Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 106:423 (Jul 1949)
Article: Editorials
Author: Anonymous

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BSac 106:423 (Jul 49) p. 257

Editorials

Christian Love and Faith

Among the things which constitute a Christian a supernatural being is the fact that he may experience divine love passing through his heart and life. It is not the Christian’s love for God that is in view, but God loving others through the Christian. It is a manifestation of the divine nature that the believer has received. It is the love of God gushing forth out from the Spirit who is given unto the Christian (Rom 5:5). The natural outcome of this is that the believer, thus blessed, will love what God loves.

“God so loved the world.” That too is the soul winner’s passion—loving what God loves. It takes a person as a sacrificial missionary to the ends of the earth. It is God’s love for the lost which cannot be produced by any of and by themselves. It is foreign to the human heart, but the very essence of God’s love. Reference is made now to the lost people in the world for whom Christ died. God does not love the institutions and ways of the world. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” is not experimentally his, for God does not love the institutions and ways of the world.

In this connection, it is well to note that God loved Israel the nation. He said in Jeremiah 31:3: “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” God loves purity, holiness, and righteousness as well. So must the believer. Love then may be the channel of divine love. Only as the Christian is in right relation to God will the Spirit’s love, which is the first part to the fruit of the Spirit, be experienced (Gal 5:22).

Again, a Christian is supernatural in that he exercises the faith of the Son of God. The Apostle said: “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God…” It is not faith in the Son of God, but the Son of God’s faith working in Paul. So in Hebrews 12:2 Christ is called the “author and finisher of our faith.”

BSac 106:423 (Jul 49) p. 258

So adjustment to God and His will are most imperative for no one can ever estimate what it would mean to even one life to have it directed and motivated by the faith and love of the Son of God.

Lewis Sperry Chafer

Capitalism

Is it necessary for the church to act on the social problems of the day? Many believe so. But how can their conduct square with the Bible teaching on the church? The Christian church was appointed not so much to reform as to inform the world of a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. In addressing a word to impe...

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