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
