Love Superabounding In All Sensibility
by
Donald G. Hayter
Love, in the saint, is focused and centered in God. Its overflow will reach out to others. We are inclined to be more concerned for our love for our fellows than for our love for God, but our ambition should be to love Him with our whole heart, soul and comprehension. Then the love of 1 Corinthians 13 will be seen in operation in our lives.
Paul's prayer for the Philippians was that their love should be superabounding still more and more. He knew that they had love, for God had undertaken a work among them, and this he was convinced would be continuing until the day of their assembly with Christ. But he wished their love to extend itself more and more as the days progressed. He saw its greatest display in their realization of God and His truth and in their sensitivity to all with which they came into contact.
Now realization is the result of the operation of the spirit and the mind, while sensibility is in the sphere of the soul. This latter is in a small family of words with the element -aisth- in each. The family is made up of three words each of which occurs only once in the Greek scriptures: aistheomai, SENSE, be sensible of; aisthesis, SENSing, sensibility; and aistheterion, SENSE-KEEPer, faculty.
In Luke 9:45 the word SENSE is used as follows, "Yet they were ignorant of this declaration, and it was screened from them that they should not be sensing it..." The circumstances attending these words were as follows: A man had appealed to the Lord to heal his son who had been cruelly used by demons, which convulsed him, bruising and tearing him. His disciples had been unable to help the youth, but the Lord, while the son was being violently convulsed, healed the boy, rebuking the unclean spirit. The throng who saw it were astonished at the miracle and marveled at what Jesus had done. The Lord drew the disciples' attention to what the people were saying in their astonishment, and told them to pay heed to what was being said because the Son of Mankind was about to be given up into the hands of men. But the disciples were ignorant of this declaration of the Lord's, that is they did not understand what He was saying. The significance of what the Lord was saying was hidden from them so that they could not sense the fear-fulness of the prospect lying before Him. Their mind was not moved by what He said, for its meaning was unknown to them, and their soul was not stirred, because the sense of what was said was screened from them. They were insensitive to what was involved in the Lord's being given up into the hands of men.
Turning now to Philippians 1:9 can we now understand what is meant in the love of the Philippians superabounding still more and more in realization and all sensibility? Realization is an extension of knowledge, and sensibility adds feeling to it. Knowledge by itself can be a cold lifeless thing. Realization clothes the bones of knowledge with flesh, giving it substance and reality. Sensibility brings the feelings and the soul into our overall grasp of truth. A musician can be technically expert but lack sensitivity in his interpretation of the music. A painter can present an accurate portrait, but if it is done with sensitivity his work will have greater artistic worth. Truth can be believed and even realized but lack something in its impression on our spirits if our sensitivities are not involved. Thus we may believe that God is the Saviour, justifier and Reconciler of all mankind, and realize something of the marvel of grace and power and wisdom involved in this work of God, yet our sensibilities may be left unmoved. All truth should involve our feelings. The marvel of God working for the good of all should move our hearts. Truth is not only the accumulation of facts to amaze the mind, it is the musical score that sets the heart strings vibrating and that moves our every sensibility till we overflow in praise and worship.