Gospel-Driven Quote of the Week (10-19-09)
Oct 19, 2009
"When we thus think of the Holy Spirit we properly think of Him as the one who generates love towards God in our hearts...When we are thinking of the biblical ethic as motivated by and fulfilled in love to God and our neighbour, it is a caricature and travesty of this love that we entertain unless it is a love generated in us by the apprehension of the love that passes knowledge, the love of God in Christ...How vacuous and hypocritical are the pretensions of those whose religion and ethic consist in the maxim, 'As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them (Luke 6:31), but who know nothing of the constraint of the love of Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and therefore as the Spirit of love He captivates our hearts by the love of God and of Christ to us. In the diffusion of that love there flows also love to one another. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another" (1 John 4:11). The biblical ethic knows no fulfillment of its demands other than that produced by the constraint and claim of Christ's redeeming love (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15; Galatians 2:20). Our love is always ignited by the flame of Christ's love. And it is the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad in our hearts the igniting flame of the love of God in Christ Jesus. The love that is ignited is the fruit of the Spirit"
John Murray, Principles of Conduct, p. 226
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