Colossiens 1:8

Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.

The apostle rejoiced over the fact that the Colossians lived. This affirmation is to be proved.

I. There are various kinds of life--of the plant, animal, man. Man has several lives, that of the animal, since he has a body; that of the intellect, since he thinks; that of the heart, since he loves. It will not be contested that thought is the life of the intellect, for the one separated from the other is nothing: and so with the life of the heart--love. Some will say that it hates also. So it does, for we cannot love a thing without hating its opposite. But the life of the heart is not to hate and to love, because hatred is not the true object of the heart. It is impossible to produce fire without making ashes, but to make ashes is not the end of our labours. Hatred forms the ashes of the fire which love kindles, but it is not on those ashes that the heart lives. The hatred which springs not from love is not the life but the death of the heart; as error is not the life of reason. But the heart has another death which is egotism; which, however, involves hatred, for a man cannot love himself exclusively without hating others.

II. The life of the heart is supreme.

1. The life of the plant is inferior to that of the animal, that of the animal inferior to that of man, that of the body beneath that of the intellect, that of the intellect beneath moral life. Matter and form are far inferior to knowledge, and knowledge cannot be put on a level with love.

2. Then that which constitutes, the value of each of these lives is its relation to a superior life. Matter is of value as it does service to the intellect, and the intellect is degraded when it does not terminate in love. If therefore a man wants the principal life for which he has received all others, and does not love, he is dead.

3. The gospel uniformly gives supremacy to this life of the heart or love.

III. The love of which the apostle speaks is love in the spirit. What is this spirit? spirit in opposition to matter? and is the expression equivalent to spiritual love? Rather Paul means love in the Spirit of God, love which He teaches and inspires. But this does not exclude the former. For our spirit is the better part of us which the Spirit of God has come to set at liberty, that part of our being which holds communion with God. This love, then, is--

1. According to the Holy Spirit.

2. A spiritual love towards the true, just, divine, immortal.

3. And so not

(1) carnal affection, which is death (Romains 8:6);

(2) interested affection;

(3) mere natural affection; although these are consecrated and renovated by the Spirit, after which the creature is loved in and for God.

IV. The object of this love. God supremely and then others, forming one grand unity (Jean 17:23).

V. The greatest example of this love is Christ. In Him we know what love is, but it was manifested in Him that it might be diffused. His disciples are to reflect His love.

VI. This love being life, and animated by the spirit of life, is immortal. VII. Hell is the absence of this love. It is that empty heart which has been violently dissevered from its affections without being united to God, a heart which has need of love, and which finds no object to supply this want. (A. Vinet, D. D.)

Two reasons for love in the Spirit

The first, a general one, which regards the very nature of love: to wit, because the Holy Spirit is the author of it; and also because love flows from spiritual heart, i.e., from a heart regenerated and renewed. Hence observe the dignity of Christian love. For natural love, or predilection, arises from those inclinations which they call natural affections. Worldly love arises either from views of interest or from conformity of manners; carnal, from the appetite for pleasure. To all these something corrupt, sordid, and vicious always adheres. But Christian love arises from the Holy Spirit, and is altogether full of holiness and purity. The other reason why the love of the Colossians is said to be in the spirit is special, and hath respect to Paul himself; for, they had never seen Paul, but had only heard of him through Epaphras and others. Because, therefore, they had loved him whom they never saw in the flesh, they are said to love in the spirit. Therefore the word spirit is taken in the same sense as in 1 Corinthiens 5:3. Hence observe, that the duty of every good man is, to embrace with spiritual love all good men, although known only by report. That any one may be esteemed worthy of our love, it is sufficient if he be known in respect to his virtue, although he be unknown in person. (Bishop Davenant.)