Loving the Lord (1 John 4:19)

In the Song of Solomon, the daughters of Jerusalem ask the woman, ‘What is your Beloved more than another beloved?’ and she gives a detailed answer about his features that have caused her to love him. The apostle John also comments in our text that believers love Jesus because he first loved them, so they saw something in the love of Jesus. Maybe it was one detail they thought about – his death on the cross, or maybe there were several details that they considered. One obvious deduction is that their love is a responsive love. The answer also indicates that it is a shared or common love because John includes himself with the others even although he is an apostle.  

In any case, what could John and his friends have said about Jesus if someone asked them what was so special about the love of Jesus? What would we say, or could we say, in answer to that question? Today I want to mention some reasons for having such a positive view of his love and we can reflect on them in a chronological order of his involvement in revealing his love, a love that is always great and gracious. 

 

First, we love Jesus because he is divine, one of the three persons in the Trinity. We are told in the first commandment to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The psalmist speaks of the beauty of the Lord that he wanted to behold or gaze on. God, of course, is invisible to us, but we know something of his splendour and glory. God is perfect in every way. We are told in this letter by John that God is love, a description that indicates that everything about him is an expression of divine love. We all like a love story, but there is not a love story like the love of the Trinity. It has been their eternal experience, one in which the three divine persons exist, and from which their loving affections and actions came. That is the love of the Son of God. 

 

Second, we love Jesus because of what is called the covenant of redemption when the Father gave his people to his Son. This covenant is an eternal expression of love without a date of initiation, and the Father’s love that gave and the Son’s love that received are eternal and equal. If somebody was to give to you all the inhabitants of a town, how many of the inhabitants would you know and how much would you know about each of them? Very little about a few and nothing about most. And would you wonder if there were any strings attached in the gift that could affect you negatively? It was very different with the Son because he knew all the names in the gift he received, and he knew all about them, even though they would live in different periods of time. Moreover, they were given to him as sinners, yet he was delighted with the gift and was willing to pay the consequences because of his love for them. So each of us can say of our Beloved, he has always loved me and will do what it takes for me to be blessed. 

 

Third, we love Jesus for his gifts as a Creator. He was involved in the creation of each of his people, giving to each of them their unique features. Whatever our skills, our abilities, our traits, they were chosen for us by our triune God. We are what we are because of him, and one day he will make us whole again. We look often at the creation and wonder what it was for and can mention various reasons. One reason was that it would be the place where those eternally loved by God would appear throughout the different eras of time, and where they would embrace Jesus as their Saviour. A good deduction from knowing that the Son of God was involved in the original creation is that we now know he has the power to remake it into the new heavens and new earth when he wishes to do so. 

 

Fourth, we love Jesus for his involvement in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. He is called the Word, the heavenly Spokesman, and one of his ways of doing so was to bring about, through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of the authors, the existence of the Old Testament. Among the many details found in it, there are numerous ones of himself. For the moment, we can think of Isaiah 53 and its graphic description of Calvary, which is so accurate that we could imagine it was written by an eyewitness. It was composed by the One who planned the future, even about his own future when he would come to live on the earth as Jesus the Messiah. And there are many other great details that he gave about himself in the wonderful pages of the Old Testament, and we love to read them. 

 

Fifth, we love the Son of God for humbling himself and becoming a man. On any occasion when God interacts with a creature it is an expression of him humbling himself because it means that he condescends to speak with or help one that is infinitely inferior to him. The Son of God humbled himself not by losing something but by adding to his divine person a human nature. He was born into a poor family and then lived in a poor community. His humanity was sinless, but still a real one, and the effect must be that his people will always see humility when they look at Jesus. It is a beautiful sight to look at Jesus as a newborn infant in Bethlehem and recall that he was still the Lord of the \universe. What a marvellous sight of divine love was given to the shepherds when they went to the manger! 

 

Sixth, we love Jesus for the perfect life that he lived, mostly in obscurity in Nazareth. His childhood was perfect, his adolescence was perfect, and his adulthood was as well. Not once did he have a sin in his mind although he saw sin in the lives of his others. Not once did he desire to do or think what we might regard as a little sin. Day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, the lovely beauty of his perfection was revealed, whether in the family home or in the village street or wherever he was. And as we know, the verdict of heaven on those years was given at his baptism when the Father declared from heaven that he was well-pleased with his beloved Son. 

 

Seventh, we love Jesus for the three years of his public ministry when he revealed to Israel through his signs and teaching that he was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. How compassionate and merciful he was to needy sinners, how willing he was to touch the unclean and rescue those in problematic and desperate situations! Those years were one expression of love after another, and John no doubt recalled the day when Jesus first appeared to him, and then later called him to be an apostle.  

 

Eighth, we love Jesus for what was revealed in his death, and John was the apostle who saw him on the cross and observed what took place at Calvary. There he saw and heard what Jesus did and said, and we know that John was within hearing distance because Jesus spoke to him about looking after Mary. John saw Jesus become a propitiation when he bore the wrath of God during the hours of darkness on the cross, although he could not see into the heart of Jesus. Maybe when Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1, John saw what was happening (if he did not see the connection at that moment, he certainly saw it later). He saw Jesus pay the price for our salvation. He saw Jesus open a way for cruel, indifferent soldiers to be forgiven and for a hardened criminal to be set free. He heard the astonishing claim of Jesus that he had finished the work given to him and agreed by him in the covenant of redemption.  

 

The penalty was paid, but it was a work of accomplishment and beauty; ‘It is finished’ is the phrase that a worker such as a carpenter would use when a task was completed, and here was Jesus saying that he had finished a complex, painful, yet attractive work when he suffered at Calvary. There would have been many a satisfied customer relaxing in a chair or a bed made by the carpenter of Nazareth. And millions of sinners have rested for eternity in the work that he finished on the cross. 

 

What difference should the death of Jesus make to us, living long after the event? Recall how those known as the Marrowmen used to say that in the gospel message Christ is dead for you, not died for you. It seems an odd use of language, yet it explains a marvellous truth that when the death of Jesus is explained in the gospel message it is at that moment an offer to sinners of the blessings procured by the death of Christ which they can take freely from him. 

 

Ninth, we love Jesus for his marvellous resurrection. What a wonderful day it was when he stood alive in Joseph’s garden, now the firstfruits from the dead, the last Adam, the head of the new humanity. And we watch and see what his priorities were. He wanted to help the mourning women, he wanted to encourage the disconsolate disciples walking to Emmaus, to speak with the distraught Peter, and to meet with his scared disciples as they huddled in secret in an upper room. What an incredible day of love and restoration of hope for his baffled people! 

 

Tenth, we love Jesus for his ascension to the throne of God in heaven. There he has been highly exalted and given the name of Lord, and the assurance that the day will come when all of creation shall bow to him. And in the meantime, we love him for fulfilling the roles of prophet, priest and king on behalf of his people. We also love him for building his church, adding to it those given to him in love by the Father. 

 

Eleventh, we love Jesus for his return at the end of the age when the great resurrection will occur, when his people will be glorified by having the fulness of the Holy Spirit within them, and when they and Jesus will enter into his inheritance and enjoy it for ever in the presence of God. When they hear Jesus say on that day, ‘Behold, I and the children God has given me,’ it will be a wonderful experience. Heaven is likened to a feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb, and our feast today with the same Lamb should be foretaste of the mutual love that will be experienced on that day. 

 

These are some of the reasons for loving Jesus. Each one of them could be expanded greatly, and such expansions would cause us to love him more.