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I. THE PECULIAR CHARACTER OF TRUE CHRISTIANS.

1. They love Christ.

(1) They love Himself —

(a)  As a Divine person, glorious in moral perfection and loveliness.

(b)  As the incarnate Divinity, the image, of Him whom we should "love with all the heart, and soul, and strength."

(c)  As the God-man Mediator, the Only-begotten of Him whose name and nature is love.

(d)  As the man, Christ Jesus, possessed of every quality which can command esteem and excite love.

(2) This love extends to everything in the Saviour — His holiness, as well as His grace; His laws, as well as His promises; the yoke He lays on them, as well as the crown He is to confer; His house, His word, His day, His people, His cause.

(3) This love leads them to seek intercourse with Him; they cannot be happy away from Him.

(4) This love is common to all the saints. They have not all the same measure of it — that depends on the measure of their knowledge and faith and capacity of affection; but they have all the same kind of love.

(5) And as this love is common to all the saints, so it is peculiar to them. To the unbelieving world "He has no form nor comeliness," etc.

2. They have His commandments, words, sayings. These are not to be confined to what was preceptive in our Lord's teaching; they include all His communications.

(1) To "have" is something more than to possess the Bible, or even to have a general knowledge of its contents. It is to have it in the mind and the heart.

(2) They who receive our Lord's words cannot but love Him, for they, in the degree in which they receive them, know and believe Him to be the proper object of supreme affection.

3. They keep His commandments. As it is by having the words of Christ that men come to love Him, so it is by keeping His words that they manifest and prove their love to Him. They must be kept —

(1) As He gives us them. We must not detract from them, nor add to them, nor modify them (Deuteronomy 4:2).

(2) In the mind. There are men who find it disquieting to them, and seek to get rid of it as soon as possible. There are others who, ceasing to give it any attention, suffer it to "slip out of their mind." And there are others who permit, who invite, "the wicked one to come and take away what was sown in their hearts." But the lover of Christ "lets the word of Christ dwell" in his heart, and often reviews it as his most precious treasure.

(3) By our having no other opinions on the subjects to which they refer than those unfolded in them, and by fashioning the whole system of our sentiments and judgments with a reference to them.

(a)  The promises are to be kept by firmly believing them in the most trying circumstances.

(b)  The warnings are to be kept by keeping at a distance from their subjects, and by cherishing a habitual holy fear of sin.

(c)  His commandments, with regard to tempers and dispositions, are to be kept by "keeping our hearts with all diligence."

(d)  Those with regard to our general conduct are to be kept by our not following "the course of this world," but walking according to the will of God.

(e)  Those with regard to institutions are to be kept by 'observing all things whatsoever He has commanded.

II. THEIR PECULIAR PRIVILEGES.

1. They are loved of the Father and the Son.

(1) As elected in sovereign love to eternal life.

(2) As actually united to Christ by believing.

(3) As transformed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

2. This love is discovered in the Son's manifesting Himself to them, and in the Father and the Son coming to them, and making their abode with them.

III. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TWO.

1. He only who possesses the character can enjoy the privilege.

2. He who possesses the character must enjoy the privilege.

3. The measure in which the character is possessed is the measure in which the privilege is enjoyed. The more a man loves Christ, the more must both God and Christ love him.

(J. Brown, D. D.)

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KJV: He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

WEB: One who has my commandments, and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him."