by W illiam C. Thomas Pastor, 1st Baptist Church West Los Angeles
THE PRIMACY OF LOVE
L et us begin with the B i b l i c a l proposition t h a t “God is love,” as we read I John 4: 8. What do we mean by that sim ple sentence ? We do not mean that
really gripped and held him captive. This brings us to our next point. God has not left us without an idea of what pleases Him. He has not left us to dig around and try to find out by the trial-and-error method what is required of us. He has re vealed it to us in His Word. This brings us to the subject of Christian ethics, or the behavior of a Christian who belongs to the Lord and whose ambition it is to please Him. Ethics cover all of our life, all our behavior, personal and social. Love must be the motive of our actions. Love will determine what we do and how we do it, how we act, how we serve the Lord and our fel low-men. But we can really separate law and love? Are they mutually ex clusive? Is our concept of love al ways the highest form of love, the agape love which is the pure love of God? The answer is No. In true Chris tian ethics love is not divorced from law. Love recognizes the necessity of divine revelation of God’s require ments. Law and love are comple ments. God has given us His will, and in the form of law — the Ten Commandments, for example — and in love we respond in obedience. Paul says God’s inspired Word is given to reprove, correct, to instruct in righteousness, that the man of God may be completely equipped for the performance of good works (II Tim. 3:16, 17), which simply means that we cannot be pleasing unto God apart from the knowledge of and the ministry of the Word of God. The key passage is Matthew 22: 36-40, in which the Lord Jesus de clares that the first commandment is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart . . . all thy soul . . . all thy mind . . . and the second is like 3
Dr. Thomas love is God, f o r that would be altogether impersonal. Love is an attribute of God. Love is God in action. Love is the way God deals with sinful humanity. It is God acting in grace toward sinful men through Jesus Christ. “God so loved the world that He gave His Son. . . .” Let us put that thought beside another Biblical tru th : Man is made in the image of God. What do we mean by that? Certainly we do not mean that man is made in the physi cal image, for that would not be possible, but rather we mean that the image is spiritual. Therefore, we can rightfully say that man is able to respond to the revelation God gives of Himself and thus have fel lowship with God. God communicates. Man receives. Again, God is justified in making certain moral demands of men, so that man knows he is to live in har mony with the will of God and be obedient to God’s Word. But, we ask, is this all that God requires, just to love Him and to love one another? Yes, and No — it depends on our definitions. What do we mean by love? What are the normal results when we love God? To put it briefly, when we really love God, we seek to please Him in all things. Paul writes in II Corin thians 5:9 that his ambition was to please the Lord. This was his ambi tion because the love of Christ had
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