Without Love, Its Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbal

BY MICHAEL DELANEY

John 4:8 states a truth that definitively gives us all reason to rejoice and be glad.  Stated here is the simple fact that God Is Love! Moreover this text states that the telling sign that a person loves God, is the fact that such a person is reflecting or conveying that love towards others and, as we shall soon see, involves loving not only our friends but also our enemies. This realized experience of conveying the love of God, (agape), is an absolute necessity in the proclamation of the everlasting gospel.  If this element is missing from any presentation of Bible based truth, especially truth which exposes the error and fallacy of man made religious beliefs, great harm is done to the cause of Christ, and unnecessary reproach is brought upon God's faithful people who, by His grace, are manifesting His love towards even their enemies.

Consider the following Scripture passages brethren. Paul was praying for the Ephesians' church:

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of  our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the  whole family of heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ  may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth and height; and to know  the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:14-17)

The letter of Paul to the Roman brethren which Martin Luther, one of the Christian Leaders of the nineteenth century, called the "clearest gospel of all," the apostle Paul writes:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.  Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, for I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels,  nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)

In the first reference, we can liken the firm Christian experience to a tree whose roots have been strongly wrapped around a huge "rock" so that when the storms of persecution come, the "anchor" of stability and security will preserve and save that which is connected to it! Praise God that rock and anchor is Jesus Christ! Remember,  God is love, so Jesus is just as surely that love.  Love, (agape) is not merely an attribute of Jesus, but it is Jesus!

The Divine love of God is totally opposite to our own ego-centric love. It is only by knowing and receiving the gift of Divine Love into the heart that we are enabled to be used of God to fulfill His will.  This Divine love does not exist naturally in us but must be imported by faith.  Once we receive this wonderful gift, it flows out to others and provides God's blessings to all we encounter, even our enemies!  Instead of clenching our fists and hurling rancid denunciations at our foes, we are enabled to manifest the life of Jesus Who is dwelling in our hearts and in many cases, even our enemies can be won to the truth!

God's unselfish love differs greatly from the human self-centered love as expressed in the Bible Greek language.  In Romans 5:6,8,10, it can be clearly seen that God loved us unconditionally even while we were yet His brutal, murdering enemies.  Jesus expressed it wonderfully when, hanging on the cross He cried unto His Father: "forgive them; for they know not what they do." Yes, God's love is unconditional and even His "wrath" is an expression of that self-same love.  Those who deny these realities are both deceptive and self-deceived even though they may possess great intellectual prowess and mental abilities.  Satan delights in the use of these agents who, in many cases unknown to themselves, are misrepresenting the very God they profess to serve.

You see, whenever we try to project our own concepts of human love as though they were the same as God's, we pervert the truth and the unconditional good news of salvation for all in Jesus Christ.  Isaiah 55:8-9 reveals a truth we need to ponder: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

THE LAW OF GOD IS THE STANDARD OF CHRISTIAN LIVING

The Holy Law of Ten Commandments is a transcript of the Holy Character of God Who is love. (Romans 13:10) These precepts are to be seen in the context of this foundational truth and not be seen as merely a group of regulations that, if strictly observed to the letter, will qualify us for heaven and keep us out of hell.  The Pharisees in Jesus' day prided themselves in their strict observance of all the rules and regulations and believed they were better than anyone else and in ugly self-righteousness, looked down their noses at everyone else.  Thinking they were guaranteed a place in heaven by means of their rigid law-keeping, they failed to realize their hypocrisy and did not see how utterly unacceptable they were in the sight of God.  May God help those hard-line legalistic souls who have lost sight of the empowering love and grace of our merciful and loving Father, and with clenched fists and gritting teeth are trying to qualify themselves for salvation through their unaided human efforts to produce righteous lives through obedience to the law.  The Apostle Paul expressed it well in his letter to the brethren in Ephesians, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10) Here the reality of works of faith produced by the grace of God is made simple and plain.  These good works (which incidentally is living out the Ten Commandments by walking in the Spirit) are not the means of salvation but are the evidence that we have, through faith, received the full gift of salvation prepared for us in the holy history of Jesus Christ.  Our motive is based on the heartfelt appreciation for the unspeakable gift of salvation in Christ and in response to the love which God has shown us, we joyfully submit to His will that enables and empowers us to live out the life of our Savior through obedience to the gospel!

BEWARE OF ANYTHING VOID OF AGAPE

Now, getting back to the reality of loving your enemies which, incidentally, the Lord Jesus commanded us to do, let it be known that it is impossible to love your enemies without the living Christ abiding in your heart. When you read publications, hear preachers either live or on tape, radio or video, and do not see this essential ingredient (God's love, which will always love even the enemies of God), know for certain that the Spirit of God has not directed or been a part of the publication (including this writing if not based on AGAPE) or discourse, no matter how accurate, well written, oratorically brilliant or factual the content might be. The authors or speakers might be ever so masterful and persuasive in their command of the language but remember again, without God's love, (not human love), their writings and sermons are but "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." By the way, this is not my personal evaluation or critique of any individual or group but is merely a repetition of what the apostle Paul said in his epistle to the Corinthians as bellow.  In this quotation I will use the word agape as found in the original Greek text. Charity is a word derived from the Latin "caritas" and is an invention of Augustine who perverted the meaning of agape -- "not I but Christ" to the erroneous "I plus Christ" subtle form of legalism that is the foundation of Roman Catholic theology. Here is the quote:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not agape, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and have all knowledge;  and though I have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and  have not agape, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not agape, it profiteth me nothing." (I Corinthians 13:1-3)

Let it be perfectly clear that to deny the truth of the unconditional love of God is to propagate the error of our works being meritorious as the partial means of our salvation. Even the choice to receive Christ as our Savior is initiated, enabled, and empowered by the Spirit and grace of God.  That choice cannot be made in and of ourselves, apart from the initiating influence and enabling power of the Holy Spirit.  It is the response to the amazing love revealed at the cross of Calvary! The works of God's righteousness that are produced in the lives of His true believers are purely the evidence of His active grace, whether imputed or imparted, and in no way are meritorious or the means of qualifying us for salvation. We have already been qualified apart from anything we have done or can do, in the holy history of our precious Savior.  Remember that the truth of justification by faith will lay the glory of man in the dust.

AGAPE GENUINELY MOTIVATES ALL WHO RECEIVE IT BY FAITH

The greatest demonstration of agape was shown at the cross.  Here, both the Father and the Son suffered an anguish of such magnitude that we will never fully comprehend but will continually grow in our appreciation of that great love.

The main problem that obscures and robs the cross of the glory of God is the failure to see what kind of death Jesus really faced.  The vast majority of the evangelical Christian world believes in the false teaching of consciousness in death predicated on the original lie of Satan to Eve that "Ye shall not surely die." (Genesis. 3:4)

Because of this deception, millions of honest and sincere Christians have failed to see what really happened at Calvary. They focus on the physical suffering Christ endured and believe that is what constitutes the supreme sacrifice.

In order for Christ to really pay the price required by the law, (the wages of sin), He had to die the death that perfectly satisfied the just demand of the law.  Christians who are secure in their faith union with Christ still die the first death that is not the wages of sin but rather the consequence of sin.  The wages of sin is what the unrepentant sinner will receive after the second resurrection.

This is what Christ experienced on the cross. As far as His human feelings were concerned, He had been abandoned and forsaken by His Father.  In fact, the agony of His mind was so great that He hardly felt the physical pain!  (see Desire of Ages p.753)  The death He was about to face was an irrevocable and eternal separation from life. The curse of God rested fully on Him as your sins, my sins, yea, the sins of the whole world were concentrated into one brief moment of history on the anguishing Son of God!

The Jews cried out "crucify Him" not because they used crucifixion as a method of carrying out the death sentence.  They accused Jesus of blasphemy that, according to their own law, (Leviticus 24:16) was punishable by stoning.  To the Jewish mind, according to Deuteronomy 21:22-23, the cross meant that the victim was cursed of God. Being hanged on a tree was the equivalent of eternal separation from God.

The devil led the Jews to demand crucifixion for Jesus so that the reality of His being the Messiah would be squelched and obscured.  You see, the Jews did not understand the principle of self-emptying agape and were spiritually blinded to the reality of the Kingdom of God's love. They felt that Christ would come and conquer the Romans through force, before establishing the Kingdom.  Even John the Baptist felt that way as he languished in prison before his death.  This is why the disciples were so discouraged and broken when their Master was crucified.  The question that loomed over them like a dark cloud was how the Messiah could have failed so miserably to fulfill their expectations of the establishment of the Kingdom.

It was not until after the risen Jesus had appeared to them that the truth finally dawned on them.  They saw in the cross of the blessed Savior the unspeakable love of One, Who, as their  substitute, was willing to die eternally that they might live eternally in His place! This revelation of truth is what transformed the disciples from a greedy bunch of self seekers and cowards to the bold preachers and evangelists they became. Peter, who in fear and cowardice denied Christ, was changed into a man willing to die joyfully for His Master and the truth of salvation in Christ!

With the principle of agape as their motivation, they were able to turn the then known world upside down with the gospel of peace.  Acts 17:6

Dear reader, do you have a heartfelt appreciation for the love that was expressed for you in the death of our loving Savior?  Are you not amazed to think that He was willing to perish, not only for three days but for eternity, so that you and I might live forever?  Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!

Agape motivation will replace the egocentric motivations of fear of punishment and hope of reward.  We are also told in (I John 4:18) that love (agape) casts out all fear.  Even the fear of death dissipates before the bright beams of God's agape love which is the glory that is now beginning to lighten the earth! That is why we must be rooted and grounded in the love of God if we are to stand through the final crisis that is soon to envelop the whole world. Let it be so, Amen

Michael Delaney writes from Orlando FL, USA
E-mail: mdelaney6@cfl.rr.com