Living with the Lord is not a matter of coercion. Living with the Lord is according to the same principle as that of marriage life, which is not based upon coercion but upon love. It is truly painful for two people to live together without the sweetness of love and without being maintained in love. The Bible also likens our living with the Lord to the living of a husband and wife in love. Our Beloved is the Lord Jesus whom we love, and we are His lovers. We are bound together with Him by the sweetness of love. Of the sixty-six books of the Bible, one book—Song of Songs—speaks exclusively about the loving relationship between the Beloved and His lovers. From beginning to end, Song of Songs talks about our living a life of love and mutual attraction with the Lord.
In John 14:23 the Lord says, “If anyone loves Me.” All religions, including Christianity, stress respect toward God and fear of God. They state that God is fearful, so man should fear Him. Some religions also speak of worshipping God. These religions assert that since God is great and exalted, man must worship Him. Religion teaches primarily these two things—fearing and worshipping God. The words spoken by the Lord Jesus, however, do not stress fear, worship, or even adoration. Adoration is something that someone who is inferior has for someone who is superior. Instead of stressing these things, the Lord Jesus spoke of love. Love is something that is shared by two people who have an equal standing and are on the same level. The love between a husband and a wife is a love between equals. In such a relationship it cannot be that one is higher and the other is lower, one is superior and the other is inferior. The Lord Jesus did not say, “If anyone adores Me,” He did not say, “If anyone worships Me,” and He did not say, “If anyone fears Me.” Fear, worship, and adoration are all, more or less, related to religion. Our Lord is not a religion or merely an object of worship. He is a living Person.
Our Lord is the ever-living God and the almighty Sovereign of the universe. It is true that He is God, but this God also became flesh, put on humanity, and took on our nature. As a man He died and resurrected, and today He still has His humanity, a resurrected humanity, and He is still Jesus, the Son of Man. Therefore, 1 Timothy 2:5b says, “The man Christ Jesus.” Today our God—the Lord of the universe and our Savior—is still a man. Even though He became the life-giving Spirit, He still has the human nature. Thus, He can speak to us about love, something that is shared between those of equal rank. He says, “If anyone loves Me.” When we come to this section of the Bible, we may not treasure the word love. We have to realize that the love spoken of here is something more that adoration, fear, or worship. This love is something shared by two who are on the same level. We are human, and He also is human. We have the human nature, and He also has put on the human nature. He has come to our level. He is not standing above us. He is standing in front of us, on our level, saying to us, “If anyone loves Me.”
After the Lord rose from the dead, He immediately went to find Peter, the one who had denied Him to His face. On the night that the Lord Jesus was betrayed, Peter was full of confidence that he would follow the Lord. However, when the test came, Peter denied the Lord three times right to His face (Luke 22:55-61). Shortly after this, the Lord Jesus was crucified and then resurrected. After the Lord had resurrected, an angel told Mary the Magdalene and two other sisters to “go, tell His disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). Peter forsook the Lord, but the Lord did not forget Peter. I believe that after Peter denied the Lord, he regretted to the uttermost that he had done so, saying to himself, “How could I have denied the Lord three times?” However, at the very juncture when Peter must have been feeling this way, Mary came and said, “Peter, the Lord wants me to tell something to the brothers and to you!”
In John 21 the Lord manifested Himself to the disciples. While He was manifesting Himself to them, He found time to speak to Peter face to face. He questioned Peter three times, asking him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” (vv. 15-17). I believe that the Lord asked Peter this question three times because Peter had denied the Lord three times. The Lord seemed to be saying, “You denied Me three times, saying, ‘No! No! No!’ Now let Me ask you also three times, ‘Do you? Do you? Do you?’” First the Lord asked Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” Then he asked him, “Do you love Me?” And the third time He asked him again, “Do you love Me?” Peter found it difficult to answer these questions. Just a few days earlier he had denied the Lord, so how could he now say, “Yes, Lord, I really love You”? At the same time, he could not say, “Lord, I do not love You.” Peter was probably thinking, “If I say that I do not love the Lord, I will be lying. I do love Him, but my love for Him is so poor. What is my real situation? Only the Lord knows whether or not I truly love Him!” Therefore, Peter answered the Lord, “Lord, You know that I love You.”