This is How Love Wins

Christians must be able to account for why they disagree with the recent legalization of homosexual unions and many other sinful behaviors celebrated by our culture. If we cannot Biblically justify our values than we will not only lose this cultural battle in the political arena but also within our church walls. So, how can we claim to love our homosexual friends and family but disagree with their behavior and the legalization of homosexual marriages?  

According to 1 John 4:8, God is Love Himself, and like all His attributes, His love is a holy and undefiled Love. God’s Love is revealed in the offer of forgiveness through the Gospel AND through the Law that reflects His loving, holy will for His creation. Law and love go hand in hand.

In Matthew 5:48, Jesus calls all Christians to be like God. Also, the first commandment is to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul. To love God is to love what is right and good as God reveals it in his Law. If we love Him we long to keep His commandments (John 14:15,21,23) and we seek to wisely build our life on the foundation of His Word (Matthew 7:21).  

We abide in His love by keeping His commandments (John 15:9f). To say that we love and know Him and yet persist in our sin makes one a liar (1 John 2:4). “For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments.” (1 John 5:2)  

You cannot divorce love from law, thus fornication, adultery, sodomy, incest, etc is not love, rather it’s opposite. Man’s lawless desires are not love. The law of God is THE guide of love.  

If we love our neighbors we live lawful lives and leave his property, life and wife alone. Our own fallible and selfish sense of love isn’t the standard, our Holy God is. Love is not an outlaw. “This is love, that we should walk according to His commandments.” (2 John 6) Christian love establishes godly morality and brings forth good fruit and blessing. God’s prior saving grace brings about a loving, lawful life.  

But some argue that Christians are only hypocrites. The critics often say things like: “God calls homosexuality a sin, but also the Old Testament teaches that you cannot eat shellfish! You guys are only picking the ones that you want to follow.”  

There is a huge misconception that Christ came to abolish any obligation we have to follow God’s law, denying the law is God’s moral guide to our daily life. While no one can be saved apart from Christ’s obedience to the law for the sake of his people, the law has no effect outside of salvation.  

This becomes very problematic. For example, why did Jesus teach us to pray, “Thy will be done?” He assumed we knew what His will looked like according to the Scriptures. Why did he say, “I did not come to destroy the law?” Why did Jesus invoke the law’s command to love God and neighbor as our duty (Dt. 6:2,5,6,17; Lev. 29:15,18)?  

Love fulfills the law, it does not replace it or break it. Why does Jesus command us to make disciples of all nations and teach them to observe all the commandments? Jesus affirmed the law by teaching it as the standard (Mark 7:6-13) and rebuked those who justified violating it. Jesus quoted and assumed the law as authoritative and used it to vindicate His actions and commanded his followers to follow it.  

So why the antipathy to God’s Word? We rightly reject human traditions that make null the Word of God, but we ought to love, delight and rejoice in God’s law of liberty. We renounce sin and lawlessness, not so we can be saved by our own righteousness, but because we have been saved by Christ and His righteousness, who then calls us to follow Him in the paths of righteousness! The Christian rejoices in doing God’s will. We know His commandments are a light to our path and brings blessings upon us. Sin is lawlessness and it grieves Christ and His people.