Love's Importance

Jesus’ love makes him use the disciples’ love to himself as a comfort for themselves when they are distressed about his going away.

He appeals to the warmest feeling in their hearts in order to raise their spirits.

It is well when grace has put within us principles which are springs of consolation.

O blessed Master, you speak ever with a view to our joy!

From our text let us learn—

I. THAT WE SHOULD TRY TO SEE THINGS IN CHRIST’S LIGHT.

1. He sees the whole of things. He says not only, “I go away,” but also, “I come again unto you.”

2. He sees through things. He does not say, “I die,” but he looks beyond, and says, “I go unto the Father.”

3. He sees the true bearing of things. The events which were about to happen were in themselves sad, but they would lead to happy results. “If you loved me, you would rejoice.”

   • To see facts in his light we must dwell with him, live in him, grow like him, and especially love him more and more.

II. THAT OUR LOVE SHOULD GO FORTH TOWARDS HIS PERSON. “If you loved me.” All about him is amiable; but he himself is altogether lovely. Solomon’s Song 5:16.

1. He is the source of all the benefits he bestows.

2. Loving him, we have him, and so his benefits.

3. Loving him, we prize his benefits the more.

4. Loving him, we sympathize in all that he does.

5. Loving him, we love his people for his sake.

6. Loving him, our love endures all sorts of rebuffs for his sake.

7. Loving him, the Father loves us. John 14:23.

8. Loving him, we are married to him. Love is the sure and true marriage-bond whereby the soul is united to Christ.

   • Love to a person is the most real of emotions.
   • Love to a person is the most influential of motives.
   • Love to a person is, in this case, the most natural and satisfying of affections.

III. THAT OUR SORROW OUGHT NOT TO PUT OUR LOVE IN QUESTION.

Yet, in the case of the disciples, our Lord justly said, “If you loved me.”

He might sorrowfully say the same to us—

1. When we lament inordinately the loss of creatures.

2. When we repine at his will, because of our severe afflictions.

3. When we mistrust his wisdom, because we are sore hampered and see no way of escape.

4. When we fear to die, and thus display an unwillingness to be with our Lord. Surely, if we loved him, we should rejoice to be with him.

5. When we complain concerning those who have been taken from us to be with him. Ought we not to rejoice that Jesus in them sees of the travail of his soul, and has his prayer answered, “Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am”? John 17:24.

IV. THAT OUR LOVE SHOULD MAKE US REJOICE AT OUR LORD’S EXALTATION, THOUGH IT BE OUR PERSONAL LOSS.

1. It was apparently the disciples’ loss for their Lord to go to the Father; and we may think certain dispensations to be our loss—

   • When we are tried by soul-desertion, while Christ is magnified in our esteem.
   • When we are afflicted, and he is glorified, by our sorrows.
   • When we are eclipsed, and in the result the gospel is spread.
   • When we are deprived of privileges for the good of others.
   • When we sink lower and lower in our own esteem, but the kingdom of God comes with power.

2. It was greatly to our Lord’s gain to go to his Father.

   • Thus he left the field of suffering forever.
   • Thus he re-assumed the glory which he had laid aside.
   • Thus he received the glory awarded by the Father.
   • Thus he became enthroned for his church and cause.
   • It will be well for us to look more to our love than to our joy, and to expect our joy through our love.
   • It will be well for us to know that smallness of love may dim the understanding, and that growth in it may make us both wiser and happier.
   • In all things our Lord must be first. Yes, even in those most spiritual delights, about which it may seem allowable to have strong personal desires.

Striking Paragraphs

Observe that Christ does not say, “My Father was greater than I,” in reference to his pre-existent glory; nor, “My father will be greater than I,” in reference to the glory which he was to resume after his exaltation; but he uses a style of expression which shows that he refers to the present time—to the time of his humiliation in the flesh. The apostles had been expressing regret at the announcement of his immediate departure, and this passage contains a soft rebuke of the selfishness of their feelings. We may paraphrase it thus: “If you really loved me on my own account—if the regard and affection you profess to entertain were purely unselfish in its nature—so far from evincing sorrow at the prospect of my departure, you would rejoice that I shall leave this state of temporary degradation; that I shall cease to be the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief; that I shall resume that original and essential glory which I enjoyed with the Father from eternity. As long as I continue in my present state of humiliation, my Father is greater in glory than I; but when the days of my flesh shall terminate, I shall then be glorified with the Father’s own self, with that glory which I had with him before the world was created.” This is obviously the correct paraphrase of the passage; no other interpretation of the words, “For my Father is greater than I,” could justify, or attach any force to, the interesting appeal which the Savior makes to the love and affection of his disciples.—Dean Bagot.

Dr. John Duncan, having heard a sermon on the kingdom of Heaven, in which the blessings of the new covenant were compared to a market, in which a man could buy everything needed for eternal life, met his friend, Dr. Moody Stuart, at the close of the service, and said to him, “Dear friend, when I heard of the good things that were offered in the market, I said to myself, I will marry the merchant, and they will all be mine.”—The Christian.

The author of a biographical sketch of the late Rev. W. Robinson, of Cambridge, says, “In one of my last conversations with him, I was referring to the sadness of seeing our good men die; and he turned to me with the well-known blaze in his eye, and emphasis of his voice, saying, ‘I think it glorious.’ ”

A saint cares not how ill it goes with him so it goes well with Jesus Christ; he says, as Mephibosheth to David, “Yes, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house”: 2 Samuel 19:30. So it may go well with God’s name, Moses cares not though his be blotted out of the book of life; and, said John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease; this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled.”—Ralph Venning.