Chapter 7
RESTLESS ROVINGS
and the RELISH of REST
LOVE is not another THING
LOVE is not another THING.
Sanctification is …
something else
but allied to love as love
to truth and both to mercy
When you look at Peter,
Ø
you
see not a potential priest for the
papacy, with claims
o that his is the ‘voice of eternity’ (SMR p. 1058 cf. pp. 1035ff., 912ff.) or
o that, though merely a sinner on this
earth, that ‘he alone is most high over
princes’, or
o that he is ‘greater than man, who judges
all, but is judged by none’,
or anything remotely approaching such exquisitely anti-scriptural folly
(Matthew 23:8-10, I Peter 5),
Ø
but
a man
Ø
whose
errors were serious,
Ø
whose
rebukes were varied,
Ø
not
as giver but receiver,
Ø
whose
heart was most sensitive,
Ø
whose
sincerity was of that almost belligerent quality of grand simplicity and simple
grandeur,
Ø
whose
ways were humble,
Ø
whose
spirit was steadfast,
Ø
whose
failings were corrigible,
Ø
whose
delight was in the Lord,
Ø
whose
loyalty could crumble, but
Ø
whose
strengthening was prodigious,
Ø
whose
sanctification was on the grand scale.
For his part, the apostle Peter was
not, like a lost column in some temple, by itself, not especially noteworthy or
declarative, but was like one in its setting, supported on its glorious base,
soaring into the unequivocal heavens, not useless, but supporting a cover and
bringing it to our attention, a work of art that is not artful, and a support
of strength that has been wrought with labour.
The labourer who made it, in this case ? Christ. It is precisely the
moulding of the disciples into the beauty of holiness that testifies to the
truth. Look for example at James and John. Who could conceive that such men
would ever even dream of that classic prodigy of failure, the desire for ‘being
first’ ? Yet what do we read in Matthew 20:20ff. ?
This, and one almost hesitates to review it. Their mother wanted them to
be seated on the left and right hand of Christ. Where ? at some feast ? Not at
all, but rather, apparently in some outstanding way, “in
Your kingdom”, the very kingdom of God (cf. The
How could such a one as was called to write I John 2, possibly have
so acted ? Had not the message of Luke
14:8-12 come home ? or any such message as in Matthew 11:28-30 ?
v
“When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down
in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to
you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest
place. But when you are invited, go and sit down
in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you,
‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who
sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts
himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
So important is this message that it is rendered this time in red! Nor
is this humility so in name only, as if it were a trade-off of present desire
for pre-eminence against eventual satisfaction of this lust! Is it not also
exalting oneself to HOPE for exaltation as the GROUND or even A GROUND of one’s
action ? What dentist would I trust in expensive treatment, if it were ever
established as a fact that not my teeth but his eminence in his profession was
what consumed his heart, or drove his eyes ?
You cannot serve two masters, for one or the other in competition will
be despised, and if integrity, love, grace, goodness be not ruling in Christ,
but rather Christ as a means of self-exaltation, a utensil for holding one
forth, in what way is this to worship God rather than oneself ? How is He GOD
whom one uses, the instrument for one’s glory ? Is it not rather that the
servant serves his Master ? and when worship is added to this service, is this
His glory to be shared as the objective for the servant alike ? Is not God, God
? But look at Christ …
Was His objective in coming in to this world to be great when greatness,
even to Godhead was His already ? (Philippians 2). Did God so love the world
that He decided to honour His Son by some charade for the greater honour to be
grabbed, through some specious spectacular in which suffering was a means to
parade ? Is the love of God to be impugned, love to be ignored, as if by a
blind
man ?
Is it meek and lowly in heart to receive people so that you can use them
as stepping stones to your own glory ? Is this the rest which the Saviour
accords ? (Matthew 11:28ff.), if He Himself were roving and restless, eyes bent
on self-exaltation! Is this not ‘saving one’s life’ (Matthew
v
Some
people in some cultures set high store on ‘humility’ …
v
but
for what purpose ?
v
Is
it to impress others with a pleasant demeanour in order that they might exalt
you ?
v
Is
this not the very essence of self-will, exploitation, insincerity and heartless
pre-occupation such as is the contrary of love and the precise placement of
pride!
Small wonder Christ did not yield, then, to the request in Matthew
20:20ff.: no 20/20 vision was there! Yet how graciously He replied, saying it
was not for Him so to appoint. In His address to the other disciples, which
followed, Christ in principle contrasted the whole world view, the whole
culture of dominion, power, lording it over people, having authority over them,
with the concept of service. If you want to become great, He said, SERVE. If
someone wants to be first, let him be
your SLAVE! Slaves do not order about do they, now ? In other words, this
excoriating criticism of the cultural concept of self-advancement is saying
this:
Ø
If you want to be a heavy-weight
with clout and power, authority and impressive presence, an official with
uplift like mountains and all that sort of pathological pre-occupation,
then try being a slave, being ordered
about as if you were an underpaid underling. Will that try your sincerity ? is
this then your desire, is love your plea and passion for goodness your thrust ?
If so, how would this concern you! Be a slave …
Now to be fair, it may be that there
was a desire to be CLOSE to Christ in this word from the mother of James and
John (and she was not the only one with such a desire at that time - Mark
It was only then that they asked!
What a lesson about prayer is there! IN HIS NAME is the asking to be done, and
this accords with HIS PRINCIPLES! One of these is humility, not unsavoury
unspirituality in which your own elevation is the motive of your heart, a
distinctive elevation putting you where by the nature of the case (as envisaged
in the request about right and left hand) none else could be!
Humility is not a manufacturing
plant for a hollow holiness by which you are not what you seem (not normally
characterised as purity in heart which indeed puts you close to God – Matthew
5:8), and aspire to the opposite of what you profess! That, it has a name:
hypocrisy!
Were then the disciples hypocritical
in this, when they made this extraordinary request about sitting on His left
and right hand ? Not necessarily: perhaps merely inflated with desire which, in
being close to Christ, was commendable; but in having this closeness in so
conspicuous a way, in such an elevating way, they were not tending the kingdom,
but the placement in it. If they had not been corrigible, but incorrigible, if
they had not been changed, but continued in this spiritual mutant desire, then
the case would have been different!
Quite simply,
v
LOVE DOES NOT SEEK ITS
OWN (I Corinthians 13:5)…
So in time, did John and James
become wonders of beauty of life and spirit; for look at their Mentor, and consider
His desire, which led to humiliation, shame and spitting, the stripping down of
face, the haunting horror of having to cry from the heart, even from the heart
which had nestled in eternity in the Father, one God, Sender and Sent, Speaker
and Spoken,
“My God, My God,
Why have You forsaken Me!”
As one shameful episode, however
short, can be magnified out of all relation to reality, caricatured by the
accuser of the brethren (and he, that loathsome liar has many followers on this
earth), and act like tar, so the exposure on the Cross is monumental in
littleness, quintessential in lowliness; for it allows mankind to see one in
the gruesome depravity of sin; and if it is not His own, yet with Christ, it is
there to be borne, and it is in its impact horrible beyond all conception. Its
dynamic is separating Christ as man from the God from whom He came, in whom He
worked and for whom He was the only begotten Son.
In humility He was prepared to
DELIGHT in such a role. In practice, it was grievous anguish (Hebrews 5:7).
Why ? in order to get where He was before He came ?
Somewhat circuitous and ridiculously lowering for such a result. Why then ? For
the glory which was set before Him ? Yes, but what glory ? The glory of WINNING
souls, of RESCUING the lost, for as He said, He came to seek and to save what
was lost (Luke
Love is not duplicable. It is not
devious. It is conjoined to truth as the right arm with the left ( I
Corinthians 13:6), and as Paul declares, it is “faith
working by love” which is in point (Galatians 5). It is not faith which
works by lust, self-oriented, manipulative and manoeuvring with mock majesty
for heights from which to peer at others. God IS love, and when dealing with
Hear Him who declares it: “… because He loved
your fathers, therefore He
chose their descendants after them …” (Deuteronomy
Ø
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord
your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above
all the peoples on the face of the earth.
Ø
The Lord did not set
His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other
people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would
keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed
you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Ø
Therefore know that the Lord
your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a
thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments…”
WHY did He choose them ? It was
because “the LORD LOVES YOU”. Why did He send
His only begotten Son into the world ? (I John 4:9), because He loved us. “In this,” indeed, “was the
love of God manifested toward us, that God has sent Hs only begotten Son into
the world, that we might live through
Him.” It is not that we loved Him, but He us, and SO “sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”
That is why we should love: God is
like that, acts like that, feels like that, is thorough and practical in being
like that, and we being redeemed are regenerated, taken or translated from one
kingdom to another ( Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 1:13). One speaks here naturally
of Christians whom the supernatural has made natural, and no more despoiled as
by a pathological fungus infection of lust for this that or the other. That,
says John, is why we should love one another.
What do we read of Christ near the
end of the drama of salvation wrought on this earth openly before all ? This (John 13:1): “
… when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world
to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the
end.” And what is the word, as it were,
at the commencement exercises ? In Psalm 40, we read of it, “Behold, I come: in the scroll of the book it is written of
Me. I delight to do Your will, O my God…”
And what was it He came to do ?
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire:
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require”
(Psalm 40:6).
What then DID GOD REQUIRE ? That the
Messiah should, as the only conceivable substitute who could give a
substitutionary offering in place of its mere depiction in animal sacrifice,
COME and do Himself “YOUR WILL”!
How did He view such an outing and
outage ? “I delight to do Your will!” HOW could
He so delight ? WHY indeed would an excursion into time and space such as we
men have for our physical environment, a descent from eternal glory, on such a
mission, be treated with anything but demission, derogation and at best, dour
dutifulness in a hated task ? It is in
the scroll of the book written of Him ? Yes, for you find it in Psalm 22,
for example, where the paean of praise AFTER the crucifixion there depicted is
this, “Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Your
heart will live for ever.” HE was killed in short order so that you
should live forever.
WHY however will all the ends of the
world remember and turn to the LORD ? (Psalm
WHY is it righteous ? It is so
because in this justice is satisfied and mercy is triumphant.
WHY should mercy wish to be
triumphant ? It is because GOD SO LOVED the world that He gave. LOVE was the
propellant, seeking a place for mercy and meeting the requisitions of justice,
that firm ally of truth.
See it in Jeremiah 31:3-11, in its
intensity and practicality.
§
“The Lord has appeared
of old to me, saying:
o
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
o
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
§
“Again I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt,
o
virgin of
o
You shall again be adorned with your tambourines,
o
And shall go forth in the dances of those who rejoice.
§
“You shall yet plant vines on the mountains of
o
The planters shall plant and eat them as ordinary food.
§
“For there shall be a day
o
When the watchmen will cry on
o
‘Arise, and let us go up to
o
To the Lord our God.’
”
§
“For thus says the Lord:
o
“Sing with gladness for Jacob,
o
And shout among the chief of the nations;
o
Proclaim, give praise, and say,
o
‘O Lord, save Your people,
o
The remnant of
§
“Behold, I will bring them from the north country,
o
And gather them from the ends of the earth,
o
Among them the blind and the
lame,
o
The woman with child
o
And the one who labors with child, together;
o
A great throng shall return there.
§
They shall come with weeping,
o
And with supplications I will lead them.
o
I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters,
o
In a straight way in which they shall not stumble;
o
For I am a Father to
o
And Ephraim is My firstborn.
§
“Hear the word of the Lord,
O nations,
o
And declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
o
‘He who scattered
o
And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’
o
§
“For the Lord has
redeemed Jacob,
o
And ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.”
(Colour added.)
God has loved them with an
everlasting love. It is not mere passion, though its drive can make passion the very name
of that love, and this for its enduring felicitous reliability, not for some
summary selfishness which can afflict man so readily.
Now notice in the red type above,
the place in this scripture, of the THEREFORE!
I have loved you with an
everlasting love, therefore …
BECAUSE HE LOVED, therefore He has
acted.
In both Testaments, as always, you
have the same message from the same God with the same motives, the same mind
and the same faithfulness, whether in bud or bloom, symbol or substance,
preliminary or fulfilment. The ardour does not vary. The action is adequate. The
passion is pure.
What do you read in Hosea 11, but this at the outset, that God loved
§
“When
o
And out of
§
“As they called them,
o
So they went from them;
o
They sacrificed to the Baals,
o
And burned incense to carved images.
§
“I taught Ephraim to walk,
o
Taking them by their arms;
o
But they did not know that I healed them.
§
“I drew them with gentle cords,
o
With bands of love,
o
And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck.
§
“I stooped and fed them.”
There is the background to the
ransom God performs in His Son (Hosea 13:14, Isaiah 9:1-7, Psalm 2), and it is
in Him that one is to trust (Psalm 2:12), the exposure of the very face of God
(II Corinthians 4:6) whose light is as commanded as was that physical light
which tore through the darkness that it might be seen as such, and all things
made manifest. The presence and presentation of that light is one of the vast
aims of God, enormous specifications of spirituality, glorious expressions to
mankind, and its beauty is this, that it is not cold, like some fluorescent beams,
but warm and warming. What is shown of Christ towards the rich young ruler
whose portentous ponderings on life were interrupted by his portfolio
considerations of wealth ? This: HE LOVED HIM! (Mark 10:17-22). But when the
ruler left, Christ did not run after Him, or even walk! Love is not possessive.
COMPREHENSION BY OPPOSITES
IS NOT APPOSITE –
PLUS DOES NOT MEAN MINUS, NEVER DID AND
NEVER WILL
What was the cause of the love drawn
forth from Christ ? It seems that the ruler’s diligent desire for the
commandments and zealous seeking after them all his life was basic to it. Alas,
the habit of obedience was not enlightened with the motif of love in the time
of the young man’s challenge to find life, so that when this was focussed in
isolation, he went from it. He went sorrowing, for he realised the loss
through financial/social lust.
Love seeks the redemption of its
object when it is lost; and what would one expect ? that it would calmly
contemplate its loss without concern! So too it seeks good for its object. When
therefore Jesus wept, in that shortest of the verses it is depicted, why was
this so? It was because, as the people realised, He loved him, Lazarus, dead
now and in the tomb! (John 11). Here was to be depicted and rehearsed the very
resurrection of Christ Himself, with the same impelling love by His Father,
when the time should come; with this difference, that that love was not
redemptive, for in Christ there was nothing to redeem; and with this
similarity, that love it all was, applied in the dimensions of resurrecting the
sinner, or the Saviour Himself, that His salvation might be to all the earth,
inflamed as with the colours of Spring, perfumed with her scents and outlaid
with the source of her abundance.
Love was prepared to pay to redeem,
to act to resurrect the redeemed, to face and overcome death in order to make
the payment; but it did not stop there. It stooped without stopping to show
this love in the very presence of personality, and even portraited that
personality from itself, by having the Word of God made incarnate. In so doing,
Christ is shown wishing redemption and life for His people, yes, but also that that they might have resident
within themselves, in experience and
dynamic, that same love of the Father with which He loved His Son.
Thus, in John 17 we find this, that
Christ is praying that “the love with which You loved
Me may be in them, and I in them.” What HE has He is seeking to impart
to them; the love of the Father for Him, He desires this for them! The love of
God is not competitive, but dispersive: that is love. He is seeking that “they may be made perfect in one,” and why ?
It is for this reason: “That the world may know that You have sent Me, and have
loved them as You have loved Me!” He is not concerned about retention of
priority, for His is an indisposable, indispensable and eternal immutability;
but His desire is the dispersal of this love, not with pre-eminence but with
ardent pursuit of its donation, not with parading power but with their
exaltation in mind, and in this He exults. That, it is love: it does not make a
parade, nor chat in specious charade, but eminently desires the good of its
object.
Hence, loving them, He loved them to
the end (John 13:1) and WHAT an end! If
it takes that, it will be paid! It took that and it was paid in love. I, said Christ, and my
Father are ONE! (John 10:30). They saw it, feeling it made Him equal
with God, so seeking to stone Him: they were right, not in their perception of
His intention, but in their response. God had so loved that He sent His Son as
a Servant, and they had so contrived it in their hearts that they despised the
love and delighted not at all in being its objective, only instead, in
themselves.
What a farcical sin twist is this,
that they resist and resent the love which is bent to straighten them, and
scorn its impact, hating its donor and providing in the end, for His death in
an ignominy amounting to passion. It reminds one of a patient detesting the
doctor whose work despised, continues diseased as before.
Christ however continued till it was
completed, to the end, both in the mission, the program of redemption, and in
the love for His people. He did not expand it to include the world, the system of
those who did not receive Him, this redemption, nor did He turn hurt
from His rejection and its surreal recalcitrance. However, He did not limit it
to those who were His in that generation, but expanding it to the whole of His
creation, declared: “I do not pray for
these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word…” (John
17:20).
So do we have that glorious equality
between the totality of the creation, all things visible and invisible, in
Colossians 1:15ff., and the redemptive proclivity and outreach, which follows
in Colossians 1:19ff., one of the most manifest possible dramatic, verbal equivalents in scripture. ALL He created; ALL
He would bring to reconciliation to Himself. To say otherwise, is flat contradiction
of the Bible, distortion of the love of Christ, and attenuation of the scope of
the Saviour’s passion and compassion.
Love is not constrictive or
restrictive, except in reality in terms of restoration; for it is not posited
where it is not preferred, and that is why THIS IS THE CONDEMNATION, “that light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” – John 3:19.
It was not limited because it felt like being limited; this is the precise
opposite of the affirmation. It was embracive of the world, but the world was
not embracive of it; and in the face of such love, the condemnation is read out
accordingly that it was the human preference for darkness which constitutes the
divine ground of condemnation despite the celestial compassion, even to the
uttermost.
Does God then so love that He does
nothing to penetrate that darkness ? Is this then the message ? The precise
opposite (John