the aloes of His delightful Presence!
Man, did you ever get this into you soul? Then though you may be clothed in rags, you will feel as though you were wrapped about with imperial purple! Although you may dwell in a very poor and lonely cottage, when this thought shines upon you, you would not change your cottage for a palace! Unto which of the angels did He ever say this? I believe angels are the subjects of Divine Love in a certain sense, but I have never read of Christ saying to them, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.” This is the special privilege for the sons of Adam who have fallen which angels never have. How marvelous! And is it not more than marvelous, that God should have selected me out of the sons of Adam? Perhaps there is nothing in any of you which you can look upon as a reason why God should love you. Did I say, “perhaps”? Why, there are 10,000 things about every one of us that might have won for us the Almighty’s hatred! Instead of this, He says He loves us, His people! Surely, if I were to say no more, but sit down and leave you to think over the fact that God loves you and that your name is dear to Jehovah, your souls might be satisfied as with marrow and fatness!
The text, itself, clearly contains two things—a declaration and an exhortation.
I. THE DECLARATION is like a door on two hinges and on these the text swings. The hinges are, “as,” and, “so”—“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.” What if I call them two diamond pivots upon which the pearly gate of Love turns to shut in God’s people?
These words may be viewed in four lights. The word, “as,” is used here for the sake of affirmation. The Savior does as much as say, in the most solemn manner possible, to His believing people, “I love you and I love you as surely as My Father loves Me.” There are a great many new doctrines starting up, nowadays, and perhaps tomorrow morning there will be another. New opinions are constantly coming up, but I do not remember ever hearing anybody say that the Father does not love the Son. Whatever new heresies there may be—and there will be plenty of them—I do not suppose that this will ever be the subject of heresy. It is so firmly believed, that I never heard a sermon preached to prove it—it is a doctrine taken for granted and laid hold of as being an elementary Truth of the Christian system. Jesus Christ, then, says,
“You do not doubt that the Father loves Me. Now, just as surely as the Father loves Me, I say, solemnly and truly, that I love you.” He says this to each of us who trusts in Him—to all of you poor, troubled Christians who have so many cares that you would not like to count them—you to whom it was whispered, the other day—
“The Lord has quite forsaken you—
Your God will be gracious no more.” “No,” says Jesus, “you do not think that the Father has cast Me off, or ceased to love Me? Then do not think that I have cast you off, or ceased to love you. You are the purchase of My blood and as surely as the Father loves Me, so do I still love you.”
This, “as,” may not only be regarded as an affirmation, but also what is very near akin to it, a confirmation. In order to strengthen their faith, God has been pleased to give His people not merely His Word, but tokens and signs to confirm His Word. When Noah had been delivered from the flood by means of an ark, he might still have been very timid at the first shower of rain and have been afraid that the world was going to be drowned, again. But to remove any fears he might have had, lo, there appears in the heavens God’s rainbow, a bow of many colors, illustrating the joy which there should be in the hearts of those with whom God had made a Covenant! Not a black bow as though it were bent on destruction, nor a crimson bow as though it were dipped in blood—but a rainbow of many colors, a bow turned upwards, not shooting the arrows of vengeance upon mankind, but hinting to us that we may shoot our prayers up to Heaven—a bow unstrung and a bow without an arrow to show that God had ceased from warring with His creatures and had made peace with man. As soon as Noah saw that rainbow, he said, “I shall not be drowned, the world will not be destroyed by a flood!”