Conformed to the image of The Lord Jesus Christ(PART 5)

A MAN OF LOVE

"Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." John 13:1

The Lord Jesus Christ manifested true love toward those who had believed in Him as their Messiah-Savior throughout His earthly ministry. He manifested His love toward them to the fullest extent.

The Son, as the eternal Second Person of the Godhead, possesses equally and in totality with the Father and with the Spirit the divine attribute of love (see I John 4:8b with Phil. 2:6). It was the Father's directive will for the Son to continue to possess all of these divine attributes as the God-Man, by means of hypostatic union (see Col. 1:19 with 2:9). At His First Advent the Son concealed all outward and visible manifestations of His deity (see Phil. 2:7-8). He allowed His human nature to have a normal human development (see Gal. 4:4 with Lu. 2:40, 52).

He developed the capacity to love from His human nature because He experienced a true human experience (see Heb. 2:14-18). He manifested human love when He made sure that Mary, the mother of His human nature, was given a substitute son to look after her following His physical death on the cross (see John 19:26-27).

"For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him." John 3:34

The Lord Jesus Christ was not manifesting His eternal divine love to the disciples, when He "loved them unto the end". He was filled and controlled by the Spirit.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22

The Lord Jesus Christ's human nature was filled and controlled by the Spirit throughout His earthly ministry. Therefore, He always possessed and manifested "the fruit of the Spirit" in regard to others. Spirit love is agape love! It is a divine produced love flowing out of the soul of a believer, when he is filled with the Spirit. Christ was always filled with the Spirit, so He always had agape love.

Christ's life was a living testimony of how to apply the fruit of the Spirit. He always possessed the internal attributes of love, joy, and peace. Toward other people, He had a gracious attitude which was manifested in patience, kindness, and goodness. Toward the Father, He had an attitude of faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. Christ always had a relaxed mental attitude and He had mastery over the details and circumstances of life (people, places, things, and time).

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

The Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated to us, by His spiritual and temporal deaths, that agape love is sacrificial love. He went to the cross as the Father's sacrifice for our sins (see I Pet. 2:24 with 3:18). Christ's suffering and dying for us was also a manifestation of the Father's love (see John 3:16-18).

"Be ye therefore followers (imitators) of God (the Father), as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God (the Father) for a sweetsmelling savour." Ephesians 5:1-2

The Father has predestinated each and every Christian to be "conformed to the image of His Son" (see Romans 8:29). We are commanded to imitate the Father by imitating the Son when Christ manifested agape love toward the Father and went to the cross in obedience to the Father's directive will.

The Son went to the cross under the guidance of the Spirit, exhaling toward the Father the love that flowed forth from the Spirit through the Son's human nature toward the Father. The Son died doing the directive will of the Father because He loved the Father with the agape love that the Spirit sent flowing through His human nature. When we are filled with the Spirit (see Eph. 5:18 with I John 1:3-10), the same agape love for the Father that motivated Christ to be the sacrifice for our sin, will motivate us to love the Father, the Son, and our fellow believers.