Love is the expression of the spirit’s power

Now, in noting Paul’s utter dependence on God’s provision—both in terms of his providential interaction and the sending of the Holy Spirit into his people’s lives—Paul then comes back again to this emphasis on love in the midst of the Christian community and the Christian people. Previously, he had highlighted faith and love together—which is very common in all of his letters. You see that in 1 Thessalonians 3:6 here. He mentions love specifically, but undoubtedly he sees love as the fruit that demonstrates the work of the Spirit.

Now, one way for us to see the significance of Christian love is to watch believers who are involved in the foster care of children. D. A. Carson writes about Christian friends who took in twin eighteen-month-old boys who were going to stay, they thought, for just a few weeks until they could be placed in a more permanent setting. But the first night, the little boys were crying in their cribs, and the Christian couple realized that while it was expected that they would cry, what was strange was that they ... and it turned out that in one of their previous nine foster homes in the eighteen months of their lives, they had been savagely beaten every time they cried out at night. And so an expert was brought out to evaluate the twins, and the expert concluded that they were hopelessly damaged—emotionally and intellectually. Well, given that assessment, the Christian couple decided they would keep the boys until a good Christian adoptive family could be secured. And it took two years. Two years later, another expert came and evaluated the boys and could find no evidence of emotional damage at all. Now, what had happened? What had cured these little children’s hearts? Well, the answer was love—through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, without doubt—but tender, careful Christian love had literally worked wonders.

Well, no wonder, with examples like that, that Paul says what we will see as the finest and fullest expression of your salvation is the love of God working through you. Love literally works miracles. Now, that is true not merely for emotionally scarred children, but for all of us. As we are crippled and twisted by sin—our own sins and others’—what a wonder love will work in any of our lives. And of course, primarily we think of the love of God. He takes us as spiritually broken infants into his family. As Paul puts it in Ephesians, as we comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love on the cross—as we come to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, we will be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18–19).¹

Richard D. Phillips