The True Christian's Love of the Unseen Christ

(1 Peter 1:8) Whom having not seen, you love, in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.

The life of Christianity does consist very much in our love to Christ. Without love to Christ, we are as much without spiritual life, as a carcass when the soul is fled from it, is without natural life. Faith without love to Christ, is a dead faith; and a Christian without love to Christ, is a dead Christian; dead in sins and trespasses. Without love to Christ, we may have the name of Christians, but we are wholly without the nature: we may have the form of godliness, but are wholly without the power. Give me your heart, is the language of God to all the children of men (Proverbs 23:26). And give me your love, is the language of Christ to all his disciples.

Christ knows the command and influence which love to him, in the truth and strength of it, has: how it will engage all the other affections of his disciples for him; that if he have their love, their desires will be chiefly after him; their delights will be chiefly in him, their hopes and expectations will be chiefly from him; their hatred, fear, grief, anger, will be carried forth chiefly to sin, as it is offensive to him. He knows that love will engage and employ, for him all the powers and faculties of their souls; their thoughts will be brought into captivity and obedience to him; their understandings will be employed in seeking and finding out his truths; their memories will be receptacles to retain them; their conscience will be ready to accuse and excuse as his faithful deputies; their wills will choose and refuse according to his direction and revealed pleasure. All their senses and the members of their bodies, will be his servants: their eyes will see for him, their ears will hear for him, their tongues will speak for him, their hands will work for him, their feet will walk for him: all their gifts and talents will be at his devotion and service. If he have their love, they will be ready to do for him what he requires; they will be ready to suffer for him, whatever he calls them to: if they have much love to him, they will not think much of denying themselves; taking up his cross and following him wherever he leads them, love to Christ then being so essential to true Christianity, so earnestly looked for by our Lord and Master, so powerfully commanding in the soul and over the whole man, so greatly influential on duty; I have made choice of this subject of love to Christ, to treat on; and my chief endeavor herein shall be to excite and provoke Christians to the lively and vigorous exercise of this grace of love to the Lord Jesus Christ; of which incentives, there is a great and universal need.

The epistle wherein my text lies, was written by Peter the Apostle of the Circumcision, and is directed to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, as in the first verse of this chapter. By these strangers we are to understand the scattered Jews, who were strangers in these several countries where they did inhabit. We read in the second chapter of Acts that there came up many of these Jews, from these and other countries, to Jerusalem to worship, and in the temple hearing the Apostles speak with divers tongues, which were of use in the divers places where they did live, and that without instruction from man, but as the Spirit gave them utterance; they were amazed and confounded: and afterward hearing Peter preach, through the wonderful power of the Spirit, three thousand of them were converted by one sermon to the Christian faith, and added to the Christian church. When the feast of Pentecost was over, these converted Jews returned into their countries where their several dwellings, families and callings were: which countries being heathenish and idolatrous, no doubt but there they met with opposition and suffering upon the account of the Christian religion which they became zealous professors of, besides what they endured from their own countrymen, or unconverted Jews who hated Christianity more than the heathens did. The Apostle does seem to have a respect to these in this epistle, wherein he does encourage them under their sufferings for the sake of Christ by many consolatory arguments. In the second verse he wishes that grace and peace might be multiplied in them and towards them, and then though their sufferings did abound, their consolations would abound much more. In the third, fourth and fifth verses, he blesses God for his abundant mercy towards them in begetting them to a lively hope of the glorious and never fading heavenly inheritance which was reserved for them through God's infinite grace, and to which they were reserved and kept through faith by God's infinite power. In the sixth and seventh verses, he tells them, however they were in heaviness through manifold temptations, that is afflictions, which are the world's left-hand temptations; yet he gives them to understand that these afflictions they were but for a season; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning; they were but needful to humble them, to purify them, to crucify them to the world, to make them conformable to their head the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they were for the trial of their faith, that the truth of it might appear both to themselves and others, and that the worth of it might appear how much more precious than gold when it is tried in the fire, which carrying them through their sufferings, might be found both to their own praise and their Master's honor, at the appearing of Jesus Christ: and then the Apostle does take occasion in the text to speak of their love which they did bear to this Jesus Christ, and of that unspeakable and glorious joy, which does result from believing in him although they had no sight of him, which no trouble or affliction could overwhelm or hinder. Whom having not seen you love, in whom though now you see him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Hence observe,

Doctrine 1. That it is the property and duty of true Christians to love Jesus Christ whom they have never seen. Whom having not seen you love.

Doctrine 2. That true Christians do believe in an unseen Christ. In whom though now you see him not, yet believing.

Doctrine 3. That true Christians do or may rejoice in believing with unspeakable and glorious joy. In whom, though now you see him not, yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Here are three great points to be treated of. 1. Concerning the love of Christians to Christ. 2. Concerning the faith of Christians in Christ. 3. Concerning the joy of Christians in believing. For the present I shall speak only of the love of Christians to Christ under the first doctrine, the other two I may have opportunity to treat of afterwards.