John 13:1

PERFECT LOVE

‘Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.’

John 13:1

The margin of the R.V. reads, ‘to the uttermost’: ‘He loved them to the uttermost.’

I. Great crises, whether of joy or sorrow, reveal character and disposition.—To-morrow Christ was to die. It was the evening hour, and oh! on what a morning was that setting sun to dawn! The time-table of his wondrous Life was before Him and He knew what was coming. But when the great crisis came it only revealed His Heart and displayed His Love. Others fail in the hour of need, He never. Why, if all the love-stories of all the Romeos and Juliets who have ever breathed were to be told, what would they be beside the romance of the Divine Love?

II. He loved ‘His own.’—He had compassion for all the race. He wept over Jerusalem. But He had a special, complacent, unchanging love for ‘His own.’ He poured out the alabaster box of His love on them; on, on it flowed till He said, ‘As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you’ (John 15:9). The Agony and Bloody Sweat of Gethsemane, the red drops that fell on the dust of Calvary, those Seven dying Words, all tell that His love was love ‘to the uttermost.’ And we know ‘His own’ include all who shall believe on Him through their word (John 17:20).

III. They believed His Love.—When a man believes in Christ it is the turning-point in his life, in Carlyle’s words he ‘was henceforth a Christian man; believes in God not on Sundays only, but on all days, in all places, and in all cases.’ So that, at any rate, after His Resurrection, they were willing to die for Him.

Rev. F. Harper.

(SECOND OUTLINE)

UNTO THE END

I. The love cherished.

(a) There was little in the disciples of that which usually attracts human love. We love that which is unselfish: but which of the disciples rose to the height of self-sacrifice? St. Peter, the most generous, said, ‘We have left all and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore.’ We love that which is humble; but the disciples more than once were detected in a strife as to which should be greatest. Boastfulness is not an amiable quality; yet St. Peter declared that though all should provoke Christ, yet would not he, and protested with passionate vehemence that he was ready to lay down his life. That man or woman who does not love little children is not very lovely; yet the disciples rebuked them, and tried to drive them away. Inexcusable ignorance is not a lovable quality; yet when His mind could least bear the strain of reiterating what it had been His lifelong mission to teach, Jesus had to inform them who He was, and the meaning of what He did. Cowardice we love least of all: yet when He needed courage most it was wanting, they all forsook Him and fled. These were the men He loved—not helped, befriended, but loved. Do we wonder at it? And ask why He did not select the unselfish, the humble, etc.? Who are we that we should ask this question? Let those who are without sin amongst us cast the first stone. But let those of us who have harrowing recollections of selfishness, ambition, etc., wonder, with adoring gratitude, and with tears, that Christ loves us to the end.

(b) Christ loved these men because they were His own. The mother loves her fretful baby because it is her own. The father loves his wayward son because he is his own. The same perversity, or less, in the children of other people excites profound dislike. How were the disciples? how are we Christ’s own? Various senses: creation, redemption, conquest; but here doubtless in the sense employed an hour afterwards. ‘I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were and Thou hast given them Me.’ We are Christ’s own by Divine gift. A gift takes its preciousness from the giver. Who then can measure our preciousness to Christ? This will amply account for all Christ’s longsuffering and patient love.

(c) Christ loved His own because they were in the world. They would have to encounter the world’s enmity; to drink Christ’s cup, and be baptized with His baptism. Their work was to evangelise the world, and to wear the crown of life through faithfulness unto death. His own were (are) menaced by hardship, peril, death; hence Christ’s unquenchable and everlasting love.

II. The love shown.

(a) Completely. Revised Version (margin): ‘To the uttermost.’ No quality necessary to perfect love, either in its essence or exhibition, was wanting. Christ’s love was perfectly pure, without admixture: perfectly self-sacrificing; ‘Greater love hath no man than this,’ etc.

(b) To the end of His life. Notice the march of this love. Revelation of heaven; promise of Comforter; assurance of friendship and safety; Gethsemane, ‘If ye seek Me let these go their way,’ etc.; Calvary.

(c) To the end of their lives. ‘Lo, I am with you alway.’ ‘This God is our God … He will be our guide even unto death.’

(d) Throughout eternity. Revelation 7:9.

Illustration

‘In the days when Home was the mistress of the world (and the Roman army was the bravest ever known, it had an almost unbroken record of success for seven hundred years), if some one regiment were to be placed in the very jaws of death, and perhaps on that legion the fate of the empire rested, they knelt down on one knee in front of the assembled host and raising their hands to heaven took an oath to die for Rome.’