The Divine Attribute (No. 6)
By Vernon W. Hurst
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We concluded last month with a quotation from 1 John 2:6-8. Please review it. We emphasized certain portions and, in this final study, we want to subject them to careful scrutiny. We expect to confirm conclusions we have reached and draw final conclusions with which to close this series of articles.
John begins by saying that "Here is a test by which we can make sure we are in him." Orthodoxy will cry out that the test involved is obedience to the commands of the New Testament. I have no desire to deprecate the requirements of the New Testament scriptures. My basic purpose is to set forth what I believe to be a way to guarantee their being obeyed. I am forced to deny, however, that this is the test to which John here alludes. The test is love. Drop down to the next paragraph where John pictures the test being failed. "A man may say, 'I'm in the light,' but if he hates his brother he is still in the dark." This is in harmony with what John says on the subject elsewhere. One other reference will suffice.
"Do not think I am giving a new command; I am recalling the one we have had before us from the beginning: let us love one another. And love means following the commands of God. This is the command which was given you from the beginning, to be your rule of life" (2 John 5:6).
Let us now address ourselves to the next portion of the quotation which we emphasized in copying it. "Whoever claims to be dwelling in him, binds himself to live as Christ himself lived." In dealing with 1 John 1:7 we indicated that love could be perfected in us. In other words we can love as God loves. Now we must come to grips with it and produce incontrovertible proof. We have affirmed that this is the area where we approach God's level and have stated our belief that we could prove it. We must now do so, or admit we have made a groundless claim. Our present passage states that anyone who claims to be dwelling in God obligates himself to walk as Christ walked. Is he assuming an impossible obligation, or can it be done?
Christ lived his life in perfection. I will not insult your faith by assuming the necessity for justifying this statement. You will not deny that Christ's life was lived perfectly, without the slightest deviation from God's will. His knowledge of that will was perfect. He carried it out perfectly. Yet John clearly states that any man who claims to be dwelling in God, obligates himself to live his life just as Christ lived his. Another passage from the preceding chapter makes an almost identical statement. "But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, then we share together a common life, and we are being cleansed from every sin by the blood of Jesus his son" (1 John 1:7)
We have already analyzed this statement, and demonstrated that "walking in the light" means walking in love. God is love, and the passage above, viewed in the light of its context, shows that God is the light in which we are to walk. Simply stating that God is light, and
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The next portion of 1 John 2:6-8 which we emphasized, states, "The command is the message which you heard from the beginning." The command was to love and it was obviously based upon the message which John says the apostles received and passed on. That message was "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). We have shown that this divine light is the love by which men are able to walk, and which is to constitute their "rule of life" and to serve as "the test whereby we can make sure that we are in him" (1 John 2:6).
"Darkness is passing and the real light already shines. Christ has made this true." Darkness (hatred for one's brother) had been replaced by the true light (God's love fully revealed). John explains this has been made possible by Christ. His death on the cross, in which he laid down his life for us, enabled men to know the true meaning of love (1 John 4:l1). God's love had made possible love for him in our hearts. "We love because he loved us first" (1 John 4:19). Up to the time of Christ's death, man could not love as God loves because that love had not been brought to bear upon him in full focus. Now it can be expected to produce its full effect and it is God's immutable law of reproduction that everything shall produce after its own kind. God's love reproduces itself in our hearts.
If the foregoing is accepted as being true, certain conclusions are inevitable. If God's love is perfect, a premise which appears axiomatic, then his love when it reproduces itself in the hearts of men would be "after its own kind." Is this sacrilegious or does it have a basis in fact? Can it be that the basic fact involved in our being created in "God's image" is found in our capacity to love as he loves? Can it be that the answer to David's question--"What is man?"--is found in the fact that, of all God's material creation, man alone is capable of returning his love?
"You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). This indicates that perfection is attainable in this life. Either that, or Christ demanded the impossible. This is the final verse of a paragraph in Matthew 5, which begins with verse 43. The subject under consideration is love. It is love which embraces those who do not return it as well as those who do, love for those who are worthy and for those who are not. It is from a passage which defines love as God practices it--perfect love! In this context Christ requires his followers to be as perfect as their heavenly Father. Is this requiring too much? Is man capable of attaining to love in the measure that God loves? Let us see.
"If God thus loved us, dear friends, we in turn are bound to love one another. Though God has never been seen by any man, God himself dwells in us if we love one another; for his love is brought to perfection within us" (1 John 4:11, 12).
Here it is made vividly clear that God's love is "brought to perfection within us." It can no longer be thought of as a thing separate and apart from us but is capable of being an integral part of ourselves. Dare we seriously consider the sobering consequences of this fact? Can we possibly understand the effect of this upon our lives and bring ourselves to the total commitment it demands?
Let me now come quickly to the climax of this study. Will you dare remember that the law of reproduction states "after his own kind"? Will you force yourself to seriously consider what this indicates concerning our love as produced by the love of God in our hearts? What the effect of such consideration may be in
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"God is love; he who dwells in love is dwelling in God, and God in him. This is for us the perfection of love, to have confidence in the day of judgment, and this we can have, because even in this world we are as he is" (1 John 4:18).
There it is! There, clearly spelled out, is the area where we can meet God upon his own level. I cannot know as he knows. I cannot act as he acts in most areas of my life. I cannot, in the general picture of life, be as good as he is. The limitations imposed upon me by the flesh are too overpowering. But I can love as he loves. Praise his holy name, due to the reproductive nature of his perfect love in my heart, I can love him as he loves me, and I can love those whom he loves as he loves them. Let us give thanks!
Editor's Note: This is the last of a series of articles on "The Divine Attribute" as prepared for this journal by Vernon W. Hurst. Our brother has discovered the secret of the whole Christian concept, and we unhesitatingly state that we concur in his conclusions reached in this series which will be even more appreciated in years to come when men come finally to experience the transforming power of love, the greatest force in the universe created by one of whom it is said, "God is love."