Love Out of a Pure Heart

This grand summing up specifies three things which are to claim our attention. Let us look at them in the order given. First: "Charity [love] out of a pure heart." Perhaps it may be asked, What is a pure heart in the light of Scripture? We have instruction in 2 Tim. 2:22, "Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." Then in 1 Peter 1:22 we are exhorted, "See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently." I believe that the mind and heart of the new man are closely connected, and the exhortations to each are similar in character. The heart is looked at as the seat of the affections, and the mind as where the intelligence of the new man is stored.
In Phil. 2:5 we are told, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Then we have in Rom. 12:2, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
We have already referred to the prayer of Eph. 3 where the desire is that "Christ may dwell in your hearts." Then in chapter 4 we read: "If ye have heard Him and been instructed in Him according as the truth is in Jesus; namely your having put off according to the former conversation the old man... and being renewed in the spirit of your mind; and your having put on the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness." Eph. 4:21-24 JND.
It seems from these scriptures, then, that "love out of a pure heart" can only spring from one who is born again. All thoughts and desires of the old man are put in the place of death, so that it is only the thoughts and desires of the new man that are in evidence and hence it comes from a pure heart. All the selfishness and ambition which characterize the present age are not given a place in the heart and mind of the new man. It is not a state reached once and for all practically, but it is a matter of being before the Lord constantly in self-judgment.
The Lord passes us through a school of training here in our wilderness journey, similar to Israel of old as brought before us in Deut. 8. "To humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart... that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”
This "love out of a pure heart" would be that love which Christ consistently manifested down here, and it should proceed out of the hearts of His people. I am reminded of what is said in John 13, "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”