Christian fellowship must be based upon virtue love; John 15:12

Title: Christian fellowship must be based upon virtue love; John 15:12.

 

John 15:12"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

 

The command to abide in the Lord’s love is a reference to this love within yourself which would have application towards yourself and the rest of the human race, but in these commands there is a specific target for application and that is one another.

 

/This does not necessarily lead to fellowship, but it often does, and when it does, virtue love must always be emphasized above Christian fellowship.\

 

Fellowship can be wonderful, but since it brings a certain pleasure and enjoyment it can become exclusive and degenerate into something selfish.

 

This is perfectly illustrated in another passage.

 

1 Peter 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart,

 

As one reads these words, the question arises as to why God exhorts saints who are already loving one another, to love one another. The answer to our question is found in the fact that the first word “love” comes from a Greek word referring to one kind of love, and the second word “love” is from another word speaking of a different kind of love.

 

The first word “love” is from a Greek word which speaks of that glow of the heart which is kindled by the perception of that in the object loved which affords one pleasure.

 

/ “love of the brethren” - filadelfi,a[philadelphia] - love based upon the attraction of the object that gives pleasure to the subject as in friendship or romance.\

 

What­ever in an object is adapted to give pleasure when perceived tends to call out affection, and this affection is what this word expresses. It speaks of a friendly affection.

 

This is the kind of love which these saints had for one another.

 

Their obedience to God’s Word brought them all into right relationship to God in their personal lives, and into right relationship to one another in their fellowship with one an­other.

 

/The danger is that fellowship can become pleasurable enough that the believer forgets what fostered it, which was like-minded obedience to the truth and dependence on the Spirit.\

 

 

This fellowship was a source of joy to them all, for the truth in the heart and life of each saint found its coun­terpart in and was attracted by the truth in the heart and life of the other saints. Each saint found in the heart of the other saint that which afforded him pleasure. He found a reflection of his own likes and dislikes, his own interests, his own thought-world in the life of his fellow-saint.

 

Pleasure and prosperity often breed forgetfulness.

 

Concerning the great prosperity that attended Israel after she was established in the Promised Land and that God gave by means of His grace…

 

/Deut 6:10

Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, \

 

/Deut 6:11

and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied\

 

Then the Lord warned:

/Deut 6:12

then watch yourself, lest you forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.\

Philadelphia/phileo love is a perfectly proper and legitimate love. But it is a love which is without virtue.

 

That is, it sets no standards of virtue. It does not induce with­in its constituent elements, the idea of self-sacrifice in the interest of the one loved.

 

Philadelphia/phileo love can degenerate into something selfish and self-centered whereby the subject only seeks to gratify himself and gain his own welfare.

 

One saint may find so much in another saint with which to gratify his desire for fellowship that he does not think of the other person’s needs, but merely of himself and of his own welfare. Thus what started out as a mutual and friendly love, would become a selfish self-centered thing.

 

But God in His grace has provided a counter-balance which will make and keep this friendly love what it should be.

 

The second use of the word “love” is from another Greek word and it is the same word used by our Lord in John 15:9-12.

 

It speaks of that love which springs from an awakened sense of value in an object which causes one to prize the ob­ject loved.

 

1 Peter 1:22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart,

 

/ “fervently” - evktenw/j[ektenos] = intensely, fervently. This means that agape love demands concentration from the heart. Concentration on God through His metabolized word in your heart.\

 

Generally people think that they should concentrate on the person they love, but that is only going to diminish agape love, for as long as you concentrate on another you will see flaws, weakness, and sin and you will end up despising them. Personal love focuses on the other person, but there is no power in personal love. For agape love to flow from the heart, where your doctrine is stored, you must intensely focus on God, which is focusing on His word.

 

“from the heart” has come to mean emotion in day and when people say it they tilt their head a bit and but their hand on their chest. The heart or kardia is the right lobe of the soul where all your metabolized knowledge is stored. If enough BD is stored there then you have the capacity to concentrate on God when you are enjoying or not enjoying fellowship with other believers.

 

/ “love” - avga,pan[agapan] = a love based upon the virtue of the subject in which something in the object is prized. In the case of God’s love every soul is prized due to its potential.\

 

The potential of every soul is to enjoy spiritual maturity. No one is excluded from this potential. Faith in Christ followed by faith in God’s word, Spirit, and plan are all very real and attainable goals for every man.

 

Therefore, God so loved the world in John 3:16 because He saw this potential and so every soul becomes prized in His eyes.

 

It expresses the love of virtue as over against the love of pure delight. It springs from an apprehension of the preciousness of the object loved.

 

/Agape love derives its impulse more from the notion of prizing than of liking.\

 

/It is a love which springs from the soul’s sense of the value and preciousness of its object, and is the response of the heart to the recog­nized worth of the object loved. (Kenneth Wuest)\

 

Our first word is found frequently in the pagan Greek authors, but the second word is used very sparingly. This rather obscure word, used so infrequently in the pagan Greek writings, the New Testament writers as guided by the Holy Spirit select, and pour into it as into an empty receptacle, all the content of meaning we find in John 3:16, 1 Corinthians 13, etc. where it is used. We could say confidently that agape love was born in the NT.

 

/It is the response of the heart of God to the preciousness of each lost human soul that results in the infinite love God shows at Calvary.\

 

Each human soul is precious, first, because it bears the image of its Maker, even though that image be marred by sin, and second, because, it is composed of material, if you please, which God can through redemption, conform to the very image of His beloved Son.

 

/Thus, this love is a love of self sacrifice based upon the preciousness of the object loved.\

 

God exhorts the saints who are already loving each other with a friendly love, which is called out of their hearts be­cause they find pleasure in each other’s fellowship, to love each other also with a self-sacrificial love because of the preciousness of the saint who is loved, as precious to God as Christ is precious to Him.

 

/True agape love demands concentration on God through His word since you must see your fellow believer as one who is precious to God, as much as Christ is precious to God.\

 

With this love fellowship doesn’t turn into something selfish, it doesn’t exclude believers that you don’t like or have commonality with, it doesn’t turn into cliques and factions that cause division in the local assembly. Fellowship is earthly and debased without it.  

 

Thus, this friendly love is amal­gamated with the love of self-sacrifice. The two are fused.

 

/Love in fellowship is made a thing of heaven because it is purified, en­nobled, elevated by agape love.\

      

Into this fellowship of the saints is introduced the love that sacrifices for the blessing of the other, the love that suffers long, the love that is kind, the love that does not envy, the love that does not vaunt itself and is not puffed up, the love that does not behave itself unseemly, the love that does not seek its own, the love that is not provoked, that thinks no evil, that does not rejoice in iniquity but rather in the truth, the love that Christ displayed, which believes, hopes, and endures all things, the love that never fails.

 

This love is the love spoken of in Galatians 5:22, pro­duced in the heart of the saint who is definitely subjected to the Holy Spirit, by walking by means of the Holy Spirit Himself.

 

This is the love that God is. This is the love that should saturate the friend­ly love which saints have for each other.

 

Without it, the fellowship of the saints with one another becomes a selfish unsatisfactory thing, but amalgamated with it, this friendly love becomes a thing of heaven. The secret of the fullness of this divine love, is in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And this is why God exhorts saints who are already loving one another, to be loving one another.

 

And now we see the extent of the power of this love.

 

John 15:13"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

 

/Agapan love has such power that it makes a believer disregard his own life in favor of the betterment of another.\