I. INTRODUCTION
Let me begin by thanking the host society and church here at Redland for having us all here, and for giving me the privilege of being one of the speakers. This is a first for me, and I am grateful for this opportunity. I also commend you for the theme you have chosen for us, “Love: the Bond of Perfectness,” based on the Scripture in Col. 3:14. This is and ought to be a vitally important subject for you believing young people of Christ’s church. God’s love is the ethical source of and spiritual reason for our salvation. It is the heartbeat of the Christian’s life. What is it that brings you young people together for this convention? It is the bond of love! What is it that we are here to enjoy and have enriched? It is the bond of love with God and with one another!
The aspect of the theme which I have been asked to speak to you on is love as the gift of God. This is the proper starting point, for all true spiritual love is of God; there is no love apart from Him, as says the Scripture in I John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God….” The love we have is a gift from Him. But when we talk about love being the gift of God, we do not merely mean that the love we have is from God; we also mean that He loved us first, before we had any love for Him or anyone else. His love for us is preeminent and foremost. Of this we read in I John 4:10, 19: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We love him, because he first loved us.”
That is a blessed beginning – God’s love for us. Someone has well said that to know God’s love for us is heaven on earth. I hope that you count it so, young people. There is nothing greater for you to know and be assured about than the love of God for you. If you have that, you have everything. Yet to speak of the love of God is to enter the realm of the sacred and profound. Someone else has written that when we look at God’s love, we look into His heart. That makes me tremble and makes me want to say, “What can I say about the love of God?” Well, we can say something about it because God has told us about it in His word. In His love letter to us, He has opened His heart and showed us what His love is.
Such is a passage as Col. 3:14. I want to make just a few introductory comments about this text before we delve into our subject. Paul is not as such talking about God’s love for us here. He is talking about our love for our fellow believers. Yet as we said because all love is of God and since His love for us is first, we may apply this passage to God’s love for us. But what we want to point out especially is that something is said here about the very nature and character of love. Love is said to be the bond of perfectness. That’s almost a definition of love.
That is quite a bit different from the popular idea of love. Usually love is defined in terms of its emotional nature. Love is said to be a strong feeling of attraction to something beautiful. Now it is true that love, also God’s love has this dimension. But this is not the heart of it. The heart of God’s love is that it is a bond, the bond of perfectness. That word “bond” comes from a root that means “to tie together, to fasten on all sides.” That is the nature of God’s love – it ties us together in an intimate bond, in an unbreakable union. Hosea 11:1, 4 says it well: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love….”
That is a very beautiful concept. It implies that love is basically a covenant concept. In loving us God establishes a personal relationship with us, a relationship of friendship! We find that beautiful idea expressed in I John 4:16: “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.” That’s the perspective we want to take in this speech.
II. ROOTED IN ETERNITY
The love God has for His people is rooted in eternity. This is the wonder of God’s love – He loved us before time, before the worlds were made, before we had any being or existence! His love does not just begin in time, when we were born or when we were converted. No, it is from eternity; it extends back into the eternal heart of God. Jeremiah was given a vision of this truth, “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” Jer. 31:3.
This implies the great and precious truth of your election. From eternity in His perfect plan of salvation God determined to make you an object of His love. He wrote your name in the Lamb’s book of life. He engraved you on the palms of His hands. But besides that, that choice of you on God’s part was itself an act of love. You were elected in love. This is what Paul says in Eph. 1:4, 5: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,…in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself….”
That ought to make you and me fall down before God in humble adoration, that He would so choose us in love and determine to make us know His love. Remember, He didn’t do that for everyone. Election is discriminatory, particular. God didn’t choose all men to know His love. Just as He singled out Jacob and loved him, but hated Esau, so He has singled you out, believing covenant young people, and loved you. And what did He see in you that would make Him love you? Did He look ahead and see you giftedness, your beauty, your love of Him, your faith in Christ, your good works? No, none of that. There was nothing in you and me to attract God’s love to us. In fact, as sinners we are wholly unloveable. God loved us simply because it was His good pleasure. That is humbling, isn’t it?
But perhaps you ask at this point: What is so important about the fact that God’s love for us is eternal and rooted in eternity? Isn’t it more important to know that God loves us in time, right now? And besides, isn’t this whole idea rather impersonal? If love is the bond of perfectness, how could God love us before we had any existence? How could there be a personal bond before we were real beings?
In answer to these questions, let it be said that your election in love and to love is far from impersonal. Not only did the personal, living God choose you, but He also chose you as a person. You see, He foreknew you and thus chose you. That foreknowledge of God means that He knew all about you; He knew your person, your makeup, your life. To the mind of God therefore, you were a real person. And thus the bond of love between God and you was also real as far as God was concerned. But what about that first question? How important is it to know that God loved you from eternity?
There are a couple of reasons why I believe it is vitally important to know this. In the first place, because it shows us that God’s love for us is sovereign. It is not that we loved God and therefore He loved us. No. He loved us first, loved us sovereignly. And so, you see, that also means that we are not loved with a weak, human love, but with the mighty love of God. And therefore in the second place, this is important to know because it shows that this love of God for us is sure. Because it is God’s eternal love, it will not die out as temporal human love does. Because it is from eternity it will extend to eternity. We have an eternal bond with God! Nothing can break that bond, nothing can pull us apart. Now that’s comfort, comfort for you young people who live in a world of fickle, uncertain human love!
III. MANIFEST AT THE CROSS
Let’s go on now to ask the question: How does the love of God manifest itself? We may certainly say that the very desire on God’s part to bind us together with Himself in a personal relationship of friendship manifested His love. That He would even want to do that, considering the fact that He already had fellowship within Himself and was perfectly happy, shows His love for us.
But the Word of God drives us to a more concrete manifestation of the love of God – I John 4:9, 10: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Love, as you know is often measured by what it gives to others and what it does for others. That’s the way we measure love and that’s the way the Bible talks about the measure of God’s love, too. True love is in its nature sacrificial; it gives. True love manifests itself in deeds; it does something for its objects. How did the love of God manifest itself with regard to these two things?
Scripture is very plain on what God’s love gave to us. We already read from I John 4:9, 10 about that, but perhaps the most familiar verse is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God gave what was most precious, most dear to Him – His own Son. You remember how the Bible speaks of Abraham giving up Isaac? Well, that’s just a faint picture of what God did when He gave us His Son. What a sacrifice! What a love!
Scripture is equally plain on what God’s love did through that gift of His Son. We already read from I John 4:10, where mention is made of the fact that God gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. But let us quote an Old Testament passage – Is. 38:17: “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” That’s what God’s love did – it delivered our souls from the pit of corruption – that’s death and hell, and gave us life with Him, everlasting life. What an act! What a love!
But now I want us to see the absolute necessity of this gift and act of God’s love in order for that love to be complete. I mean complete from the viewpoint of what Col. 3:14 says about love. God’s love toward us is said to be the bond of perfectness. That means that for the tie of love to be made, there must be a perfect subject and a perfect object. In other words, for there to be a personal relationship of friendship between God and us, both God and we must be perfect. God’s love cannot operate in any other sphere than that of perfection. Only in holiness can it be completed and a bond established.
But now we know that while there is no problem with the subject of love being perfect, namely, God, there is a problem with the objects of love, namely, ourselves. God is perfect and holy; there is no sin in Him. But we are sinners, not perfect, but full of sin. We are dead in sins; we are in the pit of corruption, impure, vile. How then can the love of God be shown to us? How can He love such sinners as we? How can He tie us to Himself in the strong bands of love and have fellowship with us?
The answer is that He cannot – except He deliver us from sin and make us holy and perfect. And that is what He did in giving His Son to the death of the cross. This is the amazing nature of God’s love. It went to this extent to bind us to Himself in the cords of friendship. And now let’s turn to one more Scripture that speaks of this marvelous work of God’s love – Romans 5:6-8. Here we find God’s great love for us sinners contrasted with the greatest manifestation of human love. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
This then is how and why the bond of perfection has been made between God and us. God sees us in Jesus Christ, free of sin, perfect in holiness, and He draws us to Himself in the bond of holy, divine love. What wondrous love!
IV. POURED OUT UPON THE CHURCH
Having reached this point in this message, you may be ready to ask: But how do we know that we are loved by God? How do I know personally that God loves me? How do I know that the love of God manifested at the cross is for my benefit, so that I am fastened to God in a covenant relationship? After all, God chose me in eternity and the cross took place nearly 2,000 years age!?
That is a good question and deserves a good answer. And from the Scriptures that question receives a good answer. You must know that God has taken care of that, too. Rom. 5:5 tells how: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” God has given us another gift – the Holy Spirit, and by that Spirit who comes to dwell in our hearts by faith the love of God for us is worked in our hearts, so that we know it and are assured of it. By the work of this Spirit we are able to say with Paul in Gal. 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
But perhaps you still say: How do I know that I have the gift of the Holy Spirit so that I know that I am loved by God? The answer is, by your interest in God and in Jesus Christ. The Spirit not only works in the elect person’s heart the knowledge of God’s love for him, but He also works in that heart a love for God on the part of the saved sinner. And what is more, that Spirit also works in an elect person’s heart a saving faith in Jesus Christ, such that one believes in Him and embraces His work on the cross.
And so my questions to you are: What is your interest in God? Do you love Him? Do you find in your heart and life a desire to be in the presence and fellowship of God? And, what is your interest in Jesus Christ? Do you believe on Him? Do you embrace what He has done for sinners? If you do, then you also know that God loves you. That is the way of personal assurance of God’s love.
Do you see how fully God’s love is a gift to us? Our Triune God has taken care of every aspect of it to make it a reality. God the Father chose us in love to be the recipients of it. God the Son came and died to lay the foundation of that love. And God the Holy Spirit applies it to our hearts so that we have the knowledge and assurance of it.
What does that make you do? How do you respond to that love? You are filled with awe and praise, such that you say, “O my God, how great is thy love to me!” And you respond with the words of the hymn writer: “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.” May God bless you young people with the knowledge of His love for you, and may you by the power of the Spirit keep yourselves in that love.