Love and Life—God cannot be seen
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liar : for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.
And this commandment have we trom him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
1 John iv. 7-21.
We have already seen two important characteristics of Bhakti as taught by John.
Bhakti is primarily man's response to God, who out of His abundant love awakens the longing for Himself, and it consists in loving Him and enjoying His fellowship with our whole personality.
In this chapter we shall proceed to study another characteristic of Johannine Bhakti. The man who has Bhakti should love not only God but also man.
The love of man is the only way in which the love of God can really and adequately find expression.
Without the love of man, the love of God is nothing but a meaningless expression.
While the love for God is like a mountain stream, flowing through lonely heights, beautiful to behold but for the time useless, love for man is like the same stream when it has come down to the plains, broad and large and peaceful, furnishing men with the water which is the very essence of life, patiently allowing boats with their cargo to ply to and fro on its ample bosom and calling out magic green in the fields.
Love AND LIFE But how can our love of man ever become the means through which we may love God? Are not love of God and love of man entirely separate, the former belonging
THE LOVE OF MAN
to the realm of religion and the latter to that of philanthropy ? John answers this question with striking insight and power in the passage which we study in this chapter.
The first answer which he gives is that there is an intimate connexion between love and life.
" Beloved, let us love one another : for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth
God.
'These words seem to point to the fact that much of John's thought on the relation between love and life is based on an experience which is familiar to every one.
Love begets life and life responds with love.
It is through love that life is born and the life which thus comes into being naturally responds with love.
It is not necessary to point out here the wisdom of this close connexion between love and life except to say that it is
-the foundation of all life.
Not only does the child love his father and mother but he loves also his brothers and sisters.
Of all human relationships those of the family circle are the strongest.
It may be said that the strength and character of these relationships depend partly on environment.
A chiid who has never seen his father and mother does not love them.
While this is true, itis also true that as his knowledge of his father and mother grows, he loves them with a passion which no strange child can possess.
There seems to be in him closely connected with his inmost life some hidden instinct, which responds to love, though it needs the help of environment to bring it out.
Now, some such intimate connexion exists in John's hind as to the relation between God and His children.
The line of John's argument seems to be this..
Out of
84.
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great love God sent Christ into the world that men may attain life through Him.
' Herein was the love of God manifested in us that God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might live through him.' *
And when men attain life through God's love, they love not merely the God who has given them life but love the brethren who likewise have received life through His love.
This idea finds clear expression in the words: 'We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not abideth in death, Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.' "
John's conviction that love is related to man's very being makes us understand why he so often speaks of men as being begotten of God.
The relation between man and God is no temporary, outward or superficial one.
It is founded on life itself.
Men are not merely created by God, they are begotten by Him.
The expression 'created' does not, apparently, convey all the intimacy and fulness of the relation between man and God and is therefore replaced by the stronger expression 'begotten.'
It is not by chance that the Fourth Gospel which speaks so much of love speaks also of life.
How different is the attitude of a painter towards his painting from that towards his child!
However close the connexion between him and his. painting, it can never be as close as that between him
2 Compare also John x. 10-17, 2 1 John iii. 14-16,
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and his chiid.
The painting expresses his mind and is a part of his being and yet it cannot hold that vital relation to him which his child holds.
In the Saiva-Siddhanta the thought that love is fundamentally related to life is expressed, though in a different way.
The grace of Siva orders that the human soul should take embodiment in order that it may get rid ofits bonds.
Thus all life springs from the abounding love of Siva.
Tirumilar sings :
'Born in love, growing up in love, .
Merging and resting and hiding in love, Fed with the precious ambrosia of the love which is bliss, My lord has entered my heart in love.' *
The great Tamil Bhakta of the nineteenth century, Ramalinga Swami, has written a beautiful essay on the love of man which might well be regarded as a Hindu paraphrase of the Johannine teaching about love.
The thoughts are given such an entirely different setting from Christian teaching and fit in so closely with the Saiva-Siddhanta doctrine that, even if he made use of any ideas fron: Christian sources, as well he might have, his essay appears as quite a natural and logical exposition of the teaching already inherent in Saiva-Siddhanta.
In this essay he says with his usual vigour :
"As the love of man is the natural light of the soul, the light of God, whether internal or external, can never shine in those individuals who do not possess this natural light.
What is the chief characteristic of 1 Tirumtilar, ' Arulil Pirantittu.'
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the love of man?
All souls are not only finite beings existing in the absolute Reality, but they are also intimately related to divine and _ self-luminous love, which manifests itself in them as the intellect of their intellect.
Bodies evolved from the elements are necessary in order that these souls may develop into individuals.
If these souls do not develop into individuals in such bodies, the light of these souls will be hidden and there will be no illumination of love; then there will be ignorance and that will lead to the bondage of souls.
For this reason bodies evolved from the elements are necessary.
And as matter is the original cause of physical bodies, the varied phenomena connected with matter such as hunger, thirst, sickness, lust, poverty, fear and murder frequently tend to ruin these bodies.
But love has endowed individuals with the gift of self-existing power which, with the knowledge which they have received from the internal and external senses, will enable them to ward off most carefully and diligently these attacks.' *
All the passages in John's writings on the intimate connexion between love and life do not, however, refer to the physical analogy.
In some of the verses in which such a connexion is implied, the reason in John's mind for the connexion is not at all clear.?
Is it too much to suggest that having once connected the two in his mind as a result of observing well-known physical facts, he went on to speak of them together in a much wider
1 Ramalinga Swami, Jiva Kavunya Olukkam, Madras, 1923 ; page 13, 2 John x. 17a xdimeeos
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sense, not always keeping the original reason in mind ?
Another set of facts seems also to have provided John with the idea that life and love are fundamentally connected.
The good shepherd who loves his sheep has sometimes to lay down his life in order to protect them from the fury of wild beasts and to save their life.* A man may out of great love—greater love does not exist—lay down his life to save the life of his friend."
Thus does Christ out of His abundant love lay down His life for us.
Gop CANNoT BE SEEN BuT Man Can The second answer which John gives is this.
'No man hath beheld God at any time:
If we love one another, God abideth in us.'
'If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love
God whom he hath not seen.
And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.'
Here John emphasizes a motive which has played a great part in the history of Mysticism.
To see God has been the greatest longing of the mystics and some systems of mystical philosophy like that of Plotinus have made the vision of God the climax of all experience.
Nammalvar, for instance, sings:
'As thou dost not come to see me, my eyes and mouth are dry.
And thy servant is ashamed. I pine with this good desire.
1 John x. 11.
2 John xv. 13.
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Will you not take pity on me and come and see me just once ?' + In the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjana listens with eager heart to the teaching of Krsna but there comes a moment when he longs to see Krsna in his exalted form.
It is not enough for Arjuna to hear; he must also see.
Arjuna wants teaching to proceed to -its supreme climax, the beatific vision."
Thus have several other devout souls longed and prayed.
In laying the emphasis on this motive John awakens a quick response in many an eager soul.
He seems to say: You want to see God.
You think it is the greatest experience you can have.
For this you are earnestly striving.
Now let me tell you that you cannot see God.
But you caz see your fellowmen and it is your duty to love them.
What is the use of saying that you love God whom you have not seen when you continue in not loving the men whom you have seen? This teaching, coming from a lover of God like John, gains immensely in significance.
It would sound more natural if it had come from someone who believed in man more than in God.
But such a strong believer in the reality of God as John is driven to teach that there is no means of reaching God as effective as the love of man.
It should be noted that this is only the heightening of an idea which has already found expression more than once in our passage.
'Everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God.'
The motive for loving man is stated 1 Tiru-voi-moli, 8. 5. 2.
2 Bhagavad-Gita, xi. 1-4.
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here with double emphasis, first from the positive point of view and then from the negative.
He only knows God who loves but he does not know Him who does not love.
This argument would only appeal to those who want to know God and to see Him.
'Then what about the millions who are neither anxious to know Him nor to see. him? And yet many of them love men truly and with great intensity.
If they are exhorted to serve men from humanitarian motives, they may respond 'quickly and effectively.
It may again be asked: Is there not something of intrinsic worth in human nature which calls for human love?
Man as man deserves sympathy and love.
Should he be loved only for spiritual motives ?
Yet again, is not suffering deep enough and intense enough by itself to call for sympathy without our being influenced in any way by religious motives?
The agony and intense suffering which disease causes in men tend to arouse the strongest of human emotions even in hearts which are normally barred against the entrance of feeling.
The suffering caused by poverty and showing itself in rags, care-worn faces and withered limbs does not fail to strike a chord of sympathy in men's hearts.
It is not merely physical suffering of this kind which stirs sympathy but also mental and spiritual suffering.
There are men who are forced to "pass every moment of their lives in sorrow because of the vicissitudes of fortune for which they are in no way responsible, or because of the treachery, falsehood and deceit of their friends and neighbours, or because
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of some weakness in their own character.
Separation or misfortune or death has sent the iron into their souls and their lives are embittered to the end of their days.
Do not these men deserve to be loved for no other reason than that their suffering is great ?
Let us answer these questions in the light of the life of Jesus.
Inthe Synoptic Gospels we often read that Jesus was moved with compassion. Sometimes this compassion was aroused by the sight of hungry multitudes who in their eagerness to hear His teaching thronged around Him in lonely places forgetting their food.* On other occasions His heart was moved by the sight of leprosy" or blindness.» When the only son* of the widow of Nain was carried on his bier to his last resting place, the mother bewailing her loss with anguish, Jesus was touched with compassion."
On one occasion He was moved deeply by the spiritual needs of the multitudes who were scattered like sheep without a shepherd and began to minister to them.®
On another occasion He was moved by the sight of multitudes who were without any spiritual guidance, and He exhorted
His disciples to pray for them.'
There is in the Gospel of John a curious absence of any reference to Jesus being moved by such campassion.® There are at least three occasions on which such a reference might well have been made.
In the records 1 Mark viii. 2; Matthew xv. 32.
2 Mark i. 41.
3 Matthew xx. 34.
4 Mark v. 19.
5 Luke vii. 13.
8 Mark vi. 34.
7 Matthew ix. 36.
8 See, however, John xi, 33-35.
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oT of the healing of the palsied man and of the man born blind, there is no statement that Jesus was deeply moved.
This may not mean much, but the fact that there is no record of emotion in Jesus in the account of the feeding of the five thousand calls for an explanation.
The Synoptic writers have in this matter probably got nearer the heart of Jesus than John.
There is no reason to suppose that they were simply writing from imagination.
From all that we know of Jesus we are sure He was deeply moved by suffering.
When John fails to notice the fact it must be due to some special characteristic of his thought.
We may perceive what it is from the Johannine term 'signs' which is often used to describe the miracles of Jesus.
In the mind of John the miracles of Jesus were first and foremost signs of His divine glory.
They were indications to men of His exaltation and greatness.
Through them His glory was revealed.
When this point of view is so prominent in the mind of John, it is not at all surprising that he neglects the human emotions which such suffering is sure to have aroused in the tender heart of our Lord.
As we read the accounts of the miracles in the Fourth Gospel we do not feel, as we do in the Synoptic Gospels, that the sight of suffering, physical or spiritual, led Jesus instinctively to perform them.
We feel that He is more concerned to insist on His high mission than to relieve the suffering of men.
The story of the raising of Lazarus needs to be carefully considered in this connexion.
As we shall see later, the deep love which Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters came
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into conflict with His normal sense of His own mission and work.
When He heard of the sickness of Lazarus, He at once thought of it as an opportunity for a manifestation of His glory.
But when He went to Bethany and was besieged by the tears of the sisters of Lazarus, His generally calm awareness of His mission was overwhelmed with the floods of human emotion which rushed into His soul inatorrent.
In that story we do not find a tranquil seer, undisturbed by the sight of sorrow and concerned only with God and His work.
We have rather someone in whom this exalted sense of devotion to God is increased and, intensified by the stress of the deepest of human emotions,
Wuom SHOULD WE LovE?
After accepting the teaching that the love of God should be expressed through the love of man, we are led to ask: Who are the people whom we should love ?
To this John replies: 'Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the son of God, God abideth in him and he in God'.
Inthe Synoptic Gospels Jesus commands us to love all men, Samaritan schismatics, the military officers of an alien government, publicans and sinners.
In the Fourth Gospel this love is strictly confined to the brethren, the members of the Christian Church.*
John's devotion to Christ is so exclusive that his love naturally extends only to those who like him are devoted to Christ and not to others.
While his 1H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der Neutestamentlichen Theologie, Tubingen, 1911; Vol, ii. p. 435,
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deepest love is spontaneously given to fellow Christians he is ready to show kindness to others.
Yet there is in the Johannine writings a strain of universal love as well. as a strain of particular love.
Apart from the statement, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in him should not. perish but have eternal life' and other verses already quoted ', we read that Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman and generously taught her some of the profoundest truths which He has revealed tomen.
The Greeks came to Him and He explained to them His Gospel.
The conclusion we come to then is that John loves others. also but reserves his best and most devoted love for his. fellow believers.
Do the Hindu Bhaktas love those who do not worship: their God?
They are quite anxious that they also should enter into their joy by worshipping their God.
Many are the fervent hymns addressed to outsiders, begging them to leave other gods or the absorbing and deceitful cares of the world and to worship the true God.
The early Tamil hymns were sung in the midst of conflicts,. often bitter, between different religions in South India
—Jainism, Buddhism, Saivism and Vaisnavism—and betray many traces of the hatred generated during such conflicts.
Saiva saints, for instance, often ridicule the Jains and Buddhists.
But the Bhaktas loved deeply their fellow devotees, indeed so deeply that they oiten did away with the restrictions of caste in dealing with them.
The story of the noble fight which the Bhaktas, inspired with 1 See pp. 50, 51.
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love, fought in order to level down the distinctions of caste among their fellow devotees is an impressive chapter in India's religious history.
Though the privileges they fought for were only the giving of the same teaching to all, and not removal of the other caste restrictions, they showed a manly courage and a bold faith, We quote here a striking verse from Appar :
"Some may give me boundless treasures.
They may grant me dominion over earth and heaven.
And yet if they are not absolutely devoted to the great Lord, we shall regard not their wealth; they will be ruined.
But they may be lepers with all their limbs decaying and rotting.
Or wretches who strip cows and meanly eat their flesh.
If they only love Siva, who hid the Ganges in his long-braided hair, know ye, they are the gods whom we worship.' * Chaitanya said :
' Be he a Brahman, be he a hermit, be he even a Sidra—if he knows Krsna's mysteries, he is a guru."
Tukaram, himself a Sidra, sings:
'Our Lord knows nothing of high or low birth:
He stops wherever he sees devotion and faith.'
1 Appar, 'Sanga nithi.'
* Chaitanya's Pugrimages and Teachings, op. cit; p. 71.
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And again:
"A Vaisnava is one who loves God alone, his caste may be anything at all.' * The love for fellow devotees becomes strongest between teachers and diciples.
Many and touching are the stories told of the love with which the Hindu Bhaktas loved their gurus or their disciples.
Ramachandra, the Bengali Bhakta, left his wife and became a disciple of Narottama.
His wife wrote several letters begging him to come back to her, but they produced no effect upon him.
Then she wrote to Narottama who after much trouble persuaded him to go home.
With reluctance he set off home and travelled for about half a day.
But the vision of the evening service and the figure of his guru joining in it rose before his mind so impressively that he retraced his steps to his guru. "
BHAETI AND THE FAMILY
When we think of human love we think first of the love we give to our own relations and friends.
What is the teaching of the Johannine writer about this love?
It is significant that in this Gospel we have frequent reference to the disciple whom Jesus loved.
From the other Gospels we know that Jesus had many disciples and that of these He had an intimate circle of twelve and that among these twelve there were three who were the special objects of His love and confidence.
1 J.N. Fraser and J. F. Edwards, The Life and Teaching of Tukarant, Madras, 1922; p. 162.
2 Sen, Vaisnava Literature, p. 149.
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This Gospel goes further and tells us that there was one among them who in a special measure gained the love of Jesus.* Again, itis in the Fourth Gospel that we have the touching story of the love which Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters.
The details in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus indicate significantly the deep love of Jesus for this family.2
When Lazarus was sick, his sisters sent Jesus the message that he whom He loved was sick.
This news He received with a strange and mysterious thoughtfulness which reflected the importance the event had for His career and mission.
Then He resolved boldly to go and see Lazarus in Judza even though the disciples remonstrated and pointed out that only recently the Jews there had sought to stone Him.
When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Martha and then Mary welcomed Him with an eagerness and devotion which showed the intensity of theirlove.
When He saw Mary weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
This agitation apparently increased when He went to the grave; for it is recorded that He wept.
This tender expression of His love immediately impressed the bystanders who said, ' Behold, how he loved him!'
These details are recorded in the Gospel most vividly, From them we may well infer the existence of a continued friendship as passionate, as selfless and as great as any known in history.
Once again, itis this Gospel which tells us of the care with which Jesus entrusted His mother to the beloved
2 John xiii, 23; xix. 26 ; xx. 2, 7, 20.
2 John xi. 1-44.
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97: disciple while He Himself was hanging on the cross in the midst of the greatest agony.
The few words which Jesus uttered while He was on the cross impress us by their wide range.
The great soul He was, He forgave His enemies fully in that supreme crisis, an act which has gained a place in the hearts of all men for its unbounded generosity and supreme nobility.
He spoke of that mission of His which He had carried out with such zeal in His lifetime and told His Father that it was now complete.
Along with these exalted thoughts He had a loving and devoted care for His mother.
Neither His high idealism which led Him to think of others even in most painful circumstances nor His sense of His high destiny and of the importance of His mission, obliterated from His mind the love which He had for His mother.
Shown on this occasion and under these circumstances the love of Jesus for His mother is revealed with a force which can never be forgotten.
The Bhakti poets must have known much of the rapture of human love.
They use as symbols the normal relations in life to describe their relation to God.
He is their Father, their Mother, their Beloved, their Kinsman.
Surely if these relationships had not meant anything to them, they would not have used them as symbols to express the deepest facts of their experience.
The use of these symbols must in its turn have reacted upon their life.
The sight of father, mother or brother, if it called up thoughts of their beloved Deity, must surely have been pleasing to them..
We know, for instance, of the deep' love Z
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which existed between Appar and his sister.
But the chief fact remains that they regarded normal human relationships as hindrances to the perfect worship of their God.
Many hymns pour contempt on family ties :
'IT am caught in the tangle of supporting my children and wedded wife, who have merely physical wants.
I follow not the mighty Lord nor understand the virtue of penance.' ?
Ramanuja renounced his wife and left his home.
Chaitanya would not go back-to his mother, though he always spoke with profound love of her."
A legend tells us how when Sundarar was about to be married, Siva himself came down as a Brahman to the wedding house and put an end to the wedding.
There is another strange legend which may be related here.
After the wedding festivities of Jhana-"Sambandar were over, he thought within himself, 'Behold, I am entangled in the coils of a family!
But with this woman will I attain Siva,' and accompanied by the numerous wedding guests went to a temple of Siva.
The gracious Siva appeared to him and said:
' Enter thou into this glory-—thou, thy wife, and all those who have come to witness thy wedding.'
Siva then became a vast luminous glory, encompassing the temple.
Jhana-Sambandar, with his wife and the numerous wedding guests, entered into this glory and became one with Siva.
This legend reflects the conviction that a human marriage may be a distinct obstacle to a life of + Appar, ' Makkale mananda.'
? Sen, Chaitanya and His Companions, Calcutta 1917 ; p. 31.
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mystic fellowship and should be somehow transformed into union with the Divine.
THE MEANING OF LOVE IN JOHN
The account which has been given in this and the preceding chapter of the Johannine doctrine of love will be incomplete without a reference to the subtle but nevertheless real distinction which exists between two different kinds of love.
The English word love is used to translate two different Greek words, agapad and pfhileo.
There has been much discussion as to the exact shade of significance implied in these words.
The word agapad seems to indicate the love which arises from esteem and reverence, whereas the word jphzleo seems to indicate the natural and spontaneous affection which comes by instinct.
One may be called reverent love and the other natural affection.
It should be noted that the New Testament prefers the former word for describing our love to God using it one hundred and thirty-eight times, whereas the latter word is used in the sense of natural affection only twenty-two times, of which thirteen occur in the Gospel ot John.
Five of these are found in the account of the meeting of Jesus and Peter after the resurrection.
Jesus said to Peter, ' Lovest thou me more than these ?' using the more dignified expression.
This question addressed to Peter after the cowardly way in which he had denied Jesus is pointed.
All along Peter had stood out as being devoted to Jesus and had impulsively declared the strength of his faith and love.
But at the time of the crucifixion he had denied even a knowledge of his
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Lord.
Jestis, therefore, wanting to correct him asked him whether he still loved Him, putting into that love that esteem and veneration which he had declared before.
The beaten atid disappointed Peter gives up all his original impulsiveness and eagerness to claim for himself utter devotion and says in all humility,
' Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.
It may not be the reverent and exalted love which thy dignity demands but it is given spontaneously and I love thee with all my heart.'
Jesus again asked him the same question and Peter again gave the same answer.
Jesus asked a third time taking Peter at his word : 'Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?
You say you love me with that instinctive love which goes forth spontaneously from one heart to another.
Is that at least true?'
Peter was grieved and could only falter in reply: 'Lord 'Thou knowest all things.
Thou knowest that I love Thee.'
Peter still claims that the love which he bears to Jesus may not be of that exalted kind which he ought to show Him.
But it is certainly as sincere and as spontaneous as the affection which exists between man and man.'
It is significant that in speaking of the love of Jesus for Lazarus the sisters of Lazarus use the word which indicates natural affection."
It looks as if Jesus instinctively loved Lazarus and gave him of His friendship.
The Jews also described the love which Jesus had for Lazarus by the same word.* Again Jesus loved the beloved disciple with this natural affection.* There was apparently in 1 John xxi. 15-17.
2 John xi. 3.
® John xi. 36.
+ John xx. 2,
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this love the simple pouring forth of human affection.
Again the Father loveth the Son with such a natural affection and shows Him all things that He Himself does.* And the Father loveth the disciples with such natural affection because they loved Jesus with the same kind of love.* The only other two contexts in which this word occurs confirms the interpretation that it indicates natural affection, for in one place-it is used of the love which the world has for its own,® and in another place of the love with which a man loves his own life.'
THE APOSTLE OF LOVE
We have seen that there are two limitations to the Johannine doctrine of love.
In the first place, there is a tendency on the part of the Fourth Evangelist to describe the manifestations of the love of Jesus not so much in relation to the needs of men as in relation to His divine work.
In the second place, the love which John exhorts his readers to practise is to be confined within the narrow circle of the Christian Church.
It is remarkable that in spite of these limitations John has stood out through all the centuries as the apostle of love.
He is considered as pre-eminently a teacher of love.
What, then, is the secret of his greatness in this matter?
'The answer to this lies in the fact that John has realized more than any other that there is no motive so exalted, spacious and compelling as the motive of 1 John vy. 20, 2 John xvi, 27.
® John xv. 19.
+ John xii. 25. cf. W. Sanday and A.C. Headlam, Zhe Zpistle to the Romans, New York, 1917; p. 374.
University of Southern Calitornia Liprary
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the love of God for inspiring the love of man.
While the sight of suffering, misery or need may well call forth in us a genuine response, such a response is never so strong as when it is based upon the conviction that its ultimate and highest motive lies in our love for God.
We love man because we first love God and the only way in which this love can find expression is the love of man.
A Tamil poet has uttered this great truth in words which have laid a strong hold of the Saivas in the Tamil country :
'The ignorant say that love and God are two.
No one knows that love itself is God.
Whoever knows that love itself is God, Shall rest in love, one with God.' * There is no basis for human love so infinite and so powerful as the love of God.
The love of man may on occasions be limited by circumstances.
But John teaches us that the measure of our love for man should be determined, not so much by man's need, however urgent, nor by our own capacity, however freely offered, but only by the magnificence and breadth of God's own love for man.
According to the Johannine writer, the might and measure of God's love for man is shown by His only begotten Son being sent into the world.
This thought is repeated three times in the passage which we are considering.
'Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.'
'Herein 1 Tirumtilar, ' Anpum civamum.'
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is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'
' And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.'
We find this thought in another great passage, 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.'* This explains why in spite of its limitations the Johannine doctrine has come to occupy such an important place in Christian thought.
In speaking of God's love, John does not speak of the innumerable benefits which God gives to man from day to day; nor does he speak of the wonderful universe which He has created and filled with the tokens of His love; nor does he speak of the movements of history which in different degrees reveal
His love.
Many may be convinced ot God's love from a consideration of one or other of these, or all of them.
In the mind of John these may have contributed to his conviction of the greatness and illimitable measure of God's love.
But he does not refer to them as they are not of primary importance.
The main thing which counts with him and which determines the whole mode of his thought is the fact that God sent His only Son into the world.
There is no act of God so illumining and so exalted as this whereby He has revealed Himself to men and has shown to them the infinitude of His love. By seeing the incarnate Christ and the circumstances in which He iinistered to the salvation of men we are convinced
1 John iii, 16.
CHRISTIANITY AS BHAKTI MARGA
of the depth and power of God's love.
There is no other movement. or revelation that brings the love of God before men so effectively and powerfully.
When we realize this profound truth in all its fulness we are led to impart to our relations with other men some measure of that infinite love which lies in the heart of God.