"O ye Corinthians, our mouth has been opened unto you, our heart has been made large." [2 Cor 6:11]
God tells us in Corinthians, regarding love, that it “seeketh not her own;” [1 Cor 13:5] that is, one mark of God’s true and eternal love, which type of love only finds its source in Him – for “God is love” [1 Jn 4:8] – is that it is not seeking that which concerns itself. Primarily, God’s love seeks out the benefit, the status, of others. By its very nature, and thus by God’s very nature, it seeks others before itself. Paul, speaking to the Philippian believers, says, “for I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” [Phil 2:20-21] Notice that here we are shown implicitly that “the things which are Jesus Christ’s” include “naturally” caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual “state” of others. Earlier in the same chapter of this epistle, Paul exhorts,
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be clung to: but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” [Phil 2:5-8]
In the best example ever to be recorded or experienced, Christ Jesus God’s Son, being equal with God in perfect union and coexistence, (as John says, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [Jn 1:1]), did not cling to that position in heaven, but rather emptied Himself for our sakes that He might come to earth and die upon the cross for our sins. And Jesus did not do this with grandeur or with parade, but in lowliness and meekness, as God prophesied in Zechariah, “behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” [Zech 9:9] And moreover, He did not give up all that glory in heaven and take upon Himself a lowly body with grumbling; no, but Jesus came and endured upon earth with joy, as we are told, “for the joy being set before Him, [He] endured the cross.” [Heb 12:2]
Truly, Jesus’ example is stunning. His love is beyond compare; there is hardly a ruler upon earth who would willingly submit Himself to such a degree of humiliation, but Jesus willingly and gladly did it for our sakes. As it is written, so too let us exult in agreement, “who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!” [Psa 113:5-6]
We are thus reminded through these verses that Christ gave up all for us. He humbled Himself greatly, not seeking His own, in love’s true fashion. Let us contrast this to the Pharisees. Jesus says of them, one of the first of many other rebukes,
“But all their works they do for to be seen of men; they make their phylacteries large, and enlarge the borders of their garments.” [Mt 23:5]
Jesus boldly reveals to the many people gathered in the temple the stark truth of the Pharisees’ motivation: everything they did was not for God, nor for the benefit of others, but it was solely that they might be seen of men and receive honor, praise, and glory from them. And according as Jesus said much earlier in His ministry, so it is true with all they do, “verily I say unto you, they are receiving their reward in full,” and thus not in heaven nor from God. [Mt 6:2] Let us take particular note that the Pharisees, “enlarge[d] the borders of their garments.” They made the borders, or the hem of their garments, large. However false it was, they did this to appear more spiritual, more powerful. From Jesus’ words, though, we can see the hypocrisy of their actions. Though they had large borders on their garments, they were not more spiritual, and certainly not more loving. In contrast to these self-involved religious men, we should, as Paul indicates in the verse for today, desire not for larger garments but for larger hearts. We ought to fervently desire a large heart: one that is full of love and compassion. Instead of a larger ministry; larger church; more influence, visibility, or reach; or whatever else may be contrived in order to deem oneself “spiritual,” we ought to desire and seek after a larger heart: one capable of receiving and bestowing more love and tender mercy upon others. This is the heart which Christ has. Paul prays for the Ephesians, saying,
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which is surpassing knowledge, so that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." [Eph 3:17-19]
We see here the deep, endless, boundless, love of Jesus Christ. It should also be our desire, as Paul desired for the church at Ephesus, to know this love and to also imitate it in our lives. In fact, we must imitate it; or rather, more technically and correctly, we must receive this love from God, the only source of it, and as pure and free-flowing vessels, allow that love to pour out of us onto others. We are reminded of the vital importance of love in another of Paul’s epistles when He said,
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” [1 Cor 13:1-2]
The Pharisees certainly had knowledge, being very well-versed in scripture; but they were not loving. They were hypocritical and void of any real life. Jesus said to them, “woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” [Mt 23:27] Though they had all the outward flash of a righteous and powerful man, they had nothing of power within. Utterly destitute of God’s transforming love, they were just as life giving as a grave with a rotting corpse inside.
But Christ was far unlike the Pharisees: He was love incarnate, the very essence and power and practice of love. Jesus Christ was love and still is love today. And so when we, as Paul implicitly admonished, obtain large hearts, we should see a more abounding love. We see in Isaiah a description of the border/hem of Christ’s garment in heaven, as He rules over all things. Isaiah writes, “in the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the flowing skirt/hem of His garment filled the temple.” [Isa 6:1] We see here a glorious picture and contrast: the hem of Jesus’ garment is not for show. It is not merely outward, as the Pharisees; no, but the breadth and size of His garment is extraordinarily appropriate, for Jesus’ love knows no bound or limit even as that heavenly realm beyond our physical universe. What comfort we may draw from this truth when we realize the vast infinity which is Jesus’ love; and further, that it is accessible to us. For remember that in the spirit we have been raised up together with Jesus, having been given new life, and God has “made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus;” and so we, like the “four and twenty elders,” are seated “round about the throne [of God],” round about Christ. [Eph 2:6, Rev 4:4] Since then the hem of His garment fills the heavenly temple, and we are by God’s own Word seated there, see then and take courage, for Jesus’ hem is never out of reach. His love is never further than arm’s length, and His power is always present and available for us to lay hold of for ourselves and also so that we might bless others by reason of it. May our garments as it were be like Christ’s. May they not be for show, but for tangible application. May our hearts be made large; may our compassion and love for others be as Jesus’ is for us; yes, again, may our hearts be made large, and may we no longer focus on the outward appearances, which are temporary, but the inner, which are eternal.
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