The Sin and Doom of the Loveless

Chapter 8 THE SIN AND DOOM OF THE LOVELESS.

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him he Anathema Maranatha. -- 1 Corinthians 16:22

One that was not aware of the debasing and hardening nature of sin might think it very improbable that any man should not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Were the revelation made to a sinless world, that its Creator and Preserver was about to pay it a visit, would it not be so thrilled by the intelligence as to arouse itself and bestir its mightiest energies, and 'rejoice before the Lord; for he cometh; for he cometh?' Would it not be forward to exhibit its love to Him in prolonged and ardent outbursts of loyalty; and if its affection were susceptible of increase, would not His advent be the epoch and means of such revival? But what would His visit do to such a world compared with what His descent to our earth has secured for us? For surely if this world has sinned, and guilt lies upon it, and He in our nature has come, not to see it, but to save it; not to visit it, but to bear away its curse; if He has walked in it and taught in it, wept for it and died for it, and if ascending to heaven He still pleads for it, governs it, and blesses it, ― might it not be anticipated that men, privileged with such a manifestation of divine love, would be attracted at once to the Benefactor; willing to give their lives for Him who had given His for them, and loving him with a passion which, in its nobleness and ardour, should be the image and reflection of His own? God Himself is represented as under the influence of a similar expectation when He says, in resolving to send the Only-begotten, Surely they will reverence my son.' Ah! but the world has been indifferent to its Saviour-God ― that world that bore His cross and contained His grave. Alas! how awfully sin has darkened the understanding and seared and perverted the heart. Fallen humanity is certainly beside itself; for passions, sordid and worldly, so fill it and so usurp the supremacy, that no room is left for love to Him who is ' altogether lovely.' What need, then, to repeat and enforce the startling declaration ― ' If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.' In illustration of our awful theme, let us then ask ―

1. Why the Lord Jesus Christ is to be loved? There is no doubt that love to Him characterizes the church of the New Testament, and throws its fragrance over the pages of inspiration. It was the pervading emotion of early times. Every bosom felt it; every life was hallowed and moulded by it. The song of praise rose to a joyous melody under its influence, and its fervour quailed not at agony and martyrdom. The memory of the cross was young and fresh, and faith wrought by love. That love was a distinct and personal attachment. Christ was enshrined in the soul, and lighted it up with unquenchable ardour. He was indeed represented on earth by His people and by His cause; but especially to Himself did love surge upward in continuous and irrepressible tides. And there is every reason that it should still be so. For this love is a rational affection. It is based on ample grounds. It is not an emotion which springs up, none can tell how or why. It is no mysterious instinct that acquires a sudden and wondrous predominance. 'Nor is it any caprice or feverish excitement. It rests on a sure foundation ― on a 'tried corner-stone.' Such affection toward the Redeemer has been sometimes supposed to be a species of dreamy enthusiasm, and many have given countenance, by their language and actions, to the unjust supposition. Mystics have in their fond fanaticism applied freely to the Saviour such terms of endearment as would at once destroy all distance and reverential abasement, and impel the spirit into a presumptuous familiarity. But the temperament of this love will be always that of profound humility and awe. It must never forget, even in its highest ecstasies, what it was once, and what, by the grace of God, it has now become. Our love to Jesus is the most rational of feeling, for it rests on a knowledge of His person and claims; of His character and enterprise. Is He not 'the chiefest among ten thousand?' As a man, and were He not more than man, you cannot but love Him. ' Thou art fairer than the sons of men. Grace has been poured into thy lips.' For Christ was truly perfect ― the only perfect being that the world has seen. The sexes appear to divide between them the elements of perfection, and a perfect man or a perfect woman might not be a perfect human being. But all that is tender and graceful in woman, and all that is noble and robust in man, met together in Jesus. ]Nature is never prodigal of her gifts. Birds of gay plumage have no song; strength is denied to creatures endowed with swiftness. Thus it is often said, and with justice, that as one man is generally distinguished by the predominance of one virtue, or one class of virtues, and another man by the ascendancy of a different kind of excellences, so the union of both might realise perfection. Had the peculiar gifts of John and Paul been blended, the result might have been a perfect apostle. Were the intrepidity of Luther, the tenderness of Melanchthon, and the calm intellect of Calvin combined in one person, you would have the model of a faultless reformer. Had Whitfield possessed Wesley's tact and power of management, or Wesley Whitfield's restless vigor and burning eloquence, would there not be the type of a complete evangelist? Out of the distinctive talents and acquirements of Coke, Bacon, and Hale, might be evolved the ideal of a finished judge. And would not he be a paragon of statesmanship who had the tongue of Chatham, the soul of Fox, and the shrewd and practical energy of Peel? But Jesus was distinguished by the rarest union of integrity and goodness. Every grace that adorns humanity was in Him, and in Him in fulness and symmetry. 'No virtue jostled another out of its place. None rose into extravagance ― none pined in feeble restriction. There was room for love to a mother in a heart filled with love to the world. He felt that He was dying as a Son, while He was making atonement as a Saviour. His patriotism was not absorbed in the wide sweep of His philanthropy. What amiability in His character ― what meekness and patience in the midst of unparalleled persecution! No frown was ever upon His face, and no scorn was ever upon His tongue; but His eye was often filled with tears, and His bosom overflowed with sympathy, and His lips with consolation. His one pursuit was the good of men. For that, by night He prayed, and by day He laboured. Opposition did not deter Him, and ingratitude did not sour Him. With what pains and patience He taught ― with what dignity and heroism He suffered. To attain the noblest of ends, He died the most awful of deaths. He lived in the luxury of doing good, and expired in the triumph of a perfected enterprise. There was no step for self No unworthy taint soiled His purity, or alloyed His merit. He realized the end of humanity ― the glory and the enjoyment of God. The multitude hungered, and He fed them; they erred, and He rebuked them. The disciple trembled at the storm. He arose and rebuked it. He summoned out of his bier the young man of Nain, and when He might have claimed him as a follower and an apostle, He gave her only son back to his mother. Wine was exhausted at the marriage feast, and not to expose the poverty of the newly-wedded pair. He created a farther supply. He took the little children in His arms, and blessed them. He could not keep the weeping mourner in suspense, but said unto her ― 'Mary.' The sisters of Lazarus sobbed in sorrow, and He raised their brother. Peter denied Him thrice, and thrice He comforted and commissioned the penitent. Judas saluted Him with a kiss, and in the blandness of His sorrow for the traitor He called him 'Friend.' So perfect in every relation of life ― so wise in speech, and so pure in conduct ― so large in compassion, and intense in beneficence ― so replete with everything that charms into attachment and rapture. He was the incarnation of universal loveliness. "We repeat it, were He but a man, who would not love Him, and caress His memory, as an honour to His species ― a man standing out from all other men in spiritual fascination and beauty? 'As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons' ― of deeper verdure than the greenest of them, and of richer and more fragrant blossom than any of its blooming companions. But we must bear in mind that Christ's humanity was assumed into a personal union with a higher nature. It was neither by a fate which He could not control, nor a change which He could not explain, that the Son of God found Himself on our world. He voluntarily took to Himself humanity, and it was love that induced Him ― love of unspeakable fervour. To take a nature so low, and come to a world so distant; to save a race so guilty and polluted, and by an agony so awful, was the effect of a love that could only originate and dwell in the bosom of Jehovah. The God-man did not surround Himself with majesty or array Himself in the splendours of heaven. He veiled His Deity but allowed it to be felt in its characteristic beneficence. And what a labour He accomplished! He secured for us the best of boons ― salvation. He has delivered us from the worst of evils, and brought us into the possession of supreme and eternal good. No other gift would have sufficed, and He died to procure it. ' He loved us, and gave himself for us.' The whole enterprise was one of love to us. And surely if we apprehend its source and nature aright, and are by faith participators in its blessings, then, as we cherish its memories, and revel in its hopes, we must 'love Him, because He first loved us.' Gratitude will surely warm into love at the view of eternal blessing. If we feel what we were, and what He, at such expense, has made us, we will love Him. Is there any enthusiasm in loving one so worthy of our affection? Has not our love to Jesus the mightiest of arguments to rest upon, and the noblest of reasons to render for itself ― what He is in Himself, and what He has done for us. Such love, resting upon the purest conviction, is totally different from that aesthetic rapture which, the devotee may feel as he gazes upon a picture of the Virgin's Son, to which genius has given either a countenance of celestial grandeur and beauty, or one expressive of the deepest anguish and sorrow. The artist's work only excites the imagination, and ministers but to the taste, and its impressions, either of awe or delight, are traceable to the common associations and instinctive sensibilities of our nature, not to the attachments of a sanctified heart. The tear may start as one gazes on such a wondrous effort of the pencil as the ' Man of Sorrows wearing the crown of thorns,' and the spirit may thrill under the subduing music of the chaunt, ' Now there stood by the cross his mother;' and yet there may be absent all that reliance on the Saviour, and sincere appreciation of His claims, which lead men to love Him with soul and strength. In a word, if you look to Him as your Instructor, He cannot but secure your attachment, and you will love Him for the truth He teaches, the amount of such truth He has taught, and the spirit in which He has communicated it. Can there be really any bosom so callous and insensate as not to be entranced with the vision of the bleeding Lamb? Nay, though He has gone to the right hand of the Father, and is clothed in royal dignity, He is not merely to be revered ― He is still to be loved. For He stands not in calm and stern majesty, so far from you and so far above you that you are chilled at the idea of His elevation and distance; but He is yet with you ― identified with you, sympathizing with you, keeping heaven for you, and preparing you for it. Can you then refuse to love Him? You have not, indeed, seen Him; you know not the colour of His complexion, the height of His stature, or the tones of His voice. But you need not such information ― you have His portraiture drawn by an inspired pencil, and preserved in the gospels. It is a perfect likeness. And as you gaze upon it in its beauty and charms, and feel its inquiring eye to be upon you and to be following you, will you not look up to the living Jesus, and say in a burst of sincerity Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!'

2. Let us now consider how Jesus is to be loved. If our creed be, there is none like Christ, then the language of our heart will be ― None but Christ! Had He common claims. He might be worthy of common love. Had He any rival ― were there any truth but His that could enlighten, or any blood but His that could sanctify, or any power but His that could vanquish sin and lift the sinner to glory, then affection toward Him might be either endangered or divided. But His claims are paramount, and therefore love to Him must not only be ardent, but supreme. It must correspond to His merits and character, rising to the occasion, and, like Aaron's rod, swallowing up every rival emotion.

Now, it is not of the absence of love in the church we complain so much as of its lukewarmness. It is feeble, cold, and lifeless ― unworthy of Him who is the brightness of His Father's glory. That sentiment, so dull and intermittent, cannot be called love, which only warms towards Christ on the first day of the week, but falls into oblivion and slumber on the other six days. The plant could not maintain its life by the enjoyment of air, soil, and water once a week, and the animal would drag out an enfeebled existence if it depended on a similar periodical nutrition. N0!; it is of the nature of love to give its object an immediate and permanent existence in the heart. It keeps it enshrined there. It gives it a continued presence. It so carries it about, and so delights in it, that it lives in the dream by night, and the reverie by day. It rises unawares to the lips, and ' out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.' So that if Christ were loved, His image would ever dwell within us; and were He, as He ought to be, loved supremely, that image would gather in upon itself our deepest attachment, and exercise an undivided sway over thought, purpose, speech, and action. The ultimate object of every thought, the one centre of every emotion, and the distinct boundary of every enterprise would be Christ. There may be other emotions, but this will be the master-passion ― ever watching itself, and trembling for itself with ' a godly jealousy.' There are many occasions on which this ardour may display itself, and there are many incentives to its increase. You live among men to whom the Saviour is as 'a root out of a dry ground,' having ' no form nor comeliness,' and no beauty why He should be desired. Will their callousness reduce the temperature of your love, or rather, will not the glow of your affection radiate into the chilliness around it, and light it up and warm it? While they are silent in His praise, will you too have ' a dumb devil;' or rather, will not your tongue be loosened, that you may openly and loudly glorify your Redeemer?

O for supremacy to this christian affection! How eagerly it ought to be coveted, and how earnestly it ought to be wrestled for. What a struggle should be made to ' see the King in his beauty,' and to be ravished with it. And then, if the heart were filled with this sanctified attachment, what competing emotion would find an entrance? We may be pardoned the truism if we add, that were we to love Him with every power, no faculty would be chained and paralyzed by the world. Were we to love Him with every feeling, no emotion would be left to go out toward any unworthy rival. Were we to love Him at every moment, there would be no leisure for any ignoble and disgraceful desire. The supremacy of this love is the true safeguard against its being dissipated and frittered down. Let it roll through your bosom in genial current; and then, though the rock may impede it, its seeming stagnation will allow it only to gather its strength, when it shall over-leap the obstacle, and in its impetuosity dash aside every barrier. ' He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' If such love prevailed ― such love as Jesus is entitled to, and does possess among the glorified saints ― what a scene not only of enjoyment but of hallowed activity the church of Christ should be: He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.' Again, ' If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' Do not I love Thee, my Lord?
Behold my heart and see,
And turn each cursed idol out
That dares to rival Thee.

Thou know'st I love Thee, gracious Lord;
But I long to soar
Far from the sphere of mortal joys,
And learn to love Thee more.'

3. Let us now consider the sin and danger of not loving Christ. The duty being so imperative, its neglect is so much the more awful. And therefore a very solemn form of phraseology is employed ― he shall be Anathema Maranatha ― accursed when our Lord cometh. There is sin of peculiar aggravation in not loving Christ.

1. It implies ignorance of his person, claims, and work. All who know Him cannot but love Him. Nay, the more they know Him, the more does their heart burn with this gracious and absorbing affection.

There may, indeed, be a distant recognition of Him as a historical personage without any attachment to Him. But the soul that so views Him is beyond the sphere of His enlivening influence. The rays of the Sun of Righteousness fall not with such obliquity as to warn a spirit in this low and shrouded position. Still, every one who knows, in his own experience, the glory and riches of Christ, and whose consciousness testifies that ' virtue' has come down from Him and healed his soul, is induced to love Him. He does not need to be argued into it. It is not under the pressure of logic that he is forced into it. It rises spontaneously within him, as the vital glow and accompaniment of his knowledge of Christ. To know Him is to love Him, for such knowledge and love co-exist by a secret and constitutional connexion, like the bloom and odour of the flower. Where, then, there is no love to Christ, there is no genuine knowledge of Him; and surely ignorance of Him must bring a merited anathema. For such ignorance is wholly inexcusable, with the Bible before it and the cross in its view. Not to love Him because the soul is so uninformed as not to know Him, is surely to pine away in self-gathered gloom ― a gloom which, alas! is congenial with the darkness of that terrible region where morning never breaks.

2. Again, what unbelief is implied in a loveless heart. It is by faith in Him that salvation is enjoyed. Through this belief, and by the Spirit of God, the soul becomes one with Him. This precious and living unity manifests itself in love. 'Faith worketh by love.' To believe Him to be robed in loveliness of character, and distinguished above all for loveliness in action ― to believe Him possessed of a love to you whose fervour shone brightest amidst the darkness of death ― a love which still surrounds you with His favour, and lavishes upon you transcendent goodness; so to believe in Him must be to love Him. This love everywhere adorns ' the faith of God's elect,' and everywhere accompanies it, as verdure and freshness attend the course of a stream. But if absence of love imply absence of faith, what a curse must follow: ' He that believeth is saved, but he that believeth not is condemned already.' Severed from Christ, the soul is lost for ever. Like a lopt-off branch, it can have no circulation of life and sap from the root. If to be loveless is to be faithless, no wonder that the apostle solemnly predicts such an anathema as that of our text ― Our Lord cometh. And the spirit devoid of love, because devoid of saving faith, is exiled to a world where it shall have faith, and where it must have faith ― where faith, as an element of its punishment, shall possess it and fill it, and by no means leave it ― not belief that it may have deliverance, but belief that it might have had it, in the period of grace and privilege now past, and past for ever.

3. Besides, how unlike God is a soul that does not love Christ. Now, this unlikeness to God must be positive deformity and misery. Every unfallen creature bears the divine image as its highest style of beauty. That the Father loves the Son, the very terms of relationship do certainly imply. He has infinite complacency in Him: ' The Father loveth the Son, and giveth all things into his hands.' Nay, Jehovah exclaims, ' Behold my Servant whom I have chosen, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth.' As one so like Himself, the Father loves Him. He, therefore, who does not love Christ, is as unlike God as he possibly can be. And, if, on a point so tender, he is so unlike God, will not God frown upon him and punish him? Can He have any emotion but that of resentment toward one who is not like-minded and like-hearted with Himself toward His Son? It is also doing Himself discredit, not to believe and feel what He has said concerning the Beloved. If there be such antipathy in a human soul, there needs no formal sentence of anathema to be pronounced upon it. There needs to be no inquisition, no summons, no trial, no reverberation of thunder from the throne. Let but the mind retain this special element of dissimilarity to God ― let it persevere in this indifference to Jesus, and it of necessity gathers in upon itself the elements of wretchedness, brings a withering gloom over all its susceptibilities of happiness, banishes all those emotions which elevate and dignify, is disappointed in the unworthy and unsatisfying objects of its attachment, loses the power of appreciating what is noble, or of being flushed and regaled by what is lovely; becomes, in short, shriveled and dead, capable of no feeling but remorse, and of no excitement but that of despair. The anathema comes surely, and the loveless heart woes it and nurses it. It has vitiated all its spiritual tastes, and it punishes itself in its own depravity. It curses itself, and under the double woe it shall be, and must be, Anathema; our Lord cometh.

4. And the curse is sure, too, from the fact, that the soul which does not love the Lord Jesus Christ has no preparation for heaven. Heaven is a region where love to Jesus predominates ― where it gladdens every bosom, and gives music to every anthem. The glorified saints are freed from all misconception and numbness, and they ' love out of a pure heart fervently.' The ashes have been removed, and the flame ascends with a steady brilliance. As they remember what they once were, so guilty and polluted, and by what a miracle of grace they have been recovered; as they think how Jesus assumed their nature, died for them, to secure that pardon in which they now rejoice, and pleaded for that perfection in which they now are clothed; and as they see Him arrayed in royal splendor, the object of vision and theme of song to enraptured myriads, can they refrain from joining in the hallelujah? Their happy consciousness finds its appropriate utterance in these hymns ― the spirit of which is love to the Redeemer ― for such song is but the dialect of love. But the unloving mind is not allowed to join in these warblings, it could sing neither ' with the spirit nor with the understanding.' It has not caught the soul of the melody, for none but the new heart can sing the new song. It would find no inducement to gaze on Christ, and none to celebrate His majesty. "Without love to Him, because unconscious of any salvation from Him, it would feel no reason to bless Him. These praises would ring in its ears as unmeaning and distasteful sounds ― and it would remain silent, lonely, surprised, and sullen amid the hymning choirs. But, alas! there is no neutral world where it can subsist, and snatch, the means of enjoyment; and the loveless spirit must therefore be doomed away to that bleak and cheerless prison, filled and torn with mutual hostilities ― that hell of conflicting passions, where, amidst a thousand battling rancours, there reigns over all an intense antipathy to God and to His Son Jesus Christ.

5. And the curse is certain ― Our Lord cometh. The church rejoices in that motto, but it is the terror of the wicked. The cloud that guided Israel consumed and terrified the amazed Egyptian. There maybe no notice of this loveless state on earth, and the church may have no penalty for it. But 'the Lord comes,' and it cannot escape unpunished. As under the third commandment, though profane swearing may meet neither mulct nor imprisonment, nor any form of civil repression, though man may be unable to try and punish it, yet ' the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.' The heart that loves not Christ, though it may pass unobserved in the world, and may even secrete itself in the church, is under an eye which never slumbers, and beneath a hand which never fails in its aim, or misses its stroke. Our Lord cometh. And He comes for the very purpose of making inquisition ― of ascertaining who have responded to His love, and confided in His atonement. Nor can He be deceived. No one can evade His glance, or pass undetected in the crowd. His eye, as it looks upon the mass, scans every individual composing it, and looks down into his heart. Nay, the heart without love will at once discover itself by its tremor. The presence of Jesus will throw it into such frenzy, as "will at once signalise its doom. Nor can it escape. Subterfuge and evasion are alike impossible. ' Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down; and though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent and he shall bite them.' But not only does the awful formula certify the curse, it also embitters it ― Our Lord cometh. O it is He whom men are bound to love as Saviour ― whose grace has captivated so many hearts ― He whom the Father loves, and who is enthroned in the bosom of the unfallen and the redeemed creation ― He who sought their affection and did everything to win it in His blood ― it is He who pronounces the dread anathema. From other lips it would not be so awful; but surely such an anathema from the lips of Love must arm itself with a burning and unbearable terror. Such gleams of his inexpressible loveliness will fall upon the soul as He pronounces its fearful sentence ― that it will bow in helpless agony to the justice of its doom, and will confess with a shriek of sudden horror at its obtuseness and insensibility, that not to love one so lovely deserves the full weight of the curse. The Lord has come. May God, of his great mercy, deliver us all from so frightful a penalty! The Lord direct our hearts into the love of His Son, and so win us to this holy emotion, that we shall rejoice in His coming, and then this Maranatha, which frightens others, shall be the pledge of our dearest hopes. Amen, and Amen.