It is an axiom in our contradictory world that anything which has a power for good can be turned into a power for evil, in the hands of self-centered and unscrupulous men. This is especially true of words. The wise man who said, "The pen is mightier than the sword", spoke the truth. A word can be used to lift the suffering soul to new heights of hope and joy, or it can twist it into a depth of despair, and leave it eternally damned. No word has more power to do this than the word "love".
As Paul begins this second section of Romans 12, he says, "Love must be sincere". He then proceeds, as he did in I Corinthians 13, to describe how one who has the love of God in his heart behaves. Over the centuries, preachers, religious leaders, teachers and others have used their claim to love the truth to do the very opposite of the things Paul here describes. Many have piously proclaimed that their love of the truth gave them the right to divide the church, persecute those who disagreed, and set themselves up as the standard for interpreting the Bible. In their philosophy, the "love of the truth" gave them the right to ignore all the other demands of love where their fellowmen were concerned. This is a strange definition of the love that sent Jesus Christ to the Cross for the sins of the world. The evidence is unmistakable when one views the state of the religious world today. Using love of the truth as a substitute for loving your fellowman is antithetic to everything God wanted to convey in His Word.
If the word of God, revealed in the Bible, is to be our standard (and there really can be no other) then we need to carefully discern what the Apostle
means when he uses the word "love". I am quite aware of the Greek words for love that encompass sex, brotherly feeling and charity. However, knowing
this hardly qualifies us to say we know what the love of God means.
It is easy to realize that God's love does not mean romance or sexual attraction. However, this only removes a small part of the misconceptions which arise when the word "love" is used. Having a feeling of pity for the unfortunate, and wanting to help them, is great, but it does not necessarily mean love, as Paul uses the word. Even brotherly-kindness is not necessarily Godly love. In II Peter, the writer lists brotherly-kindness as a virtue to be added to your life, but then he also adds love, so it is something more.
In I John 4, the writer twice says, "God is love". What is this characteristic of God that is described with the word "love"? Perhaps the best place to go for a clue to the meaning is John 3:16: "God so loved the world that he gave His Only Begotten Son." This was not a benevolent gift. It was a sacrifice. The God of Heaven, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of all things, gave up all His prerogatives, set aside the arrogant slight of mankind in ignoring Him, refused to exercise His right to insist that His creatures get what they deserved, and sacrificially gave up of Himself for us. That is love.
Nothing that does not include self-sacrifice for another can be called love. All other forms of love have some element of self-satisfaction in them. Even
benevolence satisfies one's desire to do good, and fulfill one's obligation to be morally upright. Most expressions of love give us a feeling of personal satisfaction. People we love are people who please us, satisfy us, give us emotional pleasure. God's love was expressed to a very unsatisfying people. He needed no assurance of moral goodness. He is the Author of it. The only motivation He had was for the good of the object of His love, and He was willing to sacrifice His most precious possession for it. That is a level of love none of us is capable of achieving, but it is the standard which should discipline our behavior. If all who call themselves Christians would strive for this, there would be no
judgments made, no divisive actions started, and they would change the world, as the One who practiced this kind of love when He went to the Cross changed it.
In this world of competitiveness and demands for one's rights, such a person would seem strange indeed. There have been a few really self-sacrificing people throughout history, and even with their flaws and failures they have altered the lives of those they touched. When Paul said with this kind of behavior we would heap coals of fire on the heads of our enemies, there was no hint of revenge or satisfaction. Only the thought of bringing to bear the only kind of pressure that would change them. Nothing in Godly love is for self. All is for another. This is God's will and there is no truth without it.
