The Divine Attribute (No. 2)

By Vernon W. Hurst

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     Last month we suggested that God has provided us with motivation powerful enough to guarantee the success of Christianity in all that for which it was designed. We indicated that this motivation has gone undiscovered and been unused. It now becomes necessary for us to set forth that which we claim to be extant and to do it in such an articulate manner there can remain little room for reasonable doubt. We accept this challenge in the firm belief that we need only reach out our hand to God. We do this in humble recognition of our utter dependence upon the wisdom which He alone is able to provide.

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     It is often the case that a fact is more impressive when clearly enunciated, permitted to stand alone, and then followed by a clear statement of the principles necessary to its validation. We propose to state clearly the single fact from which we believe Christianity derives its strength, the bedrock upon which we believe it is predicated. Do not expect anything new or startling. Most great discoveries have been drawn from those things which have always been near at hand. Some of the most effective antibiotics were discovered in simple substances which have been under man's view from the dawn of time. Do not be surprised if we find our answer in a very common sermon topic.

     I believe the source of strength from which the Christian religion must draw is love--pure, simple, old fashioned, pre-Freudian love. Many of you, in disappointment, are doubtless saying, "He led us to believe he was going to spell out something which had the power to change the face of Christianity. Now he dashes our hopes by simply re-stating something about which preachers have been talking for centuries, when they felt it to be unsafe to talk about anything else."

     I beg you to have patience with me. Things are seldom what they appear to be. Most people would admit that the wheel has been man's greatest mechanical discovery, yet it was not a new invention in the conventional sense. Since the first toddling infant picked up a round pebble and amused himself by rolling it on the ground, the principle of the wheel has been there to be observed by any who cared to look. Many did look but failed to see all that was to be seen. I think that love, "the divine attribute" will justify a closer look. As was the case with the wheel, we have always been aware of love in a superficial sort of way, but we have never learned to put it to work in such a capacity as to realize its potential.

     I shall not attempt to define love because, like every other fundamental, it defies total definition. John says that, "God is love." In certain aspects of their natures, at least, God and love are synonymous. In a sense, if love could be taken into a chemical laboratory and reduced to a final distillate, that distillate would be God. I need say no more in defence of my contention that love stands in successful defiance of complete definition. It owes this characteristic to its close affinity with God. But I do feel that a certain understanding of love is possible and essential to our successful utilization of it. I quote from the five volume edition of James Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible:

     "Love, therefore, in God, is in general that principle which leads him to desire and seek the good of all his moral creatures: to impart benefits to them in every scale and degree of blessing: to establish relations of fellowship with them, that he may bless them more fully: to recover and restore them when they have turned aside from their true end, and lost themselves through sin (Hos. 13:9): highest of all, to admit them to participation in His own holy blessed life (I John 1:3), in which He and they become one, as the Father and the Son are one (John 17:21)."

     Study this quotation carefully. We shall again refer to the principles set forth in drawing one of the most vital conclusions to come out of this study. Note that God's love motivates Him to desire and seek the very best for those who are the objects of His love, whatever the circumstances. The failure to grasp this fact has robbed us of benefits which might have been ours if we had understood love to the point of being able to gear it to the shaping of our own lives. To prepare ourselves to accept the blessings which God bestows upon us through love, we must come to think of it as something which, as it draws nearer to perfection in our lives, shows decreasing interest in self, and increasing interest in others.

     I shall now make one of the most startling statements I shall offer during this study. Of all the aspects of the relationship of God and man, there is only one facet where we can hope to meet God on His own level or where we may approach our fellowman on God's level. In both of these phases, God's level is attainable in our own life, while we live upon this earth. Startling? Yes, but I expect to offer unimpeachable proof.

     Perhaps it would be wise at this point for us to consider another important char-

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acteristic of love. It is a tragedy of no small dimension that love has come to be used not only of the motivation which caused God to sacrifice His Son, but of that which "out of an orange colored sky," comes to hit the unwary, but amorous young man in the eye, as described by a popular song-writer a few years back. There needs to be a distinction made here, quickly and permanently.

     Love, as used of the affinity between God and man, and between men and other men, is not the same. Love, as it concerns us here, is not something which happens to one, and in which his role may be passive. Love, as we are thinking of it, may not be used to describe any attitude or activity in which man plays a passive role. That is, love cannot be used to describe any of man's attitudes or activities in which his role is merely passive. Man can be loved without doing anything. That was the very basis upon which God's love was initially offered (John 3:16). It cannot be said that man loves, however, unless he has made a conscious, deliberate choice to do so. As a matter of actual fact, the command to love constitutes God's basic directive. And so basic is it that it may be said to encompass all other commands.

     It comes as a shock to most people to learn that this love can be commanded. The environmental circumstances under which our lives have been shaped have caused us to think of love as being the evolutionary product of the situation in which our lives have been cast. Man conducts himself in a certain way and is loved. He conducts himself in another way and he is not loved. It is that simple, we think. This is not a perversion or evasion of the subject--it simply bears no relationship to it. To demonstrate that this is not my own unsupported idea, I quote again from the Dictionary of the Bible by James Hastings:

     The highest form of love, alike in God and man, is not a matter of vague impulse, but involves intelligent choice (diligo), the grounds of choice lying sometimes in the objects beloved, but in the case of God, in dealing with the unworthy, lying solely in his own good, wise, and holy will (Eph. 2:8)."

     Numerous other passages make it clear that God's love for us was not and is not based upon the fact that our worthiness is an invitation to love. One will suffice.

     "If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect? Surely the tax-gatherers do as much as that. And if you greet only your brothers, what is there extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much." (Matt. 5:46, 47).

     Having demonstrated something of the nature of love, as the Holy Spirit understands it, we shall now address ourselves to seeking to demonstrate the extent to which that love may be experienced in this life and the things it may be expected to accomplish. But our time is gone for this month. Let us pray!