We will read from 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.
For the love of Christ constraineth us;
because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves,
but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again.
And also in Revelation 2. This is the letter to the church in Ephesus. We will just read Revelation 2:4.
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
Let us pray.
Lord, we really tremble at Your word and depend on You completely. We look to You to release Your word and to speak to us, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The church in Ephesus has a unique history in the Scriptures that you can follow all the way through from Acts, into the epistles, and all the way into Revelation. Its history is so involved. There are such famous names that we know of, and they had such a strong supply all throughout.
It starts when we read in Acts 18. Paul comes through, probably just for a week, because he only spoke one time on the Sabbath at the synagogue. When he went there and spoke, the people in the synagogue wanted him to continue speaking, but he had to move on. But thank the Lord, he left Priscilla and Aquila, and they stayed behind.
Then Apollos shows up. Apollos is teaching, but his teaching was unclear on the gospel. So Priscilla and Aquila took him in and were able to help him see more clearly the way of the gospel, and the fullness of how Christ died on the cross for us and how the Messiah had come.
Then Apollos went on his way to Achaia, to Corinth. The brethren in Ephesus wrote a letter recommending him there. So by that time, it seems that some had been saved, because there were brethren writing a letter of recommendation.
Then remember the story when Paul comes back through. He meets twelve or so disciples, but when he tries to fellowship with them, he notices something is different. So he asks them a question that perhaps we do not normally ask Christians when we meet them: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They said, “We have not heard that the Holy Spirit is come.” He said, “What baptism were you baptized unto?” These ones said, “The baptism of John.”
So Paul unfolded to them more clearly that John’s baptism was for repentance, to prepare the way for the Messiah. Now the Messiah has come. So they believed on the Lord Jesus and were baptized unto the Lord Jesus. Paul laid hands on them, and gifts were manifested.
Paul stayed there in Ephesus, preaching in the synagogue for about three months. Then there were problems, and he took the believers with him to the school, or gymnasium, of Tyrannus. There he stayed for at least two years and preached so thoroughly, so much of the word of God, that all of Asia Minor heard the word of God. Ephesus was the center of that area, and people were coming in from all over.
As Paul stayed there and preached, we know from his talk to the elders in Acts 20 that he did not hold back anything. Even though he was working with his own hands making tents, he did not hold back any of the word of God. They so thoroughly heard the word of God.
There were miracles—not even ordinary miracles, but such amazing miracles—that the gospel was going forth so strongly. Demons were being cast out, and the power of the name of Jesus was so strong that even Jewish, so-called exorcists tried to use the name of Jesus because they saw that it actually worked.
Remember the seven sons of Sceva. They tried to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus whom Paul preached. But it did not work. The spirit said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” Then it attacked them, and they left without all of their clothes. Such power of the word.
Everyone heard of this, and there was such trembling, with so many being saved. When these ones were saved, they were in such first love. Before, they had practiced wicked arts and magic and read these books. Now they gave them all up and burned them all. The price of it was about fifty thousand silver pieces. These believers so handed themselves over to the Lord.
Then trouble arose with the silversmith Demetrius, because so many were being saved. Before, these ones would buy his small idols. Now they were throwing them away and getting rid of them. So he caused such a commotion that eventually Paul had to leave, after spending about three years there in Ephesus.
As Paul was coming back through, he was on his way somewhere else. He did not stop in Ephesus, because he knew that, with such a relationship with the saints there, it would take too long if he stopped. Instead, he called the elders to him. In Acts 20, there is a really beautiful farewell talk to the elders in Ephesus. They prayed with tears before he left, and he even told them, “I know that I will not see you again.”
Then, if you follow on into the letter to the Ephesians, Paul had been there roughly at the end of the AD 50s. But when he writes the letter to the Ephesians, he is in prison. Remember, at the end of Acts, he was in prison for two years. So this letter, written while he was in prison, is in the beginning of the AD 60s. It has been just a little bit of time.
When he writes to them, he speaks about their love for the brethren. He also has this prayer for them, that they would know the breadth, the height, the length, and the depth of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.
When you read the letter to the Ephesians, one thing is that it is such a height in the New Testament of teaching. It is based on the fact that they had such love for the Lord. They had such love, and they were mature. They had received the word in a thorough way.
So Paul was able to share with them in the letter to the Ephesians things that before he was not able to share with, say, the Corinthians. In the Corinthian letter, remember how he says there is some wisdom among the mature. But he does not talk about it with the Corinthians. With the Ephesians, they were able to handle this.
Something happened, though. When you follow the history on and look at 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, these letters are after Paul came out of his first imprisonment. When he came out, something had happened in Ephesus. There were wrong ideas being taught, and believers were possibly being swayed. There had been much destruction.
Something had happened to all the elders, just as Paul had said, “I will not see you again.” Timothy was told to appoint elders, so something had happened. They were in such a trial there in Ephesus.
But thank the Lord, Timothy was there. Even though Paul went back to prison, he left Timothy there, and Timothy labored among the Ephesians. Later on, John the apostle labored among the Ephesians.
When you come to the letter in Revelation 2, we have to thank the Lord that they seem to have made it through the difficulties. Before, there had been wrong teachings and many distractions. But now, when you come to the letter, He says, “I know thy works, and thy toil and patience.”
He speaks about how they were able to distinguish false apostles. Now they were clear. They were clear on the teaching. The word was strong there, in a sense, and they also hated the works of the Nicolaitans.
These Ephesian believers, by this time—at the end of the century when John was writing this letter—had been through a long history. But thank the Lord, they had gotten clear of all the distractions and all those things.
But at this point, with such a history, with such workers and preachers coming through, and with such a depth of knowledge and knowing the Lord, now you come to the point where He says, “I have against thee this one thing, that thou hast left thy first love.”
Though they had reached such a height, though they had been faithful to this point, they had left their first love. The exhortation is so strong. We wonder, why is it so important? But He says that if they do not repent, He will remove the lampstand.
So this first love is so important that, though they had everything else, lacking this one thing put them in such danger.
Even in the letter, you can see there is something wrong. He says, “I know thy works, and thy toil and patience.” But if you read the letter of 1 Thessalonians, those were all brand-new believers when Paul wrote that letter. To them, he says, “Your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope.”
Faith, hope, and love—these three things are the way of works, labor, and endurance. But with the letter to the Ephesians, it is the same works, the same labor, and the same endurance, but it is lacking faith, love, and hope. The greatest of these is love. So it can be summed up in this: they had left their first love.
What we want to talk about is not returning to first love, but simply, what is first love? We see that there is such importance in first love from this letter to the Ephesians. Though we might have everything, if we lack this, we are really lacking the Lord, lacking His presence. The testimony of that lampstand might be removed.
Often, we consider first love to be what happens to brand-new believers. This is first in time. When you first believe on the Lord, you have first love, right? When we see a new believer, what do we usually say to them as they are so full of first love? “That’s nice. Just give it some time, and then you will be like me.”
When we see a newly married couple, what do the older married ones usually say? “Well, wait until after the first couple years. Then it will sink in what it is really like.”
But in the Scriptures, first love is to be kept all throughout. It is not something that is only first in time; it is also first in quality.
Even the word first carries this meaning. I read through all the verses with that same word, and the way we use it in English is just the same in the Scriptures. When we say first in English, we mean first in time or first in order: this one came first, that one came second. But we also mean first in importance and first in quality.
Say you are competing in the Olympic games. First place may mean first in time if it is a race, because they finished first. But in other events, it is not that. Who is the best at their sport? They are first.
In Luke 15, there is the story of the prodigal son returning to the Father. When he returns, he cannot even finish what he is saying, and the father says, “Bring out the best robe.” It is the same word: bring out the first robe.
If first only meant first in time or order, that would mean, “Go to the closet and get the first one you can find.” But obviously, it is the best robe. It is first of its class. It is the top. Its quality is the best.
All through the Scriptures, when you see the chief among the people, or the chief of men, that word chief can sometimes be translated first. It is the same word: protos.
When Paul says, “I am the chief of sinners,” he is saying, “I am the first of sinners.” It is the same word. If he meant it in time, we know that would not be right. Who sinned first? Not Paul. He was not even born when the first sinner was sinning.
If it were first in time, he could not say, “I am the chief of sinners. I am the first of sinners.” But with himself, he felt so strongly how sinful he was that, as far as he was concerned, he was the worst. He was first in the depth of sinning. That was his feeling.
So first means first in time and also first in quality. With first love, it does not mean that this is only at the beginning of our walk with the Lord, and then once that time fades out, we no longer have first love. It is a quality of love that stays with us throughout our whole Christian walk. It is first in time and first in quality.
With first love, we want to look at a couple of principles. What is first love? If we are to keep it, even to the end of our walk with the Lord, we need to know what first love is. Maybe that will help us to keep first love and to have an understanding.
Many times, we have the feeling that first love is something we just remember. We look back to those days, and we are very excited when we see a new believer in first love. But with us believers, just as in the warning to Ephesus, we see the importance of keeping first love.
So we want to use 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, which we read earlier. We are not expounding the verse in and of itself, but when you read it, you get the flavor. You get the feeling that this is a man in first love: “The love of Christ constraineth us.”
We want to use this verse as a simple outline to talk about first love. Because first love is first in quality, what is its main quality?
First love is this: we love Him because He first loved us. When you are first saved, it is not that you loved Him before you received His love. After you receive His love, then you are in such first love.
When you receive His love at the very beginning, a natural thing happens. It is from the Lord that you love Him back. As unbelievers, we did not love the Lord until He loved us and we received His love.
The phrase first love is found in two places in the Scriptures. One is Revelation 2:4, the verse we read. The other is 1 John 4:19.
This is not directly what we are talking about by first love, but it uses the phrase and can help us remember what first love is:
We love, because He first loved us.
We have first love because He first loved us. If He did not first love us, we would never have first love. The very love that we receive because He has loved us first is the only way we are able to love.
As believers, there is this specific love, this love that has come from God. When you read the section in 1 John 4 and the beginning of 1 John 5, you notice that it all starts with how God is love. God is love.
Not that we are loving, but this is love: God is love. He has loved. He has demonstrated His love. Then this love is being perfected in us as we receive this love, and then we love God and we love the brethren.
But the process is always that God is love, we receive it, and then we have love. If you can have love without Him loving first, it is not first love. It is some other love. It might be second or third love, but it is some kind of human love, some other kind of love.
First love always comes because God has loved us first. It is that we are constrained by His love, because the love of Christ constraineth us. We have the constraint upon us.
We want to illustrate this principle: our loving is a response to His loving us first. I want to use the rest of that verse and split it up, because there is another principle.
The first principle is that His love constrains us. He loves us first, and then we love. The second principle is that first love is always deepening. It is maturing.
It is not purely first in time. As we go on, first love is maturing and deepening. The more we receive of His love, the deeper our first-love response.
After it says, “The love of Christ constraineth us,” Paul speaks of that love of Christ: “Having judged this.” We are going to use that as a simple outline to give a basic illustration of how our first love might deepen as we go on with the Lord, from the beginning on to maturity.
People can look at the stages of spiritual life in different ways, but we will borrow the example in 1 John 2, where he speaks of little children, young men, and fathers. We want to show, in a few areas of a Christian’s life, what first love might look like: what love we are receiving, and what reaction there is to that love.
In 2 Corinthians 5:14, we read, “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all.”
As brand-new believers, at the very least, the thing that we have seen is that Christ died for us. On that cross, the Lord Jesus loved us so much. Even though we were sinners, even though we were His enemies, even though we did not love Him, even though we were full of unrighteousness, He loved us to the uttermost. He loved us and went to the cross for us.
When Christ loved us with such love and we see it, do you remember when you believed on the Lord Jesus, how much that touched your heart? How much you could sing and just enjoy the love of the Lord Jesus?
When you first believe in the Lord Jesus, something has happened. All of your sins have been washed away. Before, you were burdened and heavy laden. You had this weight of sin, guilt, and punishment upon you.
As you see His love on the cross, as you see Him crucified, as you see the nails in His hands and feet, the crown of thorns on His brow, and Him whipped upon His back—as you see this love of the Lord Jesus—you must believe on the Lord Jesus. You must receive His love.
When you receive this love of the Lord Jesus, you are melted. The love of Christ constrains you.
After believing on the Lord, you say, “I must be baptized. Bury me. All the old is gone.” When you have received that, though what you have is worth fifty thousand silver pieces, burn it all up. Nothing is beyond the worth of my Savior, of my Lord.
When we see this love of the Lord Jesus, it so constrains us. We have to give our everything to the Lord. As far as we know, we say, “Everything. He is everything now.” It changes our lives so completely that all our friends and relatives who knew us before cannot recognize us. They see that something has happened.
When you meet your old friends and family, you have to tell them. “Let me tell you of the love of the Lord Jesus. Let me share what has happened to me.” You go around, and you must tell them. You may not know much. You might only know one verse, but you have to tell them, “This is what happened to me. This could happen to you.”
You share the gospel all over, and you are so constrained by His love. You just want to fellowship with the saints. You come and say, “I just want to talk and share Christ. Let’s talk. Let’s have fellowship. There are not enough meetings going on.”
You are just so overwhelmed with His love, because now you have met Christ and the believers, and it is such an amazing thing. The love of Christ constraineth us.
I know it is different for all of us, how it is in the beginning and throughout. We are looking at this as an example, not as though this is the exact way for everyone. We are just trying to show that in the beginning of the believer’s life, you can find this in the Scriptures and in many people’s own examples: what it is like when you first receive His love.
There is a reaction. If there is no reaction at all, you have to wonder, “Have I received His love?” But having received His love, it constrains us. We love because He first loved us.
Then something happens. Before, it seemed that we had no choice but to be in first love. All our prayers were being answered, you know. Now we love the Lord, and we really want to serve Him. But something starts to happen where we meet the cross and meet difficulties.
Before, I prayed for ten things, and all ten prayers were answered. Now one of them is not answered. I am having to learn something.
At this stage, it becomes a danger for believers. Some believers cast off everything because they cast off the constraint. They say, “This is starting to feel different. Something is not right. Before, I had such feelings, and I miss that. I really miss what I felt before.”
At this time, they can either go on in maturity and receive the crosses that are coming, receive the dealings of the Lord, or they can try to fight their way back to what they originally had in their reaction, rather than seeing His love.
When they do that, it is no longer first love. It might be first feelings, but these are generated by ourselves. If we try to produce them, it is no longer the response to His love. It is not as though we are beholding His love and having such a reaction.
As the cross starts to happen more deeply in our experience, we begin to have this problem: “I do not do what I want to do, and I am doing what I do not want to do. Everything I do is wrong. I have this struggle.”
There is this principle of sin in me. I am finding out that even though I hate sin, because I love the Lord, I keep sinning. Though I am trying, and even though I want to, and I have given myself to do this, now I cannot even do it. I have this principle of death, as if I cannot function. I try to serve the Lord, and I cannot do it.
I am just struggling. I am in this circle of confusion. I keep doing what I do not want to do. I cannot stop doing these things. What I do not want to do, these are what I am doing. Even when I want to do something, I am unable.
That might sound confusing, but that is the way it is when you go through it. It is confusing. You cannot understand what is going on. “I am trying, but I cannot even try. When I try to stop, I cannot stop.”
If we look up to the Lord at this time, if we look to the Lord, we will find from Him that His love has deepened. Even this experience of struggle is because of His love.
When you read in this verse, it says, “One died for all, therefore all died.” Another aspect of His love is not only that He died for us, but that we died with Christ. The old man has been crucified with Christ.
When you read Galatians 2:20, this is a famous verse concerning being crucified with Christ and the overcoming life. But do you know that at the end of it, it speaks of His love?
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
It is His love that we are crucified with Him. He loved us so much. He not only died for the wages, the punishment, of our sin. He not only died for us so that we would be forgiven completely and washed clean by the blood. But when He went to the cross, He also took on that old man. He put on Adam and took him all the way to the cross.
In that way, the power of sin to control us would be broken. Sin could control the old man, but if the old man is crucified, then we no longer need to sin. Even though it is possible, we no longer need to, because now we can say, “The old man has been crucified with Christ.”
When you see this taste of His love—that on the cross He took on everything, even our corruption—you remember that the Father left Him. For three hours, He was in such darkness. All of Adam was put on Christ Jesus.
Everyone born from the lineage of Adam—that includes all of us, every human being—was put on Christ. He knows everyone’s name, and at that time He knew everyone’s sins. Everyone’s sins were put upon the Lord Jesus.
When He died on the cross for all of us with such love, He did not just die so that we would be spared from destruction. He died so that we could live the righteous life. He died on the cross so that we would be able to live by this new life of Christ.
When He rose from the dead, He rose so that He could give life to us. Resurrection life comes out of death. So all have died, but there are those who live by His life.
What happens with the believer as you see this, as you behold His love—how He has been crucified, how we have been crucified with Him? God has put us in Christ Jesus, as in 1 Corinthians 1:30. God put us in Christ Jesus, and we are crucified with Christ.
What do you do? What is your reaction? What is that first love? He has loved me first. Now I must shout, “Hallelujah!” I must go around and praise the Lord all over, because I am crucified.
I have heard a song before: “I am dead, I am dead.” It is a strange song. But if you realize that you are crucified with Christ, you want to sing, “I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I. I have the life of Christ in me.”
Before, I could not do what I wanted to do. But now, by the life of Christ, by His grace, I can do it. I can serve the Lord. I do not have to sin, because Christ does not sin. When He lives in us, He Himself does not sin. The life of Christ is able to overcome.
Because God has put us in Christ, because we have been crucified with Christ, because we have the newness of life, thank the Lord, He has given us this overcoming life, this victorious life.
As a Christian, when you discover this, you are just tasting of it, but you are experiencing His life living through you. In 1 John 2, there are little children, young men, and fathers.
As brand-new believers, those little children can cry out, “Abba, Father.” They know the Father, and they have the anointing. Though they do not know the word much, they can discern, “That is not really of Christ. I do not know why.”
But the young men know the word. They are overcoming the enemy. They are overcoming evil. These young men are discovering that this is the way to overcome: Christ’s life in me, and applying the cross to all the carnal things of me.
When the flesh tries to rise up, I apply the cross and let Christ live in me. When you discover this overcoming life, you really want to tell everyone. But also, you want to study the word diligently.
You are not only consecrated to Christ, but now you consecrate Christ in you to serve Him. You see how before you were so mixed—really, it seems, all the time. It was me and my zeal for the Lord, but was everything Christ?
In discovering this, you consecrate His life in you to serve. You really tremble lest you walk according to yourself. As you are living in this, you come to the meetings wanting to prepare so much, wanting to bring your supply.
You are not only preaching the gospel; now you are discovering there is a way to be wise in winning souls. You are able to use the word and talk with different unbelievers according to their own needs. You diligently study the word because you hunger for it so much.
The love of Christ is so constraining you because you have discovered that the life of Christ lives in us. If you discover His life in us, you are overwhelmed with His love. His love constrains you.
Nothing is worth it. The world is not worth it. Nothing is worth anything except that I can live by the life of Christ. Even though the cross hurts, even though I have to deny myself, do you know how much it is worth when you can taste and discover the life of Christ living in you?
You may think, “This is hard. This hurts.” But once you have discovered the resurrection side of death, it is worth it.
As we continue on in this way, as the love of Christ is constraining us, the cross is working deeper in us, toward the flesh rising up and toward the self-life. Our relationship with the Lord is deepening.
As our relationship with the Lord deepens, the Lord is able to reveal to us another aspect of His love. In Ephesians 5, there is also a word about His love.
Remember, this is the exhortation to husbands: “Love your wives.” But then it says:
Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it.
In this instance, the emphasis is not as much on the love of Christ that you are receiving personally. It is as if you are standing with the Lord, where He is looking down and seeing His overall purpose and His love. You see the whole church.
When you see this, you see how Christ loved that glorious church so much that He went to the cross. He loved the church so much that He went to the cross and gave Himself up for her.
It is not just that He died so that we would not be punished. It is not just that He died so that we could overcome and live a holy life. When Christ died, He died with something in view.
In 2 Corinthians 5:15, we read, “And He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again.”
When you see this aspect of His love, you see that the purpose of His love is not that we would just go on in whatever directions, even if we are overcoming. It is that we would live to Him.
It is that those who live—this is the church—that this bride of Christ would really be the helpmeet of Christ. He loved the church so much.
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him,” God said in Genesis. His heart for His Son is the same way. His Son’s love for the church is so strong that when He went to the cross, He saw, “It is worth it. This is the way for My helpmeet to be built.”
When this love of Christ touches us, when we stand with the Lord Jesus and look down and see all the believers, we see that this is not unto nothing. We see how the Lord longs for the bride to respond to His love.
He longs for the church to come back and love Him. He longs for the church to rise up and live to Him, to be His helpmeet, to be His counterpart: “This is bone of My bones, and flesh of My flesh.” I see Christ in the church.
When you see the glorious church, you do not see the problems. You see the glorious church because you see the glorious Christ in the church. When you see this glorious church, you look as if you are looking from above, and you see how much He loves the church.
What is the reaction in you? The love of Christ so constrains you that you must spend and be spent for His people, for His church.
With the fathers, they have the shepherd’s heart. They have the Father’s heart. They care for the believers, and they know Him who is from the beginning. He is from the beginning because everything is for Christ.
You realize that everything with Christianity, everything with us Christians, is all for Christ. The bride of Christ is the helpmeet of Christ. She is built for Christ. She is made for Christ. She responds to Christ.
It so constrains you that you must travail in prayer that Christ would be formed in the saints. You give up all those extra five minutes here and there so that the saints could come through, so that the saints could be built up in the Lord.
It is His love that constantly constrains you. It is not that you have merely been given some responsibility and now have to fulfill it. It is that you see His love for the bride, and you cannot help but waste yourself for that purpose. When you touch it, then it constrains you.
With these constraints, it is not that we leave one and move on to the next. The love of Christ is always increasing, not replacing.
The love of Christ that we met at the very beginning continues on. We continue to behold the love of Christ. As we mature a little bit, we continue to behold the love of Christ. We do not leave some behind.
Even when we are at the Lord’s table, the Lord’s table is really the table of love. We see His love so much at the Lord’s table.
Sometimes, as we remember the Lord, we see His death on the cross. We see how His body has been broken and His blood has been shed for us. We see this, and it constrains us.
When we remember the Lord at the table, we also see that as we take in that bread, this is the life of Christ. We now have the life of Christ. It is His life that overcomes. He died for us so that we can live by His life also.
Another way the Lord reminds us at the table is that this is one cup, one body, one bread. Just as we, as the church, are many members but one body, we are the body of Christ.
Sometimes, as you remember the Lord at the table, the Lord refreshes you with that aspect of His love: how He loves so much, how the body is one, how it is all one because it is Christ. Christ in us, and we are all one.
I just wanted to use those as an illustration that the love of Christ deepens and deepens. We have not touched at all into the depths of His love, but His love is so deep. I do not think anyone would disagree.
But do we know that first love with Christians also deepens and deepens? You may not look exactly the same as when you were first saved, but are you in first love? That is the question.
It may not be exactly the same response. We do not lose the things of Christ from before, but do we see His love? If we see His love, we respond. We love because He first loved us.
It is that the love of Christ constrains us, and it deepens and goes further. So what is first love? First love is that He has first loved us, and we love Him back.
The love of Christ constrains us. First love is first in time, but it is also first in quality. First love does not stop after a few months. First love continues on, and it gets deeper and deeper.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we are just beholding Your love and how You loved us so much on the cross, how You died for us, how You humbled Yourself, and were obedient to the Father unto death.
Lord, we pray that You would touch our hearts with the love of Christ. We pray that we would really see this way of first love, that we would see that the love of Christ constrains us.
Lord, we pray that we would experience today that the love of Christ constrains us. Anything that would stop us from receiving that first love, from receiving Your love, we pray You would take away and deal with.
We cast these things off, Lord, by Your grace. We want to receive Your love and respond to You. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.