Electing Love
Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 6th April service and hymns are below.
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Our principal verses are:
Jhn 15:9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
Jhn 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
Jhn 15:11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
Jhn 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Jhn 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Jhn 15:14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Jhn 15:15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
Jhn 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Jhn 15:17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
Electing Love
Pause and consider this opening verse, ‘As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you’. It is a great and precious discovery to every redeemed sinner that Christ’s love for His Bride is analogous to the Father’s particular and infinite love for His own dear Son. We may, on the basis of this statement alone, reject the foolish and unbiblical notion of the universal love of God for every individual. The Father declared His love and divine pleasure for His Son and the Lord Jesus tells us He has the same love and pleasure for His Church.
Infinite love
John tells us God is love. The love of God the Father for His Son and the love of the Son for His Father – not to the exclusion of God the Holy Spirit – is humanly impossible to conceive. Like all God’s attributes it is infinite. Yet, here our Saviour tells us He loves us with love equivalent and comparable to the divine complacency. ‘As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.’ God’s people are enclosed with everlasting, limitless and infinite love.
Personal love
This is of great comfort to us. Our Lord Jesus is assuring us of both His Father’s love to Him, and His love to us who are in Him. Our union with the Son, recently spoken of under the similitude of Christ the True Vine and its fruitful branches, is founded on love so powerful and intense as to be beyond human comprehension. Yet it is personal and intimate. The Saviour’s direction ‘continue ye in my love’ does not imply creature strength but encouragement to believe, trust and depend upon Christ’s love at all times.
Unchanging love
Nor does the Saviour’s comment, ‘If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love’, mean His love is variable or conditional on our obedience. The outward evidence of God’s grace towards us is our obedience because of our union with Christ. Conversion is proof of His continuing love in and for us. Our changed heart and soul will keep us in His love. By His grace, and for His glory, He never will lose us. We shall persevere in His service, we shall follow His direction and we shall maintain our union with Him.
Satisfying love
We are indissolubly united to our Saviour on the grounds of His everlasting love for us. This is the joy of Christ’s Bride. The Lord Jesus tells us this as He prepares for His imminent death and departure. Even in the most trying times of life there will be joy and peace for us of which Christ is both author and object. No matter what, there will always be reason to rejoice in Him. Believers are not immune from sadness, depression, anxiety, yet even in the most trying experiences there is spiritual joy, comfort and peace to be found in the Lord Jesus who will never leave us nor forsake His own dear people.
Transforming love
Furthermore, this love is multi-dimensional. Our Lord will have His people live out their experience of His love by following His example and loving each other. This is the enabling power of transforming grace. The Lord frequently called His disciples to love one another and here He describes the epitome of sacrificial love when He speaks of laying down one’s life for a friend. Actually, the Saviour is about to excel even this in dying for His enemies. It was while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Motivating love
Having reconciled us to Himself the Lord calls us His friends. He has confided in His friends about the purpose of His Father’s will, the nature and scope of the gospel, the meaning of His death and the plan of redemption. Now He calls His people to follow His example and share in His cause, not upon the grounds of duty, but in love, gratitude and friendship. Christ’s love has freed us from the chains of sin, delivered us from enmity, raised us beyond the role of servant, called us to be His friends and joined us in marriage to Himself.
Electing love
No doubt the Lord’s disciples consented to be His followers but the Lord Jesus here insists their election and appointment to their office was His choice first. He chose them before they chose Him. He called them to be His disciples and apostles; to follow Him, to preach His Gospel and be fishers of men. He equipped them to the task and fitted them for His service. These men were ordained to serve the Lord according to God’s plan and purpose.
Unconditional love
This is an important principle of grace and it is consistent also with God’s sovereign will and purpose in election to salvation. Ordination to eternal life, like ordination to service, is God’s prior choice. It is freely and unconditionally made by God without consideration of an individual’s merit, character or condition. God’s elect are chosen to salvation and ordained to eternal life at His good pleasure and according to His will.
Efficacious love
The Lord had ordained the success of the apostles’ ministry. His church would be gathered through their fruitful activity and He would ensure the provision of everything necessary to accomplish their task and His will. Whatever they needed to complete their great commission was simply to be asked for and it would be supplied. Only let them love one another in their common cause, which request is repeated here for the third time.
Amen
Our hymns are below.
Hymn 1
Gadsby Selection 648
Baptism. Matt. 3. 13-15; Luke 6. 46; John 15. 14
W. Gadsby 148th
1
With wonder and with love,
We at thy courts appear;
Thy ways our hearts approve,
And thy great name revere;
We own the Lamb, our Leader wise,
Nor would we dare his ways despise.
2
What Jesus does command,
His children should obey;
He’s King in Zion’s land,
And does his sceptre sway;
Let Zion, then, with one accord,
Obey the precepts of her Lord.
3
Can anything be mean,
That’s worthy of our God?
The King himself was seen
In Jordan’s swelling flood;
And shall the subject scorn to tread
The path the King himself has made?
4
Come, fill our souls with love,
With faith, and peace, and joy,
Nor let the price of blood
Against her God reply;
Dear Father, draw, and we will run,
In sweet obedience to thy Son.
Hymn 2
Gadsby Selection 191
Grace Sovereign in Conversion. Deut. 7. 8; John 15. 16
R. Burnham C.M.
1
O why did Jesus show to me
The beauties of his face?
Why to my soul did he convey
The blessings of his grace?
2
O how could he so sweetly smile
On such a wretch as I;
I who his name did once revile,
And his dear truth deny?
3
But ’twas because he loved my soul,
Because he died for me,
Because that nothing could control
His great, his firm decree.
4
Lord, for thy manifested grace
I’ll raise a cheerful song,
Till I shall see thy brighter face
’Midst the celestial throng.
The love of the Lord Jesus for His people is a rare and special blessing. Here the Saviour tells us how He loves us as His Father loves Him.