“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Romans 13:8-10 ESV
The other day I was watching a murder mystery. Detectives were investigating a murder and interviewing everyone close to the victim. As it went, several key people were caught in lies about their whereabouts at the time of the murder. The reason? Everyone was having an affair and trying to cover it up. The point? Sin always complicates things. Sin brings pleasure first, then misery. Love is simplicity. God’s law is love. Any attempt to define love outside of God’s moral character/law is not only contradictory, but demonic.
A good many people define love as simply their emotional/sexual gratification. Insofar as they’re fulfilled on both of these fronts, the thought goes, it’s love. Love, according to the humanistic premise, comes from the heart of man. But passages like this one obliterate that notion by anchoring human love and its expression with fidelity to God. This is the logic: since God is love, we only know it in reference to Him. Love can’t find its source in the human heart. The human heart can only express love if it is itself set upon the love of God and, therefore, reflecting that love back to Him. All love – true love – proceeds from God. No aspect or action of love has any reality outside of the Lord and His perfect moral law. The atheist who complains that they love their children and/or spouse is only begging the question. Why love? Unless God is the source and goal of love, love is nothing but arbitrariness and a kiss on the lips is not morally superior to a punch in the mouth. Practically, yes; in principle, it’s not.
The humanist pretense is that love is never wrong and they use this as cover for sexual sin.
Since the Scripture says that love is antithetical to adultery, that means it’s contrary to anything that attacks the family. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality and any other expression of human sexuality outside of God’s prescription(of sexual fidelity within holy matrimony) is unloving in the same way that giving a diabetic a cookie, or an alcoholic a drink, is. Loving our neighbor only makes sense in the context of God’s law because a love without a standard is a leaf upon the winds of a tempest. The passions of the human heart will burn through good intentions. Sex outside of wedlock destroys families, which in turn destroys lives emotionally and psychologically. God called us in families and, therefore, our understanding and expressions of love – horizontally speaking, that is, person to persons – starts and stays in the home. Vertical love – that is, between us and God – is the act of worship and that’s the structural reality of the church. God is the source of both and we see that the Enemy attacks church and family in every one of his devices.
How do you know the Enemy’s work? His principles degrade and destroy the true church and the Biblical family. Notice how every major government policy now usurps family and church authority and/or isolates individuals. Counterfeit love is always a trespasser on authority.
Both the definition and structure of love is from God. The principle of anarchy (self-law) teaches that each person is the temple of love – both the source and the object of it. But the Scripture says that “for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Romans 11:36)” and it must mean, of course, that love is included in all things. Thus, the impulse to say that love rests in, finds its source, manner of expression, and goal, in the individual alone, is a doctrine of hell. Love is God and God expresses this to us and since we’re finite creatures, limited by time and space, we receive and express that love in structural ways provided only by Him.
Non-Christian cultures don’t honor love as their highest. The Samurai considered power and honor as their highest, for example. Romans, Babylonians, Greeks…power was the highest good, not self-sacrificial love. The lens of Christian truth still colors the American way of seeing history and that’s led us to misunderstand the past. For the most part, family, clan, tribe, and nation weren’t loved – they were worshipped and/or feared. Duty was one’s life. Duty to the structures above them. What love there was (and is) came surely as a common grace from God. The Lord’s amazing love falls upon hardened human hearts like water falling upon a parched and arid land. Love is still considered a virtue only because of the teachings of Christ. Mankind’s default setting isn’t love but dominance.
Outside of redemption man is terrified of the future so he seeks to secure it by regulating and dominating his neighbor. Outside of Christ man’s future is actually more dreadful than he dares imagine. Judgment awaits. In Christ, through faith alone, his future is greater than what any eye has seen or heart imagined. This is why humanistic love is self-indulgent and not God-glorifying, whereas Christian love obeys the Lord and looks forward to the redemption of our bodies in the Age to come. Humanistic “love” renders us as animals, like stray dogs in heat; Christian love lifts us to the heavens on the wings of angels sent by the Husband who saved us to bring us to His side. Paganism is animalistic and defines a man or woman by their appetites and urges. There’s a counterfeit predestination in paganism. Listen to them speak of “this is the way I am” and “I had no choice…” Why does paganism lead to sexual sin (Romans 1:18-32)? Because the premise of humanism leads us away from our Creator and toward the dirt. Outside of God, man’s love is less than animalistic. See sexual slavery today? It’s worse than chattel slavery centuries ago. See pedophilia rising? You know why? Pagans gonna do pagan things. Humanism makes humans less than animals.
The law of faith governs the Christian now. And this means that we live in this present evil age as lights shining in darkness. A man who tries to redeem culture without a redeemed heart is like a child trying to build a ladder to the moon. Yes, love conquers all…the love of God that’s been poured into our hearts! Love doesn’t come from us, but from God. Let’s get this straight in our minds so that we may resist that flaming arrow from the bow of our Enemy. Love is Christ who redeemed us by shedding His blood for us. Live out that love and redemption now in your family. Live it out in your vocation. Obey Him because of love…all that love…and only that love. This is the law of faith. This is our life now.
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