Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love… What is love? Is it not delight in an object, and is it not desire to promote the well-being of an object? The love of God answers to these definitions. Some resolve love into self-love. We delight in what we love, therefore, say some, we love for the delight. But this is a serious error which may be refuted by a thousand facts. Just think of the facts by which you may refute this error. And let me here make two remarks concerning love generally, — First, its existence is universal, except as sin reigns and checks it; and, secondly, its work and its service are multiform and extensive. Men love, angels love, and God is love, We feel, and observe, and mark its existence on earth; we hear of it in heaven; and we know that there is but one place tenanted by beings capable of love who do not love, and that place is hell; and we also know that there is but one class of human beings from which it has departed, namely, souls that are lost. Love! It gushes forth from the throne of God, flows round the universe, and rises again to the level of its source. Like an inverted tree, it roots in heaven, and yet drops its fruit upon this wide world, and upon beings in the lowest terrestrial estate. Nor is love, to drop our figure, inactive or useless among the children of men even in their low estate. It unites, as in conjugal life, two streams of being and makes them one, — it causes the mother to forget her anguish and to make her bosom the refuge and the strength of helpless infancy — it makes parents ministering angels, and children bright morning stars in the household firmament — it creates all that is meant by home — it impoverishes itself to enrich others, and exposes itself to danger to protect and otherwise to serve others — it feeds the hungry; clothes the naked; shelters the homeless; takes charge of the orphan; attends at the sick-bed in the face of contagion; visits the captive in prison; weeps at the grave; builds hospitals; erects almshouses, asylums, and places of worship — it instructs, warns, entreats, reproves, consoles, and in ton thousand forms ministers to the creature while it worships the Creator — it renders benefits to the sinner and serves the Saviour; it intercedes on earth and it offers praise in heaven; it weeps here, it rejoices in the world above. Thus love, sanctified and directed by the Saviour of man and by the Spirit of all grace, makes God dwell in the man, and it causes the man to dwell in God. Such, speaking generally, is love. And love is everlasting. It is eternal — it ever will be, as it always hath been. As a principle it is eternal. It will never die. It will never die from the human heart. In all redeemed human spirits love will live an eternal life. Some emotions will pass away as the clouds; others will abide as the blue firmament itself; and among these love in redeemed humanity will have the pre-eminence. Now, connect these ideas of love with the everlasting love of God. Jehovah here says, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Only the love of God is from everlasting. The love of unfallen angels and of redeemed men hath immortality — it is to everlasting, but not from everlasting. God's love alone hath eternity — eternity embracing past, present, and future. There are four things which we would notice here concerning the everlasting love of God. 1. It is not derived, or imparted, or excited by us in the sense of being awakened by us. We are the occasion in part of its being aroused and expressed, but it is not a derived or imparted love. Ours is a love that is as a spark from the great fire that burns in God's heart, fire of love that is underfeed, self-existent, independent. 2. It is perfect, it is impossible to add anything to it, nor could anything be taken from it without rendering it imperfect, it is as complete as love can be found. 3. Instead of being divorced from the other attributes and affections of God, it is allied with them all — love and self-existence, love and independence, love and omnipotence, love and boundless wisdom, love and unspotted purity, love and undeviating righteousness. 4. In all respects is the love of God, Godlike — equal with God. Verily, that man is loved whom God loves. What though no creature may care for him, if God loves him he is loved for ever, and infinitely loved; he is loved with all the strength of the Divine affection; on the other hand, he knows not what it is to be loved in perfection, who does not know and believe the love of God for us.Just look further, at the love of God when embracing sinful men, and notice three things about it. 1. It is personal in its objects. He loves you individually; and His loving a large number is by His loving each one in that number. 2. Although embracing sinners, the love of God is discriminating, and pure, and righteous love. It delights where it can delight, and seeks the good of its object in every form, and in the highest degree. 3. The love of God follows those whom it embraces. It was prolonged to the seed of Abraham beyond numerous apostasies and spiritual adulteries; it is prolonged to us beyond seasons of declension and of backsliding. The love of God goes after us. It follows us into every new relationship, into every new duty, into every new trial, into every new temptation, into fresh provocation, and claims upon God's forbearance; it follows us through life into death, and through death into immortality. (S. Martin.) Parallel Verses KJV: The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. |
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