MISCONSTRUED LOVE

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God."-1 John 4:7.

No subject could ever be misconstrued as much as has this one. All, both religious and nonreligious, make the greatest en­croachments upon the divine characteristic, love. Because of the many deceptive religions existing in the world, real love has been mis­interpreted to such a degree that when it is personified in the flesh it is not recognized. Theoretically we all agree that Christ per­sonified the love of God; but let us apply this in a practical man­ner. Let us first ask: What is love? True love is the feeling of tenderness, faithfulness, and sympathy, the expression of which is governed by the Word of God, and the result of which is a life of righteousness and truth. For this reason love rejoices over the truth.

The common idea is that Christ always acted in an inoffensive manner, and that it was only the brutal and malicious Jews who censured him. We too are willing to ascribe tenderness—the twin sister of love, as it were—to Christ; let us then follow him in his travels and see how these beautiful twin attributes, love and tender­ness, were revealed by the Father's personal representative—Jesus Christ, the personification of perfection. In order to judge im­partially, we must place ourselves in the position of those to whom Christ spoke.

He went into the synagogue and read to them the prophetic decree concerning deliverance as applicable on "the broken­hearted"; but as the hearers were not really broken-hearted, love made but a vain appeal to them. Jesus said:

"But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon [outside of the Israelitic territory], unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian."—Luke 4:25-29.

When they realized that he by this referred to their unworthi­ness respecting the fulfillment of "the gracious words" (v. 22) upon them, all who were in the synagogue "were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong."

But why did he refer to these offensive historic facts, which he knew would arouse their anger? Because he desired that they should become converted to the truth and that they should cease consoling themselves with the thought that they were "the people of God."

The temple was an object of pride to them. Concerning that costly building Christ said, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Mat. 24:2.) Would anyone in our time call this utterance an expression of love, es­pecially should it refer to the most expensive and magnificent cathedral in the country?

The Jews were the children of Abraham—no one could deny this—but Jesus said to them, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham"; and, "Ye are of your father the devil." That such utterances cut them to the very core, and enraged them, was not to be wondered at. Which of the now existing religions sects, would tolerate such insulting judgments from such an insignificant stranger? Would the so-called "saved" of our time, who claim that Christ judged no one, call this tender­ness? Indeed not!

God had entrusted the Jews with his law, with his ordinances, and with his promises; he had given them the country for an in­heritance, and had set the royal throne of his servant David over them. But the Stranger of Nazareth said, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." (Mat. 21:43.) He predicted a worse ending for them than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying they had mur­dered the servants of the heavenly King, and that their city, be­cause of this, would be burned, inhabitants and all. Was this love and tenderness?

Office-holders and priests, laboring most faithfully for the raintenance of the status quo, had driven "heretics" from the community, thinking they had done God a service thereby. But Jesus condemned their zeal in such service as being worthy of punishment, saying that they had brought upon themselves the wrath of God as a result of their actions. Which country's diplo­mats would call such utterances "the gospel of love"? At the first opportune moment the people of our time would say concerning such a preacher, as the Romans and the Jews said, "He hath a devil, and is mad. . . away with such a fellow from the earth."--John 10:20; Acts 22 :22.

He turned to the zealous revival preachers, who offered both time and means for the mission, saying, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte [to convert a single person], and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." (Mat. 23 :15.) Did he thereby condemn the people of God?

Would our renowned evangelists, such as Billy Sunday, Gen­eral Booth, and the like, call this tender love? All of these would most certainly unite and petition for the protection of the worldly sword against such a "blesphemy" of things divine and respected. Was it love that drove the holy traders out of the temple with a braided rope and called the house of prayer a "den of thieves"?

Jesus received the king's messenger in a manner anything but humble when he said, "Go ye, and tell that fox" that I do so and so. (Luke 13:32.) Which of Christendom's most gracious kings would have permitted such a thing to go unpunished? Give only a sheriff the name "fox" and he will reward you by committing you to the penitentiary. Refer to a soldier of the Salvation Army, to say nothing of the more elevated religious functionaries, as "a thief and robber," and you will have committed unpardonable high treason. Even if you do see how he in the name of Christ robs the poor of money, clothes, and even the light of reason, it must not be said that evangelist Mr. So and So is a thief. But Christ said it. He even said that their only occupation was to hinder the people from entering the kingdom of God, and "to kill and destroy" the sheep.—Mat. 23 and John 10.

As a contrast to their lighting the lamps in the temple, sym­bolizing the possession of Heaven's light, Jesus stood before them and said, "I am the light of the world." As a contrast to their using water for cleansing purposes in connection with the Mosaic worship, Jesus said he was the source of the water that would truly cleanse and give life. The shewbread, or the bread of life, was looked upon as "the bread before the face of the Lord"; it was set apart for the priests to eat, and by so doing they were to maintain their sanctity. And the manna which Israel ate in the wilderness was a token of remembrance to that people that God had chosen them as a people above all other peoples. But Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."—John 6:35,

He deprived them of their every stronghold, putting something "new," something unknown, in place of that which God had given this people through Moses. Is it any wonder that they misunder­stood him? If it happened to be the sabbath day, he seized the opportunity to vex them with his miracles; it looked as if he sought opportunities to arouse all kinds of suspicion against himself. And when the lust for murder was raging all around him, he pronounced judgments which no one but John, his predecessor, had dared to pronounce; for example, "Ye serpents," "Ye genera­tion of vipers," "Hypocrites," and so forth.

Tell me now, you who boast and say that Christ never "judged," that "he was not severe and condemning," that he was "love and tenderness itself," what would you have said had this speech been directed to you i Of course you do not think Christ would have addressed you in such a manner, because you are so much better than the Jew. However, the proof is still lacking. You will have to settle whether you are better than the Jew in the time of trial.

Say, for instance, that you wished to bury your father, mother, or friend, and someone should say to you, "Let the dead bury the dead," "mind that place which I as thy superior have assigned to thee !" How would that sound? Would it not be heartless to deny you the privilege of honoring your dead father? Be careful: For Jesus said not only that, but even, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."

Peter, the apostle of good intentions, endeavoring to hinder his Master from subjecting himself—as Peter thought—to an un­necessary danger, implored him not to go to Jerusalem; but Love itself answered, "Get thee behind me, Satan [adversary] : thou art an offense unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." (Mat. 16:23.) And this be­cause Peter desired that Christ should save himself! Had you been Peter, would you have considered Jesus loving and tender­hearted?

They adorned the old graves of the dead (the murdered prophets), and such deeds were, of course, beautiful. To-day our public squares and parks are full of similar honorary statues; all endeavor to surpass one another in; offering to the honor of the dead; but Jesus said, "Woe unto you, hypocrites... Wherefore ye be wit­nesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. [Now they build even churches and chapels for the martyrs in the names of the murdered ones.] Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers [by murdering your con­temporary witnesses of the truth]. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"—Mat. 23:27-33.

In order that no one should think this concerned the Jews alone, he said, "Wherefore, behold, I send [in continuance] unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your syna­gogues, and persecute them from city to city."—V. 34.

We are obliged to confess that "never man spake like this man," for he was honesty and truth personified. Nevertheless, it was a miracle that all did not become offended at his speech. Should we apply a so-called modern love test on Jesus, Peter, and Judas, Je­sus would be a repulsive tyrant, Peter, on the contrary, love itself, and Judas mercifulness—he who sympathized so much for the poor that he thought the costly ointment would have served a better purpose had it been exchanged for bread for the poor instead of wasting it on, Christ's person.

People do not wish to see the love of God in Christ's actions, neither could the Jews understand that it was love that applied the piercing scourge of the downtrodden truth. Had not love made the sacrifice it did, the storm

of destruction would have swept everyone from earth without warning—unresponsive and good Jews alike.

The religious people of our time, like the Jews of old, are of the opinion that God bestows all manner of good temporal things upon the one he loves. If reverses are met with, so that a person experiences the sufferings of Job, the sufferer is pointed out as a terrible sinner, whom God has forsaken. But if we follow Christ from the manger to the grave, we shall find that he encountered everything of an evil nature, and was therefore in truth "the man of sorrows."

The Antichristians interpret this to mean that Jesus bore the wrath of God "in our stead," and that we are freed from further sufferings because of this fact. If this is true, what can be the reason for the death of about fifty million martyrs, who, since the suffering and resurrection of Christ, have encountered the most horrible sufferings and the most shameful deaths on account of their obedience to the gospel of the Son of God? And why were his apostles subjected to the same sufferings as their Master? The priests and ministers of Baal, who have received their good things in this world, try to make us believe that God calls them to a still greater enjoyment when they die, because he loves them so dearly. But if this had been the road of truth leading to the kingdom of love, the Son of God would surely have journeyed thereon. Yet we see him hunted, tortured—and turned out, as from the manger among the animals where he first saw light. From, the time of his birth and on, the priests and custodians kept up the hunt until they succeeded in hanging him on the cross of Golgotha. He did not have as much of a stronghold as the birds in their nests and the foxes in their dens. Still we believe the. Father loved this faithful Son more than he could love a person polluted by sin and opposed to the law of God.

To love is a characteristic that has been imbedded in human nature. For instance, a father, who in love for his children en­dures great sufferings in order to make them happy, notices that one of the children begins to show objectionable propensities, which, if allowed to develop, will effect the destruction of the child. The child is warned but will not obey. The father understands that he must in some manner liberate his child from the destructive root. He takes upon himself this task with a terrible struggle going on within his soul. He suffers more himself than it is pos­sible for the child to suffer. The father gets the reputation of being insensate and mean, while the mother in her ignorance pets the child and endeavors to conceal its wickedness, thus nullifying the work of love which the father has performed.

When the son has grown up and the evil propensities have de­veloped, driving him in uncurbed passions along the road of crime, he awakens—though often too late—to realize his father's good intentions. Then it becomes clear to him that it was the hated father who loved him in spite of all. He will then curse his mother, who failed to teach him to control himself—who ruined him for the rest of his life because of her flatteries and foolishness. Millions of parents, in order to save themselves the annoyance of chastising their children, allow the evil inclinations of a child to grow unhampered, to the child's temporal and everlasting de­struction, only because they have misunderstood the duty of love toward their charges. H.e who ohastises the child in such a man­ner that it learns to obey and do good submits himself to suffering for the sake of ennobling the child. Natural love takes utterance in this manner. "He that loveth his son chasteneth him." (Prov. 13 :24.) "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die."—Prov. 23:13.

God, who has a still higher goal and a much higher degree of ennoblement in mind, rebukes, chastises, and uproots, until the beautiful growth of the living Word fills the place where the weeds once grew. His desire is that the human being should be in a position to enjoy an everlasting ruling-ability; therefore the individual must first learn how to rule his own body. He must become acquainted with the law of the kingdom of God—the ten commandments—inasmuch as this law reveals the constituents of love, also how true love should take utterance with respect to his God and his fellow man through limbs cultivated by the Word.

When God made his Son the King of the whole world, the Lord of all lords, and the Prince of all princes, he guided him through the school of suffering in order to make him perfect. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." If we add to this David's experience, "Before I was afflicted I went astray" (Psalm 119:67), and that of the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth" (Heb. 12:6), it becomes very evident that we have reached a stage where good is termed evil and evil good, hatred love, and God's love hatred.

God suffers with and for his children. But in order to create honorable children, he permits them to learn on the road of self-humiliation everything that can be of benefit to them in an exalted position. He does not spoil his beloved child by flattery, but teaches him bravely to drain the cup of suffering to the last drop; and when the time of exaltation comes, he will receive "an hundredfold" of all good things.

God loved Abraham more than he loved any of his contemporaries. Still not one of Abraham's cousins had such an humiliating social position in the eyes of the world as had this man. Just think! When the others built kingdoms for themselves, he remained a wandering, homeless stranger, well satisfied with the hardships and discomforts of tent-life, waiting for God to build for him a city—that God should fulfill his promises.—Heb. 11:8-13.

God loved Jacob because Jacob loved, valued, and believed the promises of God. Esau hated the words of God and believed not in them. Yet Esau became rich and his sons princes, while Jacob lived long in the suffering of slavery, and all manner of troubles came over him. Even his beloved Rachel was taken away from him, first by treachery and afterwards by death; he even saw the beginning of the four hundred years of slavery for his children; but he learned to perform righteousness, speak the truth, and preserve the faith.

God loved Isaiah, Job, Jeremiah, and Daniel more than he loved their respective contemporaries. But read of the sufferings they had to go through, and compare this love of God with the love which the priests and ministers of our time preach, and you will find that the latter lack all understanding of true love in all its forms.

As children of love, who love God inasmuch as he first loved us, we have certain duties toward our fellow men. Love demands that we direct the attention of our fellow men to the conditions connected with the salvation of God, with which it is necessary to comply in order to become a partaker of the promises. It also demands that we help them understand what is punishable within them, for if we do not do this it is because we do not love them. Thus it is verified that he who does not love his brother, whom he is able to see, cannot love the Son of the Invisible, whom he is unable to see, who gave his life in order to save us from de­struction.

To call a friend's attention to his unrighteousness is often con­nected with the greatest of discomfort, but no one can with a pure conscience neglect doing what is right in an endeavor to save the life which is threatened with everlasting destruction before one's very eyes. To strengthen the sinner in his sin by remaining silent or by flattering him is, to say the least, cruel. Saving your­self by permitting your fellow man to be captured by falsehood is unforgivable.

Many parents have caressed an unvirtuous child until unchastity has smothered all of the child's noble characteristics. It becomes hopelessly lost, and its soul will be demanded at the hand of the person who was so devoid of love that he evaded the demands of duty in order to save himself. May the following words of the apostle be a warning and guide to us all. He says in addition to our text:

"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in 'him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."-1 John 4:8-13.

Oh, if we could learn to know this love as it should be known —which gives its life to save the poor, bewildered, loot, and de­ceived subjects of lie and falsehood! Elijah is a good example of love, because God took him into the abode of love; but the fawning preachers of his time received their good while they enjoyed kingly favor, while they banquetted at the tables of state, and while they became the cause of the destruction of the whole country. But they were slain by the people when the latter learned to know love as it should be known.