Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXIMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. John -- Commentaries
Christ says that His end, an end which is surely attained in the
declaration of the divine name, is that 'the love wherewith Thou hast
loved Me may be in them.' We are here touching upon heights too dizzy
for free and safe walking, on glories too bright for close and steady
gaze. But where Christ has spoken we may reverently follow. Mark, then,
that marvellous thought of the identity between the love which was His
and the love which is ours. 'From everlasting' that divine love lay on
the Eternal Word which in the hoary beginning, before the beginning of
creatures, 'was with God, and was God.' The deepest conception that we
can form of the divine nature is of a Being who in Himself carries the
Subject and the Object of an eternal love, which we speak of in the
deep emblem of 'the Word,' and the God with whom He eternally 'was.'
That love lay upon Christ, without limitation, without reservation,
without interruption, finding nothing there from which it recoiled, and
nothing there which did not respond to it. No mist, no thunderstorm,
ever broke that sunshine, no tempest ever swept across that calm.
Continuous, full, perfect was the love that knit the Father to the Son,
and continuous, full, and perfect was the consciousness of abiding in
that love, which lay like light upon the spirit of Him that said 'I
delight to do Thy will.' 'The Father hath not left Me alone.'
And all that love Christ gives to us as deep, as continuous, as
unreserved. Our consciousness of God's love is meant by Christ to be
like His own. Alas! alas! is that our experience, Christian people? The
sun always shines on the rainless land of Egypt, except for a month or
two in the year. The contrast between the unclouded blue and continuous
light and heat there, and our murky skies and humid atmosphere, is like
the contrast between our broken and feeble consciousness of the shining
of the divine love and the uninterrupted glory of light and joy of
communion which poured on Christ's heart. But it is possible for us
indefinitely to approximate to such an experience; and the way by which
we reach it is that plain and simple one of accepting Christ's
declaration of the Father's name.
IV. And so, lastly, notice the indwelling Christ who makes our
participation in the divine love possible: 'And I in them.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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