Salesian Literature

Chapter 8  :  St. Paul – wonderful advocate for the ecstatic, supernatural life

​

It is St. Paul, in my opinion, who makes out the strongest, most cogent and brilliant case ever formulated for stimulating every single one of us to the ecstasy, the rapture of life, of activity.  Just listen to him, Theotimus; take in what he says; weigh the force and efficacy of burning heavenly words from an apostle utterly enraptured in a transport of love for his Master.

 

Referring, then, to himself (though what he says applies to each of us), he exclaims: With us, Christ’s love is a compelling motive (2 Cor. 5:14).  Yes, Indeed; the human heart knows no motive more compelling than love.  Once a man is aware that someone loves him – no matter who the lover is – he is impelled to love in return.  But if he were a common man loved by some noble lord, he would feel even greater compulsion; and if he were loved a majestic monarch, surely it would be greater still.

 

Let me put it to you in terms of ourselves: aware as we are that Jesus Christ, truly God, eternal and almighty, has loved us to the point of choosing to suffer for us, a suffering which brought him to death, death on a cross (Phil. 2:8) – what is this, but to know compulsion of heart, to feel irresistibly impelled to show our love for him by a compelling passion that is every bit as intense as it is delightful and welcome.

 

With us, Christ's love is a compelling motive, and this is the conviction we have reached.  St. Paul is explaining how the divine lover compels our hearts; his phrase, this is the conviction we have reached, simply means that the Saviour’s love is a compelling motive chiefly when we think, reflect, ponder, meditate, intent upon the solution faith provides.

 

What the solution is, the apostle goes on to indicate.  Notice how solemnly he proceeds to drive his point home: And this is the conviction we have reached, he says, the conviction that if one man died on behalf of all, then all thereby became dead men; Christ died for us all.  True enough: if Christ died for us all, then we all thereby became dead men in the person of the only-begotten Saviour, who died for all; his death must be laid at our doors, since he underwent it on our account.

 

Now comes the conclusion to which St. Paul is leading.  I can almost hear him thundering in our ears: “There you have it, good Christian folk! – what Jesus Christ wanted from us when he died for us.  He wanted us to take on his likeness, so that being alive should no longer mean living with our own life, but with his life who died for us and has risen again” (2 Cor. 5:14,15).

 

God knows the influence of this conclusion, where love is concerned!  Christ died for us all; by his death he gave us life; we are only alive because he died; he died for our sakes, as one of us, in our nature, so that our lives are no longer our own – they are his, who won them for us by his death.  No longer are we to be alive to self, but to him; no longer live in our own nature, but in his; no longer living for our own sakes, but for his.

​

Back to Top

​