Long on Faith, Short on Love
by Norman Grubb

I wonder if we conservative evangelicals do not come short on the love of God. I know I do. For years my main occupation has been with faith. Do I believe God aright? Do I transmit to others "the faith once delivered to the saints," Christ according to the Scriptures? I have no intention of belittling that. Forty years ago I fought the battle through at the university, whether I would stand on the Bible as God’s inerrant revelation of Himself to fallen man, despite questions some could raise to which I had no answer. Five years before, just before I joined the army in World War I, a faithful man, a retired Major, asked me point blank if I belonged to Christ. I was embarrassed, because I was supposed to be a Christian, but I had already begun to question the reality of God and Christ, for they meant nothing to me in my daily life. But (and that was the unrecognized work of the Spirit in answer to praying parents), I just managed to be honest enough to admit I did not. That is why I see that honesty is God’s one requirement of us.

That admission opened my eyes to my true condition. There could be no kidding myself I was right with God if I could not say I belonged to Christ. How did I know that? Because I had been taught the Scriptures from my child-hood. Then if I could not say I was Christ’s, there was no heaven for me; and for the first time the truth flashed into me that I was bound for hell, not heaven, and rightly so, for I was unfit for God’s holy presence. So, again for the first time in all sincerity, I asked forgiveness for my sins. Into my mind came another simple illumination: why, is not that why Christ died–for your sin? And at once I said to myself, or rather it was the Spirit saying it in me, "Then my sins are forgiven, I need not go to hell. Heaven is my home and God my Father!" Where did that come from? Solely from what I had long been taught from the Bible, and the Spirit now illuminated to me.

And not only did the peace of God fill my heart, but my doubts of Him were settled, for I said to myself, "Here is a God that satisfies my highest possible conception of Him–a God who gives Himself as an atoning sacrifice for the very people who hate Him and sin against Him. I can never find a higher than that." And where had I learned that? From the Bible.

Firm Foundation

I set out on the pilgrimage of faith, not only with a love shed abroad in my heart which compelled me to share Christ with others, but also with a firm foundation in the Bible as God’s sole revelation of Himself to man. When, therefore, five years later, my faith in the inerrancy of the Bible was severely assaulted by my lecturers at Cambridge, I came to another Waterloo in my experience. I could not answer some of their objections.

But I could and did know that the God of the Bible, the God of saving grace through Christ, was my God for all eternity. He satisfied my heart and had changed my whole outlook on life, and I was not going to be moved from the one medium of revelation He had given us, His written Word. I remember going to my room, and kneeling down, and though I am not given to dramatics, opening my Bible and laying my hand on it: and I made my vow there that I stood by that Book: if it was erroneous, I would be in error along with it: if the God I knew was a big mistake, I would be a little mistake along with Him. If there were portions of the book I couldn’t explain, or could apparently be proved wrong, well, to me the rights of the book were so overwhelmingly many, I would be content to leave those questions still unanswered, and boldly mould my life and witness on it. It would be "Thus saith the Lord" to me.

I told my tutor so, a professor of theology in Trinity College. He asked me how I was going to spend my life. I told him of my call to join C. T. Studd in the heart of Africa. "Well," he said, "a naive faith like yours may be alright for teaching primitive people; but I think, if you come back in ten years, you will find that your mind will have changed."

Forty years have now passed. I remain, by the grace of God, exactly where I then was. The Book has opened up infinite riches, from Genesis to Revelation, as it unveils a limitless Christ. Every section of it is its own storehouse of treasure. Difficulties still remain and there are questions unanswered, but they too are as minor as they were forty years ago; and mind, as well as heart, has become deeply satisfied with the rationality of the gospel, as well as with its sufficiency. Face the world squarely on any level, in philosophy, psychology and science; in politics and economics; in problems of society and industry; there is no adequate alternative to the Christian faith worked out in human lives.

But through the years I think it true that faith has outrun love, and in that respect I have fallen far short of the very revelation I claim to adhere to. Nothing could shine out more brightly from the Scriptures than love. Of course all living faith is motivated by love: "Faith that worketh by love." But "add to your faith…charity," Peter wrote, with a good list of additions before faith reached its goal in charity! Perhaps that is what it is. Zeal for souls is wonderful. We had it in those university days when the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (I.V.F.) was born in a wave of passion-ate prayer burden, when groups of us would meet in men’s rooms for as much as three hours of prayer at a time; and of bold witness which produced such fruits that the vision was given of a students’ witnessing fellowship in every university and college in the world.

It was my privilege to start my missionary life with another firebrand for souls, C. T. Studd: I think the small fire was attracted by the big blaze, like to like; and I thank God that "C.T." died with the fire of love to Christ and the world burning as fiercely as in his youth. Paul was like that. In his letter to the Philippians, written from prison, "the furtherance of the gospel" was his occupation. "Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice and will rejoice": "Many of the brethren in the Lord…are much more bold to speak the word without fear": "I thank God for your fellowship in the gospel…in the defence and confirmation of the gospel." May my end be like these men! There is nothing that gives me more joy than to have been allowed these years to participate in a "Crusade" like this, the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade which C.T. Studd founded, which still burns with a single flame, to bring Christ to those who have never heard of Him, to see the power of God break into hearts, to see Christ formed in them, to help the church grow up in Him, living and witnessing.

To Faith Add Love

But to faith love must be added. Here I have come short. There are reasons. The gospel has two sides to it– wrath and love. It divides the world into two camps, for as Paul said, it is the savour of death unto death, as well as life unto life. The day of "the revelation of the righteous judgment of God" will bring eternal life to the one, and "indignation and wrath" to the other. It is much easier to have an easygoing shew of love to all, if, as many have, we side-step the judgments of God, and throw an indiscriminate blanket of acceptance over all. The Bible does not do that, nor those that preach its message faithfully. A love of that nature cannot be the pure love of God in us, for it is false to His Word. We must find another way of love, if it is to be the same as flowed out from the Saviour, Paul, John, and the others. It must have a foundation of faithfulness at any price, yet it must be clothed in a love which is more prominent than the faithfulness. But I think we often have those two in a reverse proportion: faithfulness is more prominent than love.

Though eager to witness and speak of Christ, for instance, I am not immediately at home with the "pagan," as Jesus so obviously was–the friend of publicans and sinners. I think for too long I have loved "souls" instead of simply loving people. I have instinctively had the two camps approach, and taken it that everybody is outside the Lord’s camp unless I have found out for sure that they are in it. I have not sufficiently just loved a person because he is a per-son, and sought the human touch with him which could lead on to sharing what Christ has meant to me. I shrink from contacts, when I should welcome them and refuse to judge by external appearances.

I think that most of us who know the internal condition of churches and missionary societies and other agencies who hold the evangelical faith, will agree that we have much to learn and practice in our ranks about loving one another. We do not face up at any price to the command the Saviour gave absolute priority to in His last prayer and last words to His disciples. Why not? Again I think that some of it is because we have occupied ourselves in safeguarding the truth, expounding the Bible, regarding each other more as consistent or inconsistent believers, rather than as plain beloved brothers and sisters.

I have fellowship with some movements and conferences where orthodoxy would not be named as their premier characteristic (though they are lovers of the Lord Jesus and His Word, but do not give the prominence to the latter that we would), and I have learned many lessons from them in the expressions of brotherly love. While they have welcomed me to minister the Word according to the light given me, they have ministered streams of the love of Christ for me to take back as my portion! Love must be expressed. "Beloved, we ought also to love one another…let us love one another…and this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also."

I have certainly found in my own ministry as a missionary secretary that I have much more commonly regarded my fellow-workers as agents of the gospel working according to certain missionary principles for which this Crusade "stands," rather than as those I love as God loves them. It is really a carry-over of the same outlook towards my brethren as I have had so much towards "outsiders." I am beginning to learn that I don’t only love Christ in a person, but the person him-self and for himself, because that is the love of God to us, and thus to others through us.