Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3398
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.
This is the point where all genuine Christians meet. They can all say, without exception, “We love Him.” They do not agree in doctrine—it is a pity, but I suppose that as long as we are in this body, we shall, none of us, see all the Truths of God at once, and each man, seeing only a portion of the Truth, is most likely to think that what he does not see is not true—whereas it may be just as important as that which he is able to perceive. Well, well, amidst a thousand controversies between Calvinism and Arminianism, and all the forms that various systems have taken with regard to this, and that, and the other, still, all the elect of God, being quickened by Divine Grace, unite in this one declaration, “Whatever we do not believe, we do love Him.” There are great diversities of experience, as well as of doctrine. Some are down in the gloom and some never seem to leave the cellars of the Lord’s house—they have deep spiritual exercises, they doubt, they fear, they tremble and are afraid. Others climb up to the very roof of the Palace Beautiful and look abroad upon the fair scene around. Their feet are used to dancing with spiritual delight and their hearts sing sweetly before the Lord. Theirs is an experience of communion rather than of corruption. They have been with Jesus and their faces are made to shine with His company. Perhaps if I told my experience, it might differ from yours from an experimental point of view—in that we might stand wide as the poles asunder—but if we are in Christ, we can, each of us, say with equal truth and intensity, “We love Him.” There we join hands! Whatever we have not felt, tasted, or known, we do love Him!
And you will notice, too, in this short expression that there is a force, a power in it, principally derived from the fact of the Personality of this love. “We love Hm.” You know, to love an, “it,” is hard work. It seems contrary to the nature and all the instincts of love. Love always seeks a living person to grasp. But when it is put, “we love Him,” it reads so naturally that we feel that we can love, through the force of the Divine Nature within us, with all the vitality and intensity of our godliness!
We can love Him—that blessed Son of God, that condescending One, that sacrificing, dying Lamb—that ascended, reigning, coming Savior, towards whom our hearts are drawn out. “We love Him.” Depend upon it, we must have more preaching about the Person of Christ and our hearts must assume more and more a trustfulness and affection towards Him. A merely doctrinal religion is pretty sure to degenerate into bigotry. An experimental religion will sooner or later sink into gloom. Understand what I mean. I am not speaking either against doctrine or experience. On the contrary, I would say all I could in favor of both—and they do enter into all men’s lives who live near to Christ—but still make either the one or the other the great master-thought, brood over either of them, contend for them, live for them, throw your whole force into them and you may degenerate! But when you live as unto Him. When He is the Truth that you believe in. When He is the Way that you tread. When He is the Life that you experience and when the doctrine and practice and experience all meet in Him as lines in a center—then you shall not be degraded, you shall not degenerate—but you shall rise! You shall go from glory to glory, being changed by the Presence of the Lord. “We love Him,” then.
But I must make one observation before I plunge into the text, namely, that in order to love this blessed Person, being a Person, it is clear to everyone who thinks, that there must, first of all, have been some acquaintance with Him and then some deep conviction concerning His excellency. We cannot love whom we do not know or esteem. If we know nothing about Christ, have no understanding of Him, have not in any degree occupied our minds with Him, we may talk about love to Him, but it will be mere talk. And after we have known Christ, by the reading or hearing of the Word, blessed to us by His Holy Spirit, it will be necessary for us to be brought into an admiring confidence in Him, believingthat He is the altogether lovely, the chief among ten thousand, worthy of all our reliance, worthy of all our adoration and service! Then it is, when knowledge has produced faith, that faith gives birth to love!
I make this remark because I have sometimes noticed that in addressing Sunday school children, it is not uncommon to tell them that the way to be saved is to love Jesus, which is not true. The way to be saved for man, woman, or child is to trust Jesus for the pardon of sin—and then, trusting Jesus, love comes as a fruit! Love is by no means the root. Faith, alone, occupies that place. And I think I have heard young persons, too, talking always about the question, “Do I love the Lord or no?”—a very proper question, but it is not the first, but the second! The question that should always come first is, “Do I trust the Lord or no? Do I rest entirely in what He has done for me? Am I depending upon Him for eternal life and salvation?” If that first question is answered, the second will not long remain a matter of doubt! But if you begin with the second, and neglect the first, you may involve yourselves in very serious consequences. The great Gospel precept is not, “Love Christ,” but, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved”—not that love is less than faith, but that love, though, perhaps, first in point of excellence in some respects, comes second in point of order—and that faith is first to be looked to in the soul and then love will inevitably and necessarily follow.
But now to come to the text. I shall treat the first part of the sentence as the great general confession of the whole Church—“We love Him.” And the second first part of the sentence as the most glorious reason for that love—“because He first loved us.” I am not going to preach this evening, but only to stir you up about these points.