1 Peter 1:8

1 Peter 1:8

Loving the Invisible Christ.

The place occupied by any on the ledge of fame and genius is very narrow indeed. Forgetfulness soon grows over us, and we are less than shadows after the sun has passed. "I am clean forgotten," says Swift, "as a dead man, out of mind and out of loving hearts." Contrast this with the influence of the unseen Christ. "By His death," Paul says, "we see the resurrection and ascension." Not only is our Lord Jesus Christ known to countless millions, but He is loved wherever He is known. The proof of love is sacrifice. The martyrs have been dying for Christ for over eighteen hundred years. The noble army is added to year after year by fresh recruits ready to seal with their own blood their devotion to Christ. On our university classes and Toynbee Hall Christ looks down from His holy heaven, and strikes into life and arouses the chivalry and enthusiasm of those who work in the mission field of the East of London. This is a power we cannot but love. Amongst those who have never seen Him, Christ has power to perpetuate His love through all ages. The first Napoleon, who trusted rather to the effect of his own fascination, awoke to the continued fascination of the love of Christ, and said, "I am a judge of men, but I tell you that this was more than a man." That was Napoleon's commentary upon St. Peter's words, "Whom having not seen, ye love." Let me point to two applications.

I. The text lies at the heart and root of the whole Christian life. Remember the Epistle and portion of Scripture for St. Barnabas's Day. A great writer has told us, in his own picturesque way, that Antioch was the capital of vice, the sewer of all sorts of infamies, the house of moral and spiritual putrefaction; yet the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. It is a solemn time when a new influence gets its name, for the name is a distinct sign of separate existence. Many will in all probability say that that was the name by which believers were known to the Roman police. But this step was now taken; they were now no longer merely disciples, brethren, saints, and believers, but Christians. It may be that, as we have been told, the name was founded upon the misconception that Christ was a proper name; but, at all events, ten years after the Resurrection and Ascension our Lord's disciples called themselves by the name of One whom they loved, and that name will never die that beautiful, that worthy, name by which we are called. Yes, save in the Gospels, there is no authentic likeness of Christ by one who had seen Him. In the long, worn features seen in the Lateran mosaics many Christians are able to perceive the hands and feet, the wounded side, and the awful circle of the crown of thorns; among all the pictures in galleries, and in all its forms, the crucifix stands out in distinct isolation, as if challenging the attention of those who believe the Gospel story; but none can claim to be the original and authentic likeness of Jesus, the Son of Mary and the Son of God. And yet, said St. Barnabas, that name of Jesus is not the name of a man, but of One who is true, gentle, pure, holy, and sympathising, and who is also the true and Eternal God. This idea, in all the Gospel and creeds, is fixed again and again by the reign of the Holy Ghost upon the sensitive plate of the human heart, and is a proof of the reality of the object which it represents: "Whom having not seen, ye love."

II. The text no doubt affords a personal test: "Whom having not seen, ye love." People are all too ready to put to others trisyllabic questions to which they must have monosyllabic answers. "Are you saved?" "Yes." Another question put in this form is, "Do you love Jesus?" That is a question to put to ourselves rather than to others. Imitate the sensitive delicacy of St. Peter in our text. He tells us we have not seen Christ, but he had seen Him in the guest-chamber, on the long summer evenings by the lake of Galilee, and it is an exceedingly reverential statement to make when he says, "Whom having not seen, ye love." Do we love Jesus? The answer, after all, does not depend upon what we say. Who does not remember that sublime passage in dramatic literature where the aged king intends to make a trial of the love of his three daughters? Two of them, when asked if they loved him, heaped word upon word, hyperbole upon hyperbole. The third was the one alone whose heart was richer than her tongue. Who loved the old man best of all? We can read the answer upon the heath where the old man's form stands out in the flashing lightning, and his white hair is drifted by the storm. Our answer to the question is to be measured not by what we say, not by what we think we are enabled to do, but by what we do when the hour of trial comes.

Bishop Alexander, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 89.

References: 1 Peter 1:8 . A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 335; Homilist, 1st series, vol. v., p. 107; R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 72.