He that loveth father or mother more than Me.
The Saviour’s claims on our supreme affections
There are three sources from which love, considered as a sentiment, originates in the heart:-
1. The love of sympathy.
2. The love of gratitude.
3. The love of moral esteem.
In all these respects Christ is entitled to supreme affection. Is love valued in proportion as it is disinterested? Compared with Christ’s love man’s is selfishness. Or does the greatness of sacrifice testify to the greatness of love? On this ground Christ claims our supreme love, as no human being has sacrificed so much for us as He, no earthly benefactor so great as He. (H. White, M. A.)
Christ worthy of our highest esteem
Our Saviour puts Himself and the world together as competitors for our best affections, challenging a transcendent affection on our part, because of a transcendent worthiness on His. By “father or mother “ are to be understood whatever enjoyments are dear to us; and from the expression, “he is not worthy of Me,” the doctrine of merit must not be asserted.
I. What is included and comprehended in that love to Christ here mentioned?
1. An esteem and valuation of Christ above all worldly enjoyments.
2. A choosing Him before all other enjoyments.
3. Service and obedience to Him.
4. Acting for Him in opposition to all other things.
5. It imparts a full acquiescence in Him alone, even in the absence and want of all other felicities.
II. The reason and motives which may induce us to this love.
1. He is the best able to reward our love.
2. He has shown the greatest love to us.
III. The signs and characters whereby we may discern his love.
1. A frequent and, indeed, continual thinking of Him.
2. A willingness to leave the world, whenever God shall think fit, by death, to summon us to nearer converse with Christ.
3. A zeal for His honour, and impatience to hear or see any indignity offered Him. (R. South, D. D.)
No divided devotion
1. The audacity of the claim-seemingly opposed to natural affection.
2. Its naturalness on the lips of Christ-all of a piece with His other words and deeds.
3. Either, then, Jesus is God and deserves all He claims, or else an impostor and blasphemer.
4. The dilemma we must either crucify Him or acknowledge His pretensions. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)
Christ more than the nearest relatives
A striking illustration of the love to Christ, that proves so ardent as to supersede that felt for parent or child, is furnished by the history of Vivia Perpetua, the martyr of Carthage. This lady, who was a matron of high position, young (not being more than twenty-two at her death) beautiful, and with everything to make life desirable and attractive to her, met death with dauntless heroism. We are not told whether her husband was a Pagan or a Christian; but her aged, and still heathen, father, obtaining entrance into her prison, endeavoured by every possible argument to shake her constancy, and, as a last appeal, brought her infant son, and conjured her, by her love for himself and for her child, to abjure Christianity and live. But to all these entreaties Perpetua turned a deaf ear; Christ was dearer to her than either her parent or her son, and she bravely met death by being exposed to an infuriated animal in the arena. She suffered about A.D. 205. Even in these modern days instances might be brought forward, from the annals of missionary labour, of those who from love of Christ are willing to leave dearest earthly friends; but in some instances these close human ties become the great obstacles to the reception of the gospel. Speaking of a school at Chumdicully, Ceylon, the missionary, Mr. Fleming, says (quoted in the Church Missionary Society’s report for 1881-82): “There are secret believers in Christ who are not ready to give up all for Him. One of them has confessed that he would like to follow ‘his sisters, who have come out, but his parents look to him to perform the funeral rites for them when they die, and he shrinks from causing them grief … like the man whom Christ called, but who said, ‘ Suffer me first to go and bury my father.’”
Christian love triumphant over maternal
Leelerc, says D’Aubigne, was led to the place of execution. The executioner prepared the fire, heated the iron which was to sear the flesh of the minister of the gospel, and, approaching him, branded him as a heretic on the forehead. Just then a shriek was uttered-but it came not from the martyr. His mother, a witness of the dreadful sight, wrung with anguish, endured a violent struggle between the enthusiasm of faith and maternal feelings; but her faith overcame, and she exclaimed, in a voice that made the adversaries tremble, “Glory be to Jesus Christ, and His witnesses!” Thus did this French woman of the sixteenth century have respect to the word of the Son of God-“He that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” So daring a courage at such a moment might have seemed to demand instant punishment, but that Christian mother had struck powerless the hearts of priests and soldiers. Their fury was restrained by a mightier arm than theirs. The crowd failing back and making way for her, allowed the mother to regain, with faltering step, her humble dwelling. Monks, and even the town sergeants themselves, gazed on her without moving. “Not one of her enemies,” says Beza, “dared put forth his hand against’ her.”