The Divine Attribute (No. 3)
By Vernon W. Hurst
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When the temporary essentials necessary to the introduction of God's kingdom on earth had fulfilled their purpose and faded away, but three things remained--faith, hope and love. So says the apostle in 1 Corinthians 13:13:
"So faith, hope, love abide, these three: but the greatest of these is love."
The enquiring mind is forced to seek an explanation for this. Why is love the greatest? There is nothing extremely difficult here. The principle is deep only in its significance, not that it defies human understanding. To understand the inherent problem it is only necessary to be able to recognize the distinctive natures of faith, hope and love. Of the first two but little needs to be said. Most of us have sufficient knowledge of faith and hope for our purpose here. We may not have a complete working knowledge of either but we know enough to understand the question presently before us.
Faith, in its simplest form, is the belief of testimony or evidence. But in its effect it embraces far more than that. Even with our knowledge limited to the basic element, we can begin to understand that faith ceases to exist when we gain absolute personal knowledge of the thing we accept upon faith. In the eternal state when this mortal shall take on the nature of the immortal, faith will not exist. It will be replaced by knowledge of that which we formerly only believed. Faith is inferior to love because of its inability to exist under certain conditions. Love can exist under any and every condition (1 Cor. 13:8).
Hope is inferior to love because of its inability to exist after the thing hoped for has been attained. "Now hope that is seen is not hope" (Rom. 8:25). On the other hand, no conceivable situation or set of circumstances can bring about a cessation of love. Two statements by Paul remove this from the realm of possible doubt. "Love will never come to an end" (1 Cor.13:8). "For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world that is or the world as it should be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths--nothing in all creation that can separate
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Love, then, is superior to faith and hope in that it is indestructible. It will continue when that which is finite has been supplanted by the infinite. As the song writer has phrased it:
"I shall know Him, I shall know Him, By the print of the nails in his hands."
When that happens I will not need to hope for His actual presence for it will be mine. I will not need to believe that He is for I will know him in every sense of the meaning of that word. But I shall love Him for love does not end when it has realized fulfillment. God does not cease to love us immediately He realizes His love is returned.
Love not only reaches interminably into the future but has a history that goes back with God beyond the dawn of time. It has always been the undergirding principle upon which God's fellowship with man has been founded. Throughout the whole relationship there has been a constant unfolding of the plot even as the denouement of a play brings the audience ever closer to the final curtain. Perfect love has ever been the goal toward which God's plan has led mankind. As John, a specialist in the field of love expresses it:
"Here is the test by which we can make sure that we are in him: whoever claims to be dwelling in him, binds himself to live as Christ himself lived. Dear friends, I give you no new command. It is the old command which you always had before you; the old command is the message which you heard at the beginning. And yet again it is a new command that I am giving you--new in the sense that the darkness is passing and the real light already shines. Christ has made this true, and it is true in your own experience" (1 John 2:6-8).
This is an interesting passage. John insists that he is simply pursuing the course that motivated God from the beginning. God's desire had always been that we should love him and each other, right from the very beginning. (See Matthew 22:36-40.) Here you find Christ declaring that the first two commandments from the standpoint of importance, are love for God and love for each other. So basic are these that every requirement in the law and the prophets is predicated upon them.
After pointing out that there was nothing new in the requirement he was exacting (I John 2:6-8), John goes on to explain it was new in the sense that the real light was now shining. Later we shall define the "light" to which John alludes. In previous generations the extent to which people were able to love God was determined by the extent to which they were able to know him. Their knowledge had been limited. But the real light is shining now. Christ had made this true. God's love had now been completely revealed in Christ!
Perhaps some will say I am wresting the passage from its context to prove a point. They will read the preceding verses and mistakenly conclude that the basic subject in John's remarks is obedience to legal requirements and not love. I admit that obedience to God's commands is involved in the words of the apostle, but I think that is incidentally so, not basically. Let me clarify.
Obedience to commands bears a vital relationship to our being able to please God, but obedience is not the end. It is the means to an end. God's basic interest is our love and our obedience simply serves as a demonstration of that love. Christ said that from two commandments--love for God and man--all other commandments derive their meaning. He was speaking of the commands in the old testament scriptures. The question with which we must now come to grips is whether or not this is still true. Are these commandments just two out of many, or are they so basic in nature as to encompass every other command? Let me say frankly that I believe with all my heart that every command is fulfilled in the heart that loves. This will require proof. I have not the slightest doubt it exists.
Before we quit the field, let me permit John to vindicate my contention that his command, not new in the ordinary sense,
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It is enough. Christ told us plainly that every command in God's recorded word, up to that time, was predicated on love. John makes it very clear that the command to love is still intended to constitute our "rule of life." Will it yet be said that I am making more of love than the Bible does? Let us pray.