Charity
By Linda
and Richard Eyre
Note: Each
week this column provides a short essay on one particular aspect
or facet of the Lord’s personality and character.
It is intended that the reader focus on this facet while partaking
of the sacrament this Sunday. (Click here
to read full introductory column.)
How remarkable and how worthy of thought
is Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, where he lists nearly
every great virtue and puts charity at the top of the list.
He says that charity “never faileth.” He says that one who has
“all knowledge and faith” still has nothing without charity. He
says that charity is greater than faith or hope (see Corinthians
13:2, 8, 13).
In His word and revelation, Christ
himself holds for charity as an absolute requirement for his work.
He tells us that to be “clothed” with it and says we can do nothing
without it.
How could any word, any concept, be
that complete, that total, that preeminently important, that absolute?
Scripture gives us the answer when it says that charity is “the
pure love of Christ.” That definition explains all, fulfills all.
“The pure love of Christ” — is there
here a double meaning?
- To love as Christ loved: purely,
completely.
- To love Christ – purely, completely.
Is it a double meaning, or do both
meanings say the same thing? Only by loving Christ purely can we
love as purely as Christ does. Only by loving as purely as Christ
does can we purely love Christ.
Another possible meaning emerges:
Wasn’t his pure love the love of his Father? Thus could not charity,
the “pure love of Christ,” mean also “the pure love of the Father”?
Again a double meaning becomes single as we remember the concept
Christ taught: “If you love me, you love him that sent me.”
Let us examine how Christ loved,
so that we can strive:
- to love as purely as he;
- to love him purely;
- to love his Father (our Father)
purely
Indeed, Christ’s love was perfect,
and indeed it never failed — not even when those in his own
hometown called him crazy, deceitful, devilish; not even when fellow
townspeople tried to throw him off the cliff (see Luke 4:28-29);
not even when he was spat upon while Barabbas was released; not
even when one of his own betrayed him with a kiss; not even upon
the cross.
Christ’s love was pure because it was
totally selfless (“I lay down my life for the sheep”; John 10:15).
Christ’s love was pure because it was universal (he loved the rich
and the poor, the strong and the weak). Christ’s love was pure
because it was intelligent (he gave that which would help, withheld
that which would hurt). Christ’s love was pure because it was individual
(he taught and lived and died for each man as well as for
all men).
Now go back to the previous paragraph
and change every “was” to “is,” because Christ’s pure love “never
faileth,” and he love each today as much as any were ever loved.
The key to understanding Christ’s love
is to realize his intimate concern for us as his younger brothers
and sisters. Perhaps you or I would give our life for our own little
sister. She is small and defenseless, and perhaps if her life were
threatened, we would be willing to give ours instead. Christ sees
each of us in that way. Indeed, as we suggested earlier,
if you were earth’s only sinner, no one but you needed the
atonement, Christ would still have died on the cross to pay for
your sins. That is another way to think about what happened
in the Garden … perhaps Christ, unlimited by the constraints of
time and velocity, actually paid for our sins individually rather
than collectively. Perhaps he did it one by one. All of the ordinances
of the Gospel and the Temple are individual, and perhaps the Atonement
was also.
Next
week, we will ponder the Lord’s compassion and empathy.
© 2005 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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