A popular view is that
brotherly love is the same
as love, and is simply its most perfect form. This is a mistake, as
2 Pet. 1: 5, 7 shows: “have … in godliness brotherly love, in
brotherly love love”. Different Greek words are used:
philadelphia for brotherly
love and agape for
love. That brotherly love
(or affection) is a most sweet and precious fruit of grace is true,
but it is not identical to love. Peter tells us to have love
in our brotherly
affection. The reason is simple. If brotherly affection is exercised
then brethren are the object, and although such fondness surely
flows from grace when genuine and pure, it easily clothes itself
with mere nature. Philadelphia is liable to rest in its object, and to be governed by
its feeling towards it, and so avoid all that might be painful or
mar the pleasantness of mutual affection between brethren. That is
why when difficulties arise among God’s people the cry often goes up
that the fellowship must be maintained at all costs. Unless
philadelphia is qualified
by agape, brethren become
the motive and governing principle of our conduct, and our ways
becomes as uncertain as the state of our brethren with whom we may
be in contact. Hence after speaking about the need to put on “bowels
of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long–suffering;
forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any should
have a complaint against any; even as the Christ has forgiven you,
so also [do] ye” (Col. 3: 12, 13), Paul says, “And to all these
[add] love, which is the bond of perfectness” (v14).
So won’t love seek to exercise brotherly
affection? Undoubtedly it will, but it also brings in God, for “God
is love” (1 John 4: 8) and “He that abides in love abides in God and
God in him” (1 John 4: 16).
Agape thus brings in a standard of what true love is which
philadelphia by itself never can. Love is “the bond of perfectness”
(Col. 3: 14) for God, and the heart of God expressed is its measure.
By contrast, brotherly affection, unless it is accompanied by love,
will form bonds that are to a greater or lesser degree, imperfect.
Mere nature and not God will be its measure. Love is governed by the
conscious presence of God and exists in virtue of it. Hence,
anything that is not consistent with His presence, with Himself and
with His glory, cannot be borne by the heart which is filled with
love. Love was active in Christ, when He said, “Serpents, offspring
of vipers” (Matt. 23: 33), and in Paul, when he said, “I would that
they would even cut themselves off who through you into confusion”
(Gal. 5: 12). Love, because it brings in God and we feel His
presence, is intolerant of evil. In brotherly affection, if God’s
presence is not felt, nature comes in easily. The brother being the
object before my mind, before I realize it, I will put man before
God, smother evil, and keep fellowship going at any cost.
God is never inconsistent with Himself. Thus
love gives to God all His rights. God’s love to us was shown in what
was the most solemn proof of His intolerance of evil—the cross.
There is no true love apart from righteousness. If God is
indifferent to evil then there is no love in grace to the sinner.
Unconverted men want God to be as careless as to evil as they
are—that is the kind of love they look for. Regrettably, Christians
can also be careless about sin, and act as if God is careless about
sin as well. Philadelphia
must ever be exercised in love—God’s love—else it is liable to
excuse evil in the name of affection among brethren.
