2 Corinthians 5:14

2 Corinthians 5:14

I. St. Paul's was, in every sense of the word, a great conversion. It was great (1) as showing the omnipotence of God. Nothing was more unlikely, humanly speaking, than that a man of perfect outward life, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, should sacrifice everything for this new sect of the Nazarenes. But although, as a general rule, God works in a quiet ordinary way, though, as a general rule, "what a man sows he reaps," still God is pleased to keep, if I may so express myself, a reserve of supernatural force. God is able to bring a higher law, as yet unknown to us, to bear upon these lower laws with which we are familiar, and so to modify them that supernatural results are accomplished. (2) And it was a great conversion when we look at it in relation to the world. The conversion of the world was, humanly speaking, hanging upon the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. The individual life has wrapped up in it a power in the world which no one is able to calculate. And (3) it was a great conversion in relation to the individual Apostle. It was a great sacrifice nobly made.

II. And if we ask, What was the moving power of this great transformation what was the secret of this change? I answer in the words of my text, It was the love of Christ that constrained him. The conversion of St. Paul was the result of the epiphany of Jesus Christ. It was a manifestation of a living Person taking hold of a living person's will that conquered St. Paul and made him the fervent and believing Apostle. And if we want in our measure and degree the power of St. Paul to overcome obstacles, to break down prejudices, to crush the rebel flesh, to rise above the world, to be indifferent alike to its praise and its blame if we wish to follow St. Paul, we also must know something of that love of Christ by which he was constrained.

G. Wilkinson, Penny Pulpit,No. 552.

Christ's Love to us our Law of Life.

I. We love Christ, indeed, because He first loved us. Our love is the reflection of the original light the heavenly ray bent back again towards its source; and where this love towards Him exists, it becomes a motive of perpetual service. But this is not St. Paul's intention; he is here speaking of the motive of that motive. What is it that awakens our love to Him but His love first to us? Love is the principle of obedience, but the principle of love is love. And of this the Apostle speaks the love which descends from Him to us. Let us begin at the source of all. God is love, and love is the law of His kingdom. There is a hierarchy of love, having its beginning in the eternal Three, descending from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to all orders of created spirits, angelic and ministering, and to all creatures in earth and heaven, binding all in one. Love is the stooping of the higher to the lower, the Creator to the creature, the parent to the child, the stronger to the weaker, the sinless to the sinful God stooping down to man. The penetrating exalting consciousness that we are objects of the love of God this love, which has its fountains in eternity, has made apostles, martyrs, saints, and penitents. And this consciousness is awakened in us by a sense of the love of Christ.

II. See next how this motive works in us: what is the operation and effect of the love of Christ? (1) It constrains; that is, it lays a force upon us, as a strong hand draws us whithersoever it will. There are in creation powers of attraction which control whole orders of nature; as the loadstone, which draws its subjects to itself, and the sun, to which all nature answers. These are the constraining forces of the natural world a parable of the attractions of the Spirit. We know this by familiar experience in our lower life. What awakens love like love? What constrains us to the presence of another but a consciousness of his love to us? The sense of Christ's love is the mightiest of all constraining motives. It embraces our whole spiritual nature, touches it in all its springs, moves it in all its affections, stirs it in all its energies. (2) The love of Christ felt in the heart is the only source of unreserved devotion and of perfect sacrifice of self. Those who in all ages have done and suffered great things for the kingdom of God knew no motive but this. They had received the fire which falls from heaven, and as it kindled, their hearts pleaded with them in secret and pressing words: "He wholly gave Himself for me: shall I give less to Him?" (3) This Divine motive is the only principle of an enduring perseverance. It grows stronger as it acts; by acting it is made perfect. Long trials of Christ's love in joy and sorrow, in storm and sunshine, reveal its Divine tenderness and depth. And this quickens the activity of our own hearts with a living, thirsting desire to love Him with a greater love again. Steadfast love is perseverance; it supports through all weariness and disappointment, all allurement and alarm. A true love to Christ moves in its path year by year, without haste but without tarrying, calm, bright, and onward as the light of heaven.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 1.

I. There can be but little wanting to the happiness of any person who can, with sincerity, say that these words describe the habitual state of his own mind. It is possible that faith, the deepest and liveliest faith in the excellence and worthiness of Christ, may be so mixed with fears for our own unworthiness, that we may not taste fully the comfort of Christ's Spirit. But he who is constantly constrained by the love of Christ, who leaves evil things undone, who does good things actively, because his sense of Christ's love is ever present with him, will feel what St. John expresses, no doubt from the experience of his own heart, that "perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment."

II. The facts which should naturally excite this love are known to all. Go back as far as we will, approach as closely to the time of our Lord's appearing on earth as our existing records will allow, still we can trace no fuller knowledge of the facts of our Lord's sufferings and death than we can all gain than we have actually gained from the four Gospels now in our possession. That story which we know so well, but feel so little, is precisely the same which constrained so many of God's servants in different ages, which constrains so many at this moment, to count all things but loss for Christ's sake, to govern their whole lives and thoughts by the principle of love and gratitude to their Saviour. The difference is assuredly not in our knowledge, but in ourselves; that which has been the very bread of life to others is to us tasteless, weak, and ineffectual.

III. Christ's Spirit is given to Christ's redeemed; it is His promise to His people. Think you that you can obtain it of yourselves, before you offer yourselves to Him? No; it is not only a great truth of the gospel, but it is the very gospel itself, that all which is demanded of us, in the first instance, is, that the love of Christ should constrain us to come to Him, that feeling our own weakness and His power, we should come to Him in repentance and faith, grieving for our own evil and trusting to Him to cure us.

T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. III., p. 1.

References: 2 Corinthians 5:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxiv., No. 1411; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 295; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross,p. 277; W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 372; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 10; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 253; E. L. Hull, Sermons,1st series, p. 102; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 25; F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians,p. 329; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount,p. 85; G. Wilkinson, Church Sermons,vol. i., p. 145.