The Constraining Love of Christ Transforms All Motives

The love of Christ operates as the Christian's ruling motive, and Paul declares it sunecho—constrains, compresses, drives forward—the believer toward radical transformation. This love proves reasonable, soul-satisfying, and soul-ennobling in degree beyond all earthly affection.

Consider Christ's love in its objects. Man, likened to grass and worm, his foundation in dust, appears insignificant against the hosts of heaven. Yet the Son of God sets His heart upon such a one. Our love typically awakens through perceived worthiness in the beloved; Christ's love found no originating cause in our merit (John 15:16; 1 John 4:10). Where congeniality of mind, similarity of feeling, or harmony of taste ordinarily draw hearts together, Christ's mind stands opposite to the sinner's. Where beauty attracts love, man's original image—reflecting Elohim's glory in righteousness—has wholly departed, leaving only deformity.

Yet Christ's love demonstrates itself through five transcendent properties: it is self-denying, beneficial (enriching with righteousness, peace, grace, liberty), cheering, intense and inextinguishable (Song of Solomon 8:6-7), and boundless, incomprehensible (Ephesians 3:18-19). The supreme manifestation appears in His death: "If one died for all, then were all dead." This constrains those who live to cease living unto themselves, but unto Him who died and rose again. Self-interest, the natural guiding principle of all humanity, yields to His redemptive claim.