What does it mean to put on love (Colossians 3:14)?

Vv. 12, 13. The first seven exhortations all set forth the different ways in which the grace of Christ is expressed. Mercy is grace to those who in some way may be dependent upon us, and are in special need. Kindness does not necessarily imply the meeting of actual need, or the conferring of benefits upon one dependent upon us. It is rather ministering to the happiness and comfort of others who may be in no special need. Lowliness has respect to oneself; meekness has reference to others. Lowliness thinks low thoughts, or no thoughts, of self; meekness gives way to others. These two excellent qualities are illustrated by the word, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves" (Philippians 2:3). The lowly man makes himself of no reputation; the meek man considers the qualities of others rather than his own.

Long-suffering has reference more to trying circumstances; forbearing one another refers to trying people. We rightly speak of a person showing great forbearance in the presence of provocation. This provocation may be general— something that calls for the forbearance of all. There may also be personal wrongs, which would give just cause for complaint by the one wronged. Such personal wrongs call for forgiveness. The measure of the forgiveness is to be even as Christ forgave us.

V. 14. Then we read, "To all these things add love" (N. Tn.). It is not, as in our translation, "Above all these things put on love", as if above all these qualities there is "love" as a quality apart. Love is to be added to the mercy, the kindness, and all the other qualities. All these blessed activities of the new man are to spring from love. If we show mercy, or kindness, or forbearance, or forgiveness, it should be because we love our brother. Love is "the bond of perfectness". The Apostle is speaking of the new order of man in which alone perfection can be found. In the old order, men are hateful and hating one another; in the new, all are bound together in the eternal bonds of love. One has said, "The links which are riveted in the love of Christ, and in labours for Christ, outlive the changes of time, and bind the family of God in the mansions of eternity".

V. 15. "Let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts" (N. Tn.). In Christ we see the new order of man set forth in perfection. He came down from heaven, and could speak of Himself as "the Son of Man which is in heaven" (John 3:13). He walked amidst earth's unrest, but lived in heaven's calm. We pass through a world where there is no peace. Politically, it is a world of wars. Socially, commercially, and religiously, all is unrest and upheaval. The privilege of the Christian is to pass through it, even as Christ, with the peace and calm of heaven in his heart. Whatever the circumstances through which he may be called to pass, with his mind set on things above, he will be kept in the peace which Christ enjoyed.

Furthermore the peace is not only to preside in our hearts, but to be enjoyed in the Christian company; for to this we have been "called in one body". Oneness of the body requires peace between the members if it is to grow with the increase of God. Further, if there is peace in the heart, there will be thankfulness to God. Thus, if marked by grace, love, and peace, the beautiful character of Christ will be reproduced in His people.

There is this character about Scripture, that, being divine, it never can be mastered by intellect alone, but always appeals to the affections and conscience as well as mind. It needs the power of the Holy Ghost to connect it with Christ in order even then to feel, judge, and act aright. "Forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." v. 13. Christ is looked at as Head of everything in this epistle. He is viewed as the ideal of all that is good and lovely which God looks either for or from us. "And above all these things, love, which is the bond of perfectness." v. 14. There is more in love than simple kindness and forgiveness; it goes beyond these. Love always brings in God, being the activity of His nature. His nature morally is light, but the energy of it is love that goes out in goodness to others.

Other differences have disappeared: there remains but the old man, which we only acknowledge as dead, and the new man. To the latter Christ is all; so that there is none but He whom they see and whom they acknowledge, and He is in all believers They put on therefore as such, as elect, holy, beloved (Christ being their life), the character of Christ, mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another if offence has been given, even as Christ has done to us.* Finally they put on love, the bond of perfectness, that which gives a divine character to all the qualities that have been enumerated, and that were manifested in Christ, and a divine check on taking amiable nature for divine grace, for divine love is holy.

And to all these add love, which is the bond of perfectness.

Divine love cannot be separated from its source and is only manifested in the lives of believers as communion with God is maintained. Here it is said to be the ‘bond of perfectness’ since it binds together in a two-fold way. Firstly it binds together these different qualities by maintaining their divine character. They belong to the moral nature of God of which every believer is made a partaker and are not to become or be mistaken for natural amiability. Secondly, as the life and character of Christ are manifested in these qualities the saints are bound together practically and the unity and testimony of the local assembly is maintained.

Love — the bond of perfectness

There is still something to add to all these traits: love. This needs a reason, and the reason is not found in us but in God. John says: ‘Beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another’ (1 John 4:11). I will always find something in my brother and my sister which does not invite me to show love. But there is no need to wait for an invitation. Because the love of God has been poured out in my heart, I can love the other without finding a reason in him or her to do so. Love is the bond of perfectness. Love is not everything, but without love everything is nothing.

The opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 make it very clear that we must add love. We could do the greatest things in the eyes of others: speak with tongues of men and of angels, have all prophecies, understand all mysteries and knowledge, have all faith and dole out all our goods in food, and even deliver up our bodies for others — but if it is all without love, it is nothing. We can wear all these wonderful articles of clothing from the Christian wardrobe but it will not be of great benefit to others or help ourselves if we do not have love. Let us therefore encourage one another not only to express these wonderful character traits but add love to them all as we do so.

Verse 12: "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." Was He not the "elect of God"? He was God's beloved Son. Having thus brought in Christ, the apostle looks at what we are to put on in practice. "That is your place," he says. You are the objects of God's delight, holy and beloved; His nature is in you; now walk in the consciousness of it, and your heart will be in a state to put on these things that are suited to Christ. If Christ has put us into this place, He looks for fruit. He has cut the tree down, and it is the graft that now lives. Then, Paul says, shew all these blessed fruits. If Christ is my life, He is in me, and He is my object. Remember, he says, what you are before God; walk in the affections of it, in the consciousness of it. You are to have the sense of it, as a child has of its mother's love. A child has the consciousness of the place it is in, and it ought to walk worthy of it, and please its mother; but it must have the consciousness of the place it is in first. It may do every duty without that; but it is only show, there is no heart in it. In Ephesians we get much the same thing: "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children"; go and act like your Father. Here it is another aspect of the same thing: "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." There is the character of Christ, and you are in His place of relationship to God; let us see the spirit that belongs to such a place - the place of Christ in this world. It is hard to be put down, and trampled on; but that is what Christ had. "If when you do well, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable to God." That is Christ's character. Did He not do well, and suffer patiently? You do it. It is more important to keep Christ's character than to keep my coat. That is the way it works in the heart. I do not expect righteousness in a world of sin; my business is to shew the character of Christ before the world - gentleness and meekness in a world of wrong - that is superiority. If a man vexes me, we are on the same ground. If I have the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of power, it lifts me above the flesh.

474 But all this is not natural gentleness. He says, "Above all these things charity, which is the bond of perfectness" - the real love of God, that perfects a thing, and makes it divine; and not merely a gentle nature that we see constantly with no power to resist, no firmness of character, one who cannot say "no." There are plenty of people to whom it is torture to say "no," and where it would be grieving the Spirit not to say "no"; that is human kindness, not divine love. This bond of perfectness is a holy thing. Gentleness is very sweet to see, but it will not stand good in a world of temptation. If it is the grace of Christ, and I have divine love and power, I do go through it; for it is divine godly love and obedience.

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" - with the spirit of peace, the Holy Ghost not grieved, peace is enjoyed with God in a conscience not injured. Then he adds, "Be ye thankful," for I get everything from God. I cannot be thankful for everything if my will is not broken; but the moment I look to God as counting the hairs of my head, I glory in tribulation, and count it all joy, every trial and exercise. There is the Christian's place - the place of Christ ruling in his heart, walking in peace through the world, thankful for everything he gets; it is for his good. Now he is to enjoy the things of his own world. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." That is the positive world into which you are brought - "The unsearchable riches of Christ." It is not head knowledge, but spiritual things - "Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." We know God's ways and thoughts in the wonderful word we have, and we have the mind of Christ. The men of the world sing in their enjoyment: you sing together to the Lord. Now the Christian is enjoying his own world with his heart's affections. We get the rule for his conduct. It is very simple, very sweeping, and uncommonly satisfactory to the heart that really desires to do the will of God. "Whatsoever ye do, whether in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." If we look at that "Whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus," it is bringing all the principle and motive for our conduct from the revelation of a Person who is everything to us, not forbidding things. We know in how many things during the week the question arises, Shall I do this or that? Not as to absolutely wrong things; but a person says, What is the harm of that? Are you going to do it in the name of the Lord? No! Then you are getting away from the Lord, and that is the harm - a great harm for the Christian. In taking a house, or buying a dress, in the way I manage my house, is it "in the name of the Lord Jesus"? What can we say? It is leaving the Lord out (not leaving Him altogether), and letting self in. That is what the will of the flesh is.

p310 Mons. Pignet, The common notion is that brotherly love is charity, and indeed its most perfect form: this is a mistake, as this passage (2 Peter 1:7) shews. That brotherly love is a most sweet and precious fruit of grace, is most true - precious in the heart that is filled with it, and precious in its mutual development; but it is not charity. We are told to add to brotherly love charity. The reason is simple: if brotherly love, brethren are the object, and though when genuine and pure it surely flows from grace, it easily in us clothes itself with the character which its object gives it, and tends to limit itself to the objects with which it is occupied, and be governed by its feeling towards them. It is apt to end in its objects, and thus avoid all that might be painful to them, or mar the mutual feeling and pleasantness of intercourse, and thus make them the measure of the conduct of the Christian. In a word, where brotherly love ends in itself, as the main object, brethren become the motive and governing principle of our conduct; and our conduct as uncertain as the state of our brethren with whom we may be in contact. Hence the apostle says, "Above all these put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness"; and another apostle, "And to brotherly kindness charity." Now charity is love; but will not this seek to exercise brotherly kindness? Undoubtedly it will, but it brings in God. "God is love." "He that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him." Hence it brings in a standard of what true love is, which mere brotherly kindness in itself never can. It is the bond of perfectness, for God, and God in active love is its measure. Brotherly kindness by itself has the brother for the object: charity is governed by, exists in virtue of the conscious presence of God; hence whatever is not consistent with His presence, with Himself, with His glory, cannot be borne by the heart who is filled with it. It is in the spirit of love that it thinks and works, but in the Spirit of God, by whose presence it is inwardly known and active. Love was active in Christ when He said, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers"; in Paul when he said, I would that they were even cut off which trouble you."

The joy of the Lord is our strength. For mortification, we want power; and our power is found in that which lifts us out of the whole scene to which evil attaches. Christ, therefore, is now to give character to every part of our behaviour. As the elect of God, those who owe everything to His will, His choice as those set apart to Him, and those upon whom He has set His love, we are to put on the things which properly accompany this: "bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another." It is striking how, in all these, there is found some form of self-denial. Power is shown by competence for stooping; God turning also the very things that are against us into the means of educating us in this. Things evil in themselves may, nevertheless, furnish us with a wholesome discipline for the way and enable us, in answer, to bring forth fruit which is according to God. We are to forbear as God has forborne. We are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us; to all which is to be added love, as that which is the "bond of perfectness," which keeps everything in its place and perfects every detail of life. Think how the world, even, has to put on the appearance of love, the more if it has not the reality; but love itself has no need to put on an appearance. It will manifest itself in harmony in every tone and gesture. The manifestation of the divine nature has a unity in it which makes everything to be in harmony. If there is love in the heart, the words will not be hard or unseemly; their very tone will be affected.

“And above all these things put on charity (love), which is the bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:14). Love is the feature that binds all together. The writer, having considered those beautiful features of Christ in verses 12 and 13 which we are to put on, concludes that love is over all. The verse previously alluded to in Deuteronomy 30:6 connected the circumcised heart with whole-hearted love to God. With ourselves today our love to one another will be according to our love to God. The flesh has no part in this. If love binds together, the activity of the flesh does the opposite: it will bring in difficulties but love removes them.

Verse 14. Nothing is perfect in our behaviour towards others without love, divine love, brotherly love, etc. You must bring God in, God is love. That is why love is the bond of perfectness. Surely, when the first thought of our heart is formed in God, it is perfection.