Song of Solomon 8:7

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

Unpurchasable love

That is a general truth, applying to all forms of real love; you cannot purchase love. Who, for instance, could purchase a mother s love? Take, again, even the love of friends; I only instance that just to show how true our text is in relation to all forms of love. Damon loved Pythias; the two friends were so bound together that their names became household words, and their conduct towards one another grew into a proverb. Yet Damon never purchased the heart of Pythias, neither did Pythias think to pay a yearly stipend for the love of Damon. No; if a man should give all the substance of his house even for human love, for the common love that exists between man and man, it would utterly be contemned. Rest assured that this is pre-eminently true when we get into higher regions, when we come to think of the love of Jesus, and when we think of that love which springs up in the human breast towards Jesus when the Spirit of God has renewed the heart and shed abroad the love of God within the soul. If a man should offer to give all the substance of his house for either of these forms of love, it would utterly be contemned.

I. We will begin at the highest manifestation of love, and commune together upon it. So let me say, first, that The Love Of Our Lord Jesus Christ Is Altogether Unpurchasable. This fact will be clear to us if we give it a moment’s careful thought. It must be quite impossible to purchase the love of Christ, because it is inconceivable that He ever could be mercenary. The pure stream of His love leaps like the crystal rill, and there is no sediment that can be found in it; it is altogether unmixed love to us. Besides, there is another point that renders this idea of purchasing Christ’s love as impossible as the first thought shows it to be incredible; for all things are already Christ’s. Therefore, what can be given to Him wherewith His love could be purchased? Let us also note that, if Christ’s love could be won by us by some thing we could bring to Him or do for Him, it would suppose that there was something of ours that was of equal merit and of equal value with His love, or, at any rate, something which He was willing to accept as bearing some proportion to His love. But, indeed, there is nothing of the sort. But what a blessing it is that we have the love of Christ, though we could not purchase it! The Son of God hath loved us; He has bestowed upon us what He never would have sold us; and He has given to us freely, “without money and without price.” The greatest wonder to me is that this unpurchasable love, this unending love is mine; and you can always say, each one of you, if you have been regenerated, “This love is mine; the Lord Jesus Christ loves me with a love I never could have purchased.” Peradventure, some one is saying just now, “I wish I could say that.” Do you really wish it? Then, let the text serve to guide you as to the way by which you may yet know Christ’s love to you. Do not try to purchase it, abandon that idea at once. “But surely, surely we may do something. We will give up this vice, we will renounce that bad habit, we will be strict in our religiousness, we will be attentive to all moral duties.” So you should; but when you have done all that, do you think you have done enough to win His love? Is the servant who has only done what he ought to have done entitled to the love of his master’s heart because of that? Thou shalt not win Christ’s love so; if thou hast His love shed abroad in thy heart, thou hast infinitely more than thou hast ever earned.

II. In our case, nothing can ever serve as a substitute for love. If Christ has loved us, or if we are desirous of realizing that He has done so, the one thing needful and essential is that we have true love to Him. God’s demand of each one who professes to be His child is, “My son, give me thine heart.” Love He must have; this is His lawful demand. His people delight to render it; if thou dost not, then thou art none of His.

III. The saints’ love is not purchased by Christ’s gifts. The love of saints to their Lord is not given to Christ because of His gifts to them. We love our Lord, and we love Him all the more because of the many gifts He bestows upon us; but His gifts do not win our love. Oh, it is “Jesus Christ Himself who wins the love of our hearts!” If He had not given us Himself, we should never have given to Him ourselves. All else that may be supposed to be of the substance of His house would not have won His people s hearts, until at last they learnt this truth, and the Spirit of God made them feel the force of it, “He loved me, and gave Himself for me. “My beloved is mine, and I am His,” is now one of the sweetest stanzas in love’s canticle. The spouse does not say “His crown is mine, His throne is mine, His breastplate is mine, His crook is mine”; she delights in everything that Christ has as a King, and a Priest, and a Shepherd; but, above all else, that which wins and charms her heart is this, “He Himself is mine, and I am His.” But I meant mainly to say, under this head, that there are some of Christ’s gifts that do not win our hearts, that is to say, our hearts do not depend upon them. And they are, first, His temporal gifts. I am very thankful, and I trust that all God’s people are also, for health and strength. I have lost these sometimes, but I did not love my Lord any the less then; neither do I love Christ this day because I am free from pain. If I were not free from pain, I would still love Him. I meant also to say that we do not love Christ because of His temporary indulgence of us in spiritual things. You know our Saviour very frequently favours us with manifestations of His presence. We are overjoyed when He comes very near to us, and permits us to put our fingers into the prints of the nails. He takes all the clouds out of our sky, and gives us the bright shining of the sun; or He opens the lattices, and shows us Himself in a way only second to that in which we shall see Him when we behold Him face to face. And oh, how we love Him then! But, thank God, when He draws the lattice back again, and hides His face, we do not leave off loving Him because of that. Our love to our Lord does not depend upon the weather. Even if we should be called to pass through terrible trials and adversities, and should have to walk a long time in clouds and darkness, yet still would we love Him and rejoice in Him.

IV. The love of saints cannot be bought off from Christ at any price. The saints sell Christ? No, they are too much like their Master to do that. You recollect how Satan took their Master to the top of a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said, “All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Wicked thief! It was not his to give yet he tempted Christ in that way, but Jesus answered, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” If any of Christ’s followers are tempted in the same fashion, let them give the same reply. All the substance of the devil’s house could not win the love of that man who has set his affection on Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)