What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. - Ephesians 5:1-2 (KJV)
How do we talk about love without talking about sin? If the greatest demonstration of love that the world has ever been privileged to observe, hear about, and know, was demonstrated in His addressing sin, then how is it that we rest content on a lesser kind of love than God’s best. Said another way, God offers this great demonstration of love (Gk. agápē) for us, and yet we choose a lesser demonstration (even a carnal demonstration) in hopes of not offending and preferring the appeasement of one another. You see God’s way of loving makes us look bad, it causes us to feel ashamed, and truth be told we do not like to be told that we are wrong. We want whatever we think will make us feel better about ourselves, and God’s truth just doesn’t do that, it reveals the worst in us to us. Take a look at this dialogue below:
God says: I sent my Son to die for you because you were in need. We respond: How is it that I was in need? God says: You have been enslaved by your own sins and Satan has you bound. We respond: Just stop! You’re lying. I’m a free thinker, and I have the freedom to choose what I do and don’t do. God’s response: Well you have chosen to live in sin. We respond: Says who?
The dialogue seems to give the impression that we’d rather be in denial/deceived concerning the truth of God’s word than to have to question ourselves. Is God not a credible source? No one told Him to sacrifice His Son, perhaps if we had then we could most appropriately show appreciation, gratitude, respect, or equally important respond in obedience? The scripture reference above says that we are loved and it tells us how we have been loved. It is one thing to say I love you, but it is a whole other thing when you can back it up. It says that we are to love in the way that Christ has loved us. Christ was the sacrificial offering for us. God’s priests in the Old Testament would bring the animal and harvest offerings of the people before the Lord in service to God, however, in the New Testament, our Great High Priest Jesus brought Himself. He is the sacrificial offering laid on the altar for our sin, to appease the wrath of Almighty God against sinful humanity whom God loved. That being said, if you carefully read, we can see that God is not proactively loving the sinner and hating the sin, but rather in demonstration He has loved the sinner, and in a demonstration, He has hated the sin (See Rom. 5:8). So now what are we doing with that cliche if we are not preaching the gospel?
Here, the text is talking about the love of God, that Jesus himself was given specifically for us, and not to us. Though He served, we have to be careful to not think of Jesus as our subject/servant. To think that He in His incarnate state was given to us, our Christian walk and life begin to look a lot like the self-driven, self-focused world around us. How can we be in the passionate pursuit of Jesus if our Christian walk and relationship with Christ is as if we were His master expecting Him to move by our will? No. We were sinners, saved by the grace of God the Father. We were made saints, and though we are to see ourselves as servants of God, and operate as such, our Lord has called us friends. He was the only sufficient sacrificial offering for our sins. And now that we have come to faith in Him, He is our Savior and Lord. He is not coming alongside us to help us deal with sin in our lives [Note: I am not talking about the person of the Holy Spirit here]. Jesus has already dealt with sin in our lives, He is not the helpmeet in this relationship, but He is the bridegroom-King, and He came to die for us, in place of us, that we would be cleansed, regenerated, justified, and sanctified. Now the fact that He has not come to us to help us deal with, coop with, or work through sin in our lives; but rather came for us to abolish sin in our lives by way of the cross, says that we should not still be indulging. He has proved His love in sacrificing Himself for our sins, and therefore if we are still indulging in sin we are questioning that love and are in doubt and disbelief concerning the demonstration of God. How is it that His demonstration can be seen as His love toward us, especially seeing as there is no one in whom I have died for and yet I profess to love many? The sacrificing of His Son for sinful humanity is a demonstration of His love because sin has both present and eternal consequences. There are even natural and spiritual effects that sin can have on human life. If we only knew how severe the judgment of a holy God can be upon the unbelieving, we would more easily be able to recognize such phenomenal love. Once again, he has proven His love, however, the verdict is still out on ours, as He has qualified our love in this statement, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn. 14:15). Let God be True & Question You!
