The Fruitful Love of Christ

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Christology, John Owen

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christology, Communion with God, John Owen, Love of Christ

Whom he loves, he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending.

It is also fruitful, — fruitful in all gracious issues and effects. A man may love another as his own soul, yet perhaps that love of his cannot help him. He may thereby pity him in prison, but not relieve him; bemoan him in misery, but not help him; suffer with him in trouble, but not ease him.

We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul. It was love that made Abraham cry, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” but it might not be.

But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven. Love in him is properly to will good to any one: whatever good Christ by his love wills to any, that willing is operative of that good.

These three qualifications of the love of Christ make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding desirable.

How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, has this love overcome! what mountains of unbelief does it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day?

What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day!

John Owen, Of Communion With the Father, the Son & the Spirit

Unless thou hadst first

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Faith, Love, Preaching, William Romaine

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Faith, love, Love of Christ, Love of the Father, Prayer, Treatise on the Life Walk and Triumph of Faith, Trinitarian, Trinity, William Romaine

The best Christian theology must be trinitarian and must be preached:

“His love is a free gift. I would by faith enjoy it in time, as I hope by sense to enjoy it in eternity. Whatever blessings, strength, victory, or comfort I stand in need of, I look to the fulness which he has laid up in Jesus, and from thence I receive it. I read my title to it, and I take possession of it, for nothing done in me or by me, now or at any other time, but only in and for the free grace of his Father and my Father”

The best preaching must lead to joy which breaks out as prayer:

“O Father of merciesI could never have sought my happiness in thy love, unless thou hadst first loved me. O grant me then the desires of my heart! What thy good Spirit has put me upon seeking, let me, by his grace, find continually. He has manifested to me thy perfect reconciliation to thy people, through the life and death of Jesus. It has been given me on his behalf to believe this. I have therefore taken thee for my God and my portion, and I would so walk with thee as to obtain a growing knowledge and experience of thy love. For this cause I bow my knees unto thee, Holy Father. O hear and answer the prayer of faith! Give me grace to walk with thee in love, all the way to glory. I ask it in the name of Jesus: for thou art the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”

William Romaine “Treatises on the life, walk, and triumph of faith.”

Preparation for Suffering in an Evil Day: The Love of Christ.3

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Edward Polhill, James, Puritan

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A Preparation for Suffering in an Evil Day, Biblical Counseling, Edward Polhill, Hope, James, James 5:7-11, Lamentation 3:25, Lamentations, Love of Christ, Puritan, waiting

Polhill continues in the same vein, a love Christ makes every bitter sweet – not because the bitter of life is sweet, but because there is a source of love and joy which the world cannot invade:

Love to Christ stands in an holy complacence in him, it makes the soul enjoy a kind of heaven in his presence, and delight itself in his satisfying sweetness.

Edward Polhill, The Works of Edward Polhill (London: Thomas Ward and Co., 1844), 345. Thus, when evil days comes we do not look solely to the evil which is before us, but we look above and beyond and settle our soul in the dear love of Christ which overcomes the world. We can have such succor

in times of fear and temptation, that his presence may sweeten the bitterest condition to her. The cross of Jesus, if we taste the sweetness of it, will turn a marah into joy and comfort

Ibid. This sets us to a task now, before the evil day strikes. The moments we have meditation, of communion, of grace, of leaving off sin, of fellowship, of prayer and study, all these things must teach us to drink the undying water which transforms our souls:

O let us labour to taste more of the sweetness of Christ, to find his blood in every pardon, his Spirit in every grace, his wine cellar in every ordinance, that the divine comforts, that we experimentally feel in him, may sweeten the cross to us.

This is the way of the dear ones of God. In the midst of the Lamentations, the poet knows the goodness and blessing of God exist. How? He cannot know them from present experience, for present experience is bitter but he can say:

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Lamentations 3:25 (ESV)

The verb to wait can also be translated to hope. The waiting is expectant, the hope is patient but preserving. Such a hope cannot come to us but we know that God is good before the trial strikes. James encourages the early Christians to hope and not turn to grumbling and sin, but rather be patient in suffering knowing that the Lord is good:

7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James 5:7–11 (ESV)

This is not a grim waiting, but an expectant waiting premised upon a knowledge that “the Lord is compassionate and merciful”. The compassion and mercy of the Lord should stir our soul to love – such love that when trial and temptation fall upon us we are sure of his compassion and mercy – for trial will try our knowledge.