Let love be genuine [by] abhorring what is evil; [by] holding fast to what is good.
Romans 12:9
Full disclosure up front. I have adjusted the above verse from ESV to translate the participles following the [by] as two means of genuine love. ESV reads: “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” I wanted to translate to show a stronger connection between the three clauses than is translated in the ESV.
Paul has rounded the final corner of his magnum opus to the church in Rome at the beginning of Ch. 12 when he appeals to the readers to present themselves to God as instruments of righteousness and to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. He then goes on to describe how each member of the body of Christ is given a particular gift from the Spirit to serve the whole.
It’s no wonder then that he pivots from the various gifts (Romans 12:3-8) to the ethic of love in 12:9-21. I understand him to have two groups in view as the objects of the Christian’s love. First, he shows what love looks like to other Christians (12:10-13), and then, in 12:14-21, what love looks like to those outside of the church family. This is a rough structure, but one I find helpful as we consider what genuine love is.
It may be helpful at the outset to further define “sincere” by saying that the root of the Greek is “hypocritical” with an “un” prefix attached. Let love be “un-hypocritical”. This suggests notions of purity, honesty, unity of purpose even as it rejects notions of divided motives, partiality, and conditionality. As believers, we are always striving to conform more and more to this kind of love toward both God and others. We do well to remember it is a life-long process empowered by the Holy Spirit as He uses the Word of God and our relationships to expose our impurities and to transform us into the loving image of Christ Jesus our Lord.
I want to provide three markers that I contend are coherent with and essential to a sincere love. I’m sure we could brainstorm others, but I see these as particularly important in our current cultural climate and for our faithful witnessing.
I. God is love.
It doesn’t take much work to notice that everyone has their subjective definition of love. And then you add the critical mass and momentum achieved by those with similar subjective definitions uniting together for larger communal purposes. We see this with our current political binary. We see this with the social movements sweeping across the nation.
So it makes some sort of sense why people can become so impassioned (angry!) when their mindset is questioned. It makes sense why those on the other side are the bigots, hate-mongers, etc. Because they hold the definition of love near and dear to their hearts, and any opposition is interpreted as hate.
But God is love. None of us get to subjectively define what love is. God is love. And when as Christians we reflect on this, we remember that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were enemies of God, strangers, alienated, rebellious, stubbornly refusing His authority and swearing off his love. And yet, God, in love, pursued us in spite of us all the way to being hung on a cross, bearing our sins and just punishment, and rising in victory. He then gifts us the right to become part of his family by faith even though we don’t deserve the scraps that fall from his benevolent table.
God is longsuffering toward evil, yet won’t leave guilty people unpunished. His heart is that all would reach repentance. His mercy is over all that He has made. He causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And the lavish riches of his kindness toward us in Jesus illustrate and empower us to express that kind of sincere love to others.
Do I love like that?
II. Sincere love is impartial.
Because the Spirit through Paul commands a sincere love and then mentions people both within and outside of the body of Christ, we can suppose an impartiality. We can also find places in Scripture where it is even more explicit. 1 Peter 3:9 says that instead of repaying evil for evil or reviling for reviling, we should bless, because God has called us to bless others regardless of how they treat us. He grounds this in an OT passage speaking of the judgment that falls upon both the instigator and the retaliator. All who do evil come under judgment, so the Christian is to continually be a blessing to others. In other words, the Christian is to love others, ALL others, as him/herself.
A similar claim is found in James 2 where James uses an illustration of a rich person and a poor person both entering a house of worship. One is treated with honor and prestige while the other is treated deplorably. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you which received honor… James condemns this double-minded, partial attitude for the hypocrisy it is. More than that, he exposes how offensive this behavior is to God, who deals impartially and gives generously to all. And he calls for a rejection of partiality for an hospitable, unbiased love for all.
It no doubt requires a great deal of wisdom to know what it means and looks like to love our enemies. It is often a vexing command under the best of circumstances. Nonetheless, it is the clear and obvious command of God, and we must repent of our stubbornness and press in to honor God and love others consistently regardless of our opinion of or experience with them.
What if we stepped down from our political turret guns or left our stomp-out-fake-news rallies long enough to move toward other people? Is it more loving to bang the gong of truth while defaming others? Or to quietly go about our lives seeking to understand those of a different perspective well enough to honestly and sincerely love them by offering a more God-fearing perspective? We won’t accomplish this by remaining in echo chambers or conversing only with those who reinforce our already strongly held worldviews. We’ll only take ground by esteeming the Imago Dei stamped upon all people and moving toward our neighbors in sincere love.
I don’t think it is a stretch to say that we have work to do to abhor what is evil and to hold fast to what is good. Paul says that sincere love is the expectation, and if we aren’t able to express love in all circumstances, we’re practicing evil rather than abhorring it. We don’t need to dilute truth to express it in a kind manner. We don’t need to concede our convictions to uphold the right of others to disagree with us.
Do I love like that?
III. Sincere love is unconditional.
When we embrace the call to love others without hypocrisy, like God loves, we commit to an unconditional covenant to each of our neighbors. Jesus’s answer to Peter’s question, “how many times must I forgive my brother?” is telling. He gives a multiplication math problem that requires more than an abacus to answer, not to test Peter’s arithmetic aptitude, but to expose the heart. I’d guess by now that I’ve exceeded the “77 times 7” number of wrongs toward my wife. Fortunately for me, her record-keeping isn’t up-to-date, so she just has to keep forgiving me until she can prove I’ve wronged her too many times to expect an ounce more forgiveness. Sincere love doesn’t place limits upon another person. The form it takes may change if we are suffering harm or have been wronged to a certain degree that requires altering the relationship. But love isn’t revoked by Christians. That’s hypocrisy.
This is rooted in our confidence that in spite of our ongoing rebellious hearts, God won’t abandon us. He won’t expel us. He won’t suddenly reject us, because Christ has secured our eternal salvation by taking all of our blame. We are now the righteousness of God in Him.
We know of course that not everyone will receive our attitudes and actions as those of love, but that’s not the point of what I’m saying, nor the point of Romans 12:9. We are examining our heart’s compass, our motivation for the treatment of others. We want to possess and express sincere love toward all people. So we must not place conditions upon it.
This means we need to discard all the “yeah, but’s” and replace them with “what does it look like to love so-and-so?” Taking exception to the command to have a sincere love means that there is a higher priority ruling in your heart. Any priority higher than the Great Commandment is idolatry.
The conversation needs to shift from one of owning our enemies and defending our allies to one that wrestles with what it looks like to extend love to all people regardless of how wrong they may be or how atrocious their treatment of us may be. That kind of conversation would be fascinating, wouldn’t it? We’d still likely not find total agreement regarding how love should be expressed. But at least we’d be in the right arena fighting the right fight. That’s a vast improvement for many of us.
I want to love like that.
What about you?
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