ABUNDANCE OF LOVE (GOD’S LOVE)

MAN had an abundance of spiritual death. It reigned over him. It was his despotic master. All the sins and crimes and wars have grown out of that awful thing called Spiritual Death. It was the very nature of Satan. Romans 5:12-21 is God’s commentary on it. It is called a Law of Sin and of Death (Romans 8:2, 3). Even the Ten Commandments are called the Law of Sin. This law of sin wrought in the human family.
John 10:10, “I am come that ye might have life and have it abundantly (or have an abundance of it).” Eternal Life is the Nature of God (2 Peter 1:4), and spiritual death is the nature of Satan. There is a combat between Life and death, between God’s nature and Satan’s nature in man.

Just as spiritual death swallowed the human race, so now God is going to give Eternal Life in such abundance that it will swallow up death. 2 Corinthians 5:4, “For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.” This word Life is Zoe. Way translates it, “drowned in a sea of life,” showing the abundance of Life. There is in the world today an abundance of sickness. There is the very fullness of Satan. It is so apparent everywhere. Men are filled with the devil.
A new order is coming, however. Man is to be filled with God, filled with His Nature, His Life, His Being-to be like Him, swayed by Him, ruled by Him.

The Love Nature

God is Love. 1 John 4:8 shows us that man is to be filled with “agape,” the new kind of love. It has never been taught. The church has never majored it in its teachings or creeds. Can you conceive of a body of believers filled with the Life and Nature of God?
We understand Colossians 2:9, 10, “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and in him ye are made full (or complete), who is the head of all principalities and power.” We are made full of the Nature of God, full of God. That explains John 1:16, “For of His fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace.” Of His abundant Nature, abundant Life, have we all received. That means that we have received of His Love Life. 1 John 4:16, “And we know and have believed the love which God hath in our case. God is Love. He that abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.”
We abide, live in our daily walk, in the Life and Nature of God. The Nature of God dominates us, rules us. We live in the realm of Love. The Love Nature dominates our lives just as Jesus in His earth walk lived in the realm of Love. (1 John 4:17-18.)
Now “we have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness (of Satanic nature) into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). That Love Nature of God has swallowed up, dominated us so that we act like lovers, we speak like lovers, and our course of conduct is governed by this Nature of God, this new Nature given to men.

Can you visualize a man living in God, walking in God? Just as you walk in the early morning’s dense and heavy fog which saturates your clothes and drips from your hat, you are walking in God until you are saturated with love, until love drips out of your words. Your entire being is love-saturated.
We can understand 1 John 4:6, “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he who is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.” We are of Love and he who knows Love will listen to us. You see, “Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God” (1 John 4:7). The test of the New Birth is this Love Life. How beautiful it would be if we were actually swallowed up of love. That is what it means – swallowed up of life, and life is love. It would solve the home problem, wouldn’t it? There would be no quarreling or bitterness. What a heavenly atmosphere the children would grow up in; they would never hear an unkind word or a bitter criticism.

You can read 1 John 5:13, “These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.”
You could read it this way, “We know that we have received the Nature of God, this Love Life. We know that we are in the love family. The abundance of His Life dominates us. We are ruled by the abundance of God.” From Hebrews 11:1-3 we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Then God is not only a Love God, but He is a Faith God. We have in us this faith, God’s Nature, so that faith becomes an unconscious fact in our lives, just as it was in Jesus’ life. Jesus had no consciousness of the need or lack of faith. He had no consciousness of the need or lack of love. He lived in the realm of Life. He had this Life in abundance. He had Love and Faith in abundance.
That throws new light upon that sentence in James 1:22, 23: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.”