Learned Puritan

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Do you have a personal, intimate knowledge of the love of Christ? The descriptives the Apostle uses in the passage above suggest a boundlessness to the love of Christ that is only grasped, and that perhaps only in part, by those in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells. The world does not know Christ, nor can it. The same can be said for all man-made, man-centered religion, Christian in name or not. Unaided by the Spirit of God it has no ability to savingly comprehend Him or lay hold of Him – the greatness of His person, the riches of His glory, and more specifically here, the limitless nature of His love. A parent loves a child with a love they believe to be without measure. And while this love is perhaps an illustration of the apex of human love (as one can conceive of no greater), it would appear from the text that the love of Christ for His people is almost beyond knowing (v.19). This love of the Triune God for His own children, those in whom He has breathed the breath of life, and then new life, whose names are written in the pages of the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 13:8), proceeds from another realm, a greater realm, the kingdom of the Son. This love is referred to by the Apostle Paul as a “great love” in Chapter 2 of Ephesians. This “great” love of God, which originated from before the foundation of the world (Ephesian 1:4), is a discriminating love, a love reserved for those who have been washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 6:11), whose sins have been forgiven through their faith in and union with Christ. While God, who is love (1 John 4:16) in some unknowable measure loves all men (John 3:16), even the unregenerate (for such we were), God has loved these His own, the elect, with this “great” love from before time. Are you one of these? Come to Christ on His terms and you will know that you are. We see this love throughout Scripture being characterized as both the “love of God” and the “love of Christ” so that the unity of the Trinity is upheld in this as in all things.

What is our response to such love? For the child of God who has been shown a window into his own soul and been shocked at the darkness he finds there, the response can only be a love that is returned back to his Creator. When we are made to see ourselves as we really are – wretched creatures, consumed by sin, full of pride, self-love, envy, lust, greed, lying…we marvel how such perfection as Christ could ever love such a mass of polluted flesh. Yet He has. Such a wonder! It becomes true of us that he who has been forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:47). We come to see more clearly the principle that we love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Is it any wonder that those who have been shown such mercy, purchased with such precious blood, made new creations and given new life in Christ, should then turn to serve and love Him with their all?

When the lawyer Pharisee asked Jesus , “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:36,37) This is the duty of man and an obligation for which we will be held accountable. Jesus says to us lovingly, imploringly, but with great gravity, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Do you love Him?

All I Have Is Christ

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