THE LOVE OF CHRIST
Ephesians 3:18-19 NLT
[18] “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. [19] May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
The love of Christ…what is it?
Today, we will look at Jesus’ love from another perspective. We usually understand this love of Jesus as His love for us that kept Him faithful to His mission. He saved us from sin because He loved us so much!
I think the Bible adds a dimension to this love that we, perhaps, have not considered. What the Bible says about the love of Christ doesn’t downplay His love for us. Rather, it shows the reason for His perseverance through the worst of human suffering to accomplish what He came to earth to do.
Biblical writers insist that it was not His love for us that brought Him from heaven and took Him to the cross. It was His love for the Father that bound Him to the Father’s will and kept Him on course from birth, through His life and death, to His resurrection and glory, to save us.
Yes, Jesus loved us. The Apostle Paul assures us of His love.
Galatians 2:20 NLT
[20] “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who LOVED ME and gave himself for me.”
Jesus is God, and God is love. However, in His humanity, Jesus was subject to the Father. As a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. His reverent submission to the Father qualified Him to be the perfect sacrifice and Saviour of sinners. His love for us was His love for the Father expressed in His obedience to the Father’s will.
Throughout His public ministry, and especially in His conflict with the religious leaders, Jesus testified to His love for and obedience to the Father.
The Father sent Jesus to do the His will.
John 6:38 NLT
[38] “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will.”
Jesus loved, obeyed, and pleased the Father in every detail of His life. His love for the Father coloured everything He was and did…
John 4:34 NLT
[34] “Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work.”
Loving His Father fuelled His every thought and action.
John 5:30 NLT
[30] “I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.”
Jesus had a mission to accomplish, planned in eternity before creation. Nothing would deter Him from His purpose to do what the Father sent Him to do.
John 6:38 NLT
[38] “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will.”
With utmost confidence and transparency, Jesus testified to His obedience to the Father.
John 8:29 NLT
[29] “And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him.”
Why was Jesus so meticulous about His obedience to the Father?
John 14:30-31 NLT
[30] “I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches. He has no power over me, [31] but I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I LOVE THE FATHER. Come, let’s be going.”
Obedience and love are two sides of the same coin.
John 15:10 NLT
[10]” When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”
No amount of tempting or persuasion could drag Jesus away from His avowed purpose to protect His unity with the Father by trusting Him and doing His will. Whatever His circumstances, however much He fell foul of the religious leaders, was misunderstood, maligned, insulted, accused, and rejected, Jesus trusted the Father’s love for Him and loved Him in return.
Matthew 4:3-4 NLT
[3]” During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” [4] But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Even to His last drop of blood, Jesus remained steadfast in His determination to do God’s will.
Matthew 26:39 NLT
[39] He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Every word Jesus spoke, every decision He made, every test He passed speaks of His love for the Father. Such love could never fail. It was cemented by the Father’s love for His Son.
This is the love, infallible and indestructible, that Jesus calls us to trust as the foundation of our obedience to Him. Just as Jesus loved the Father, so He loves His children.
John 17:23 NLT
[23] “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.”
Through His obedience to the Father, powered by His love, even to death, Jesus opened the circle of the Trinity to everyone who would receive and participate in His love. This love is so strong that it triumphs over every test and trouble, and that not even hell itself can overcome.
Romans 8:38-39 NLT
[38] “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. [39] No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
On this love, God’s Word calls us to build our lives. Whatever may come our way, whatever disaster may reduce our lives to rubble, God’s love, seen most clearly in the love of Jesus for the Father, will always hold us steady until we reach our eternal destination.