When Jesus says, "Love one another, even as I have loved you," the requirement seems too much. Of such whole-souled, infinite perfectly pure and self-forgetful love only the Son of God is capable. But God does not leave it there. He gives to us first that we may be able to return. "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19.) "I made known unto them thy name," said Jesus in his prayer, "and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:26.) It is then through the perfect revelation Christ gives us of the Father's [93] name (that is, his character) that his love--the love God has, that infinite love wherewith he loved his Son--comes to dwell in us. And thence it must flow forth in an irresistible stream unto others. Like some rivers which take their rise from a large lake of waters, the love of the Christian toward his brother and toward all men takes its rise in the love of God. "Beloved, If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11.) "The love of God"--as the context shows, his love toward us--"hath been shed abroad through the Holy Spirit which was given to us" (Rom. 5:5), and so it comes that "the fruit of the Spirit" is first of all love (Gal. 5:22).

      God draws the line at this point. While faith is fundamental, and hope indispensable, and love the result of these two, love is at the same time the evidence--the only evidence God will accept--that faith and hope have entered the heart and that the person is God's child. The Christian who does not love has either never been God's or has allowed the flesh to overcome the new nature to such an extent as to make his Christian profession null and void in God's sight. This is affirmed over and over. "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." (I John 3:10.) And our own assurance concerning our salvation depends on it. (I John 3:18, 19.) Wherefore, "follow after love."

      Loving is not the same thing at all as "liking." The [94] latter is a matter of personal taste, and does not come into consideration. Love is a principle that involves all a man's life and conduct. "Let all that you do be done in love." It is the whole plane of action. "Liking" has to do with self and pleasure; loving, with the help and blessing of others. "Liking" is partial; love is universal. Yet love will not be without kindly, tender emotion and feeling.

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