“We love him because he first loved us.”

1 John 4:19

The entry below is from one of JE’s sermons on love. It’s short and to the point. Also, you are wrong if you thought the Puritans didn’t know anything about love! lol

The love of Christ is exceedingly sweet and satisfying from the greatness of it. This love is a dying love; such love was never seen before, and no other love can parallel it. There have been instances of very great love between one earthly friend and another; there was a surpassing love between David and Jonathan. But there has never been such love as Christ has toward believers. The satisfying nature of this love arises also from its sweet fruits. Those precious benefits that Christ bestows on his people, and those precious promises that he has given them, are the fruits of this love. Joy and hope are the constant streams that flow from this fountain, from the love of Christ.

4 Responses to “The Greatest Love”

1. Geoff says:

   May 29, 2009 at 5:52 pm

   Hi Phil… perhaps a conversation partner for Edwards vis-a-vis love? Here’s one of Marion’s quotes on love:

   “Love does not suffer from the unthinkable or from the absence of conditions, but is reinforced by them. For what is peculiar to love consists in the fact that it gives itself… love does not pretend to comprehend, since it does not mean at all to take; it postulates its own giving, giving where the giver strictly coincides with the gift, without any restriction, reservation, or mastery.

   Thus love gives itself only in abandoning itself, ceaselessly transgressing the limits of its own gift, so as to be transplanted outside of itself. The consequence is that this transference of love outside of itself, without end or limit, at once prohibits fixation on a response, a representation, an idol.”
2. Geoff says:

   May 29, 2009 at 5:52 pm

   Aaahhh! Dang formatting issues.
3. philhigley says:

   May 29, 2009 at 5:59 pm

   Haha; fixed.

   Wow, in that quote Marion certainly has hit on the profundity of godly love, or at least how we can apprehend (vs. comprehend)it in our finite states. Can you give a little biographical blurb on him on your blog and I’ll syndicate it?

   Also, I’ve yet to read your entries on torture (that kind of sounds strange, lol) but I’m looking forward to it tonight.

   Later.
4. Wyatt Houtz says:

   June 2, 2009 at 1:09 pm

   It’s amazing that we have no love in ourselves, but only when he puts love into us, do we come to life. Probably why says such bad things about the natural man. Rom 7:18, 1 Cor 2:14