How we thank and praise the Lord for the love of God in Christ reaching us and joining us to God, even making us the same as Christ in life and nature to become God’s corporate expression! Amen!
When we see the love of God which is in Christ, we realize that nothing can separate us from His love, and we are stirred up to love Him more and have a deeper seeking after God.
Like Paul, we should not be contented: we have not yet obtained or are perfected, but we stretch forward to Christ to lay hold of Him.
We have been laid hold of by Christ, and now He is drawing us with chords of a man, with bands of love, for us to pursue after Him.
May we be those who exercise to forget the things which are behind and stretch forward to the Christ that is before us, pursuing toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called us upward.
What is our goal? Our day-by-day goal is the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ; the prize is the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom.
Those who love God and have a deeper seeking after God, they enjoy God’s blessing.
Those who seek God, seek His strength, and seek His face continually, they are rewarded with the presence and blessing of God Himself.
We need to take Christ as our absoluteness and set our heart and soul to seek after God (1 Chron. 22:19).
The more we gain God in our deeper seeking after Him, as a result of our enjoyment of His love toward us, the more we become of a dispensational value in God’s sight.
And the best way to seek after God is to enjoy God in His word; the Bible is THE BOOK, the book of life, and when we come to the word of God with an exercised spirit and a heart turned to the Lord, we enjoy all that God is to us.
May we be those who seek His face, even asking the Lord that we spend our time and dwell for the rest of our days in the house of the Lord to behold His beauty and to enquire in His temple (Psa. 27:4).
We need to come to seek God with all our heart, being in His Word, and not allow our heart to be distracted by other things.
Thank the Lord for the love of God in Christ which constrains us and keeps us on the way of life; may we cooperate with the Lord’s love and not allow anything to distract us from the absolute enjoyment of Christ.
In our Christian life personally and in the church life corporately, we need to seek to enjoy Christ as the tree of life, and we need to remain in the absolute enjoyment of Christ.
In God’s view, the primary matter in the church life is to eat the tree of life, that is, to enjoy Christ as our life supply.
The Love of God reaches us in Christ with “Cords of a Man” to Draw us to Himself
The Triune God went through some “transformations”, and the Bible speaks of at least two main becomings: God became man – the Word became flesh (John 1:1, 14), and Christ became the Spirit – the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).
In His essence and nature, God cannot change, for He is eternally perfect and complete; however, in His economy, He has gone through some transformations to fulfil His purpose.
This is the divine revelation in the Bible. In Hosea 11:4 we see these transformations of the Triune God when we read, “I drew them with cords of a man, / With bands of love”.
This shows us that God, who is divine, loved us and drew us to Himself with His divine love not on the level of divinity but on the level of humanity, “cords of a man“.
God loved us with an eternal love, and He has drawn us with lovingkindness.
He threw some bands of love to draw us to Himself, some cords of a man; when we read the Gospels, we see the wonderful, aromatic, divinely-human and humanly-divine living of Jesus, and we are spontaneously drawn to Him.
God’s love is divine, but this divine love reaches us in the cords of a man, that is, through the humanity of Christ.
What are these cords of a man? It is the transformations of the Triune God, that is, the processes that God went through to become a man and to accomplish His economy.
The cords that God draws us include the incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ (Jer. 31:3; John 3:14, 16; 6:44; 12:32; Rom. 5:5, 8; 1 John 4:8-10, 16, 19).
It is by all these steps of Christ in His humanity that the love of God in His salvation reaches us (Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10).
The divine, eternal, almighty, holy, and righteous God can never reach us apart from Christ; it is in Christ that the love of God reaches us.
God’s everlasting love, His unchanging love, His subduing love, cannot be prevailing in relation to us apart from Christ.
But in Christ we see the love of God, we are drawn by God with cords of a man, with bands of love, and we simply respond in love to Him, for we cannot but love Him.
Other translations render “cords of a man” as “ropes of a man”; it’s as if God sees us sinking in the sea, and He throws some ropes and a life preserver to save us.
Apart from Christ, God’s love cannot be prevailing in relation to us; in Christ, the unchanging love of God is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, by Christ, and for Christ.
God loves Christ; Christ is the Beloved Son of the Father, and in Him, the love of God was manifested, not only by Him dying for us to redeem us but also in His human living.
Throughout His life, the Lord Jesus was the “cords of a man” and the “bands of love” with which God drew men, captivated people, and attracted us to Himself.
When we see Christ, we see the love of God for us, and we are drawn to God; in Christ, the love of God is expressed and made real, and by coming to Christ, we are drawn by God to be His children, part of His household, so that we may become His corporate expression.
When we are in Christ, we are loved by God, for God’s love is in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ. What can we say now except,
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming to express the love of God and draw us with cords of a man, with bands of love. How we love You, Lord, and how we appreciate You in Your incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. We love Your mysterious yet wonderful incarnation to bring God into man and mingle the Triune God with the tripartite man. We appreciate Your human living which expressed the bountiful God in His divine attributes through Your aromatic human virtues. How grateful we are for Your death on the cross to terminate sin, sins, the world, the flesh, and Satan, and to redeem us and bring us back to God. Thank You Lord for Your all-conquering resurrection in which You were begotten the firstborn Son of God and we were also begotten to be the many sons of God. Praise You for Your all-transcending ascension in which You became the Head of all things, the Lord and Christ, the Leader and Savior, our High Priest, the Mediator of the new covenant, the Paraclete, the Intercessor, and the heavenly Minister! Hallelujah for the love of God in Christ which came to us on the level of humanity to draw us to Himself!
Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ, for God’s Love will always gain the Victory!
God loved us with an everlasting love, an eternal love; this love is centred on Christ, and it is in Christ that God loved us and drew us to Himself by means of “cords of a man”, “with bands of love”.
We believers in Christ are now not only citizens of the kingdom of God but even more, we are children of God and sons of God, and we are in Christ.
By virtue of being in Christ, we are loved by God, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Rom. 8:35 asks, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? No one can and nothing can; tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, nothing of the sort can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
We may be persecuted, we may be in suffering, and tribulation may be our daily portion, but nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ.
Actually, even in these things that befall us, we more than overcome through Him who loved us.
We are persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:37-39).
First, God showed us His love in sending His Son Jesus Christ to pass through the process of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension; these are the cords of a man, the bands of love, with which He drew us to Himself.
Once we believe into the Lord as a response to the love of God in Christ, we are now kept by the love of God, and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
In God’s salvation, the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), and this love has become the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35) doing many marvellous things for us through the grace of Christ until God’s complete salvation is accomplished in us.
Because these marvellous things are taking place in our life, the enemy of God attacks us with all kinds of sufferings, difficulties, persecutions, and calamities (vv. 35-36).
However, because of our response to the love of God in Christ, these attacks actually become benefits to us, for we more than conquer in these afflictions and calamities.
No person, no thing, no matter, and no situation can separate us from the love of God in Christ; rather, we are in God’s life being conformed by the Lord Spirit to reach the ultimate goal of God’s salvation!
The love of God in Christ keeps us, separates us from all negative things, and preserves us, and it causes us to enter into the incomparable divine glory to be glorified together with God (Rom. 8:18, 30). Hallelujah!
The everlasting love of God is always victorious; in spite of our failures and mistakes, God’s love will eventually gain the victory.
Love prevails; the divine love in Christ will always prevail. We may fail God, we may make mistakes, we may even forsake God and not spend time with God, but nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
He will always draw us to Himself, captivate us, and bring us into the full enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ and the experience of the divine salvation until we are fully glorified! Hallelujah!
Thank You, Lord for pouring out the love of God into our heart through the Holy Spirit who indwells us. Thank You for keeping us in the love of God in Christ to bring us all the way through until we are being glorified. Hallelujah, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord! No person, no matter, no thing, and no situation can separate us from the love of God, for God’s love in Christ keeps us and takes us all the way through! Thank You Lord that, in spite of our failures and mistakes, God’s love will eventually gain the victory! Hallelujah for the everlasting love of God in Christ, the love that is always victorious! Praise the Lord, love prevails!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” msg. 17, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 6, Gaining God to Be Transformed by God for the Purpose of God.
- Recommending Rom. 8:39 footnote 1, Rom. 8:37 footnote 1, and Hosea 11:4 footnote 1 in the Recovery Version Bible.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I was drawn to the world and it’s sin, / I was seeking but empty within; / Then this man crossed my path, / And instead of God’s wrath / He loved me and opened God’s heart! / Jesus loves me and waters my heart. / He drew me with cords of a man, / With bands of love; / Christ’s coming His living, His dying, / His rising far above, / Descending… like a dove; / Reaching me, even me, / With God’s love. (Song on, Cords of a Man, Bands of Love)
– What from Christ the soul can sever, / Bound by everlasting bands? / Once in Him, in Him forever, / Thus th’ eternal cov’nant stands. / None shall pluck thee, none shall pluck thee / From the Savior’s mighty hands! / None shall pluck thee, none shall pluck thee / From the Savior’s mighty hands! (Hymns #314)
– What from Thee can separate me? / Thou wilt love me to the end! / Oh! Thy love is so prevailing, / E’en Thyself with me to blend! / We two one will be for ever; / I am Thine and Thou art mine! / This will be my testimony: / In Thy love we’ll ever twine! (Hymns #152)
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