Union With Christ and Brotherly Love
57
the love that Christ had commanded them to reveal. By unselfish
words and deeds they strove to kindle this love in other hearts.
The believers were ever to cherish the love that filled the hearts
of the apostles after the descent of the Holy Spirit. They were to go
forward in willing obedience to the new commandment: “As I have
loved you, that ye also love one another.”
John 13:34
. So closely were
they to be united to Christ that they would be enabled to fulfill His
requirements. The power of a Saviour who could justify them by His
[44]
righteousness was to be magnified.
But the early Christians began to look for defects in one another.
Dwelling upon mistakes, giving place to unkind criticism, they lost
sight of the Saviour and of the great love He had revealed for sinners.
They became more strict in regard to outward ceremonies, more par-
ticular about the theory of the faith, more severe in their criticisms.
In their zeal to condemn others they forgot their own errors. They
forgot the lesson of brotherly love that Christ had taught. And, saddest
of all, they were unconscious of their loss. They did not realize that
happiness and joy were going out of their lives, and that soon they
would walk in darkness, having shut the love of God out of their hearts.
The apostle John realized that brotherly love was waning in the
church, and he dwelt particularly upon this point. Up to the day of
his death he urged upon believers the constant exercise of love for
one another. His letters to the churches are filled with this thought.
“Beloved, let us love one another,” he writes; for love is of God....
God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through Him.... Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one
another.”
1 John 4:7-11
.
In the church of God today brotherly love is greatly lacking. Many
of those who profess to love the Saviour neglect to love those who are
united with them in Christian fellowship. We are of the same faith,
members of one family, all children of the same heavenly Father, with
the same blessed hope of immortality. How close and tender should be
the tie that binds us together. The people of the world are watching us
to see if our faith is exerting a sanctifying influence upon our hearts.
They are quick to discern every defect in our lives, every inconsistency
in our actions. Let us give them no occasion to reproach our faith
5
Testimonies for the Church 8:240-242