READING SCRIPTURE THROUGH THE LENS OF GOD’S LOVE

God is love, and, therefore, shouldn’t we understand Scripture with His love in mind? Well, yes, but what does God’s love entail? Bill, a self-identified “progressive Christian,” insisted on reading Scripture in a way that dismissed the verses Jesus had taught on repentance and eternal judgment. For Bill, God’s love had no room for repentance, righteousness, and judgment. Consequently, he claimed:

• I read Scripture through the lens of God’s love. I can’t believe that a loving God would punish, certainly not eternally. 

Consequently, Bill carefully chose for himself the verses that affirmed his understanding of love. But what does love look like in the Bible? Love takes many forms. The Prophets of Israel spoke of God’s love, but it came in the form of warnings against rebellion. Meanwhile, the false prophets embodied Bill’s understanding of love. They invariably preached a popular and comforting message. However, God censured them:

• They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the LORD. (Jeremiah 8:11-12; ESV) 

While preaching an indulgent message of “peace” has the appearance and even the “feel” of love, it is a message that failed to penetrate to the core problem – the rebellion of Israel. Consequently, it was a message that did not heal but allowed the cancer to fester. Therefore, the consequences would be great.

The prophet that truly loved God and his people would preach to heal:

• But if they [the false prophets] had stood in my [God’s] council, then they would have proclaimed my words [of warning] to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds. (Jeremiah 23:22) 

The false prophets had a perverted understanding of love. They only understood the immediate comfort that their message of “peace” would bring and the approval of men. They had little esteem for the Word of God. Therefore, God chastened them:

• Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading. (Lamentations 2:14)

A true message of love would aim towards restoration to God through repentance. Inevitably, such a message would sound harsh and unloving. Peter’s words to Simon the Magician, who offered to purchase the gifts of God, sounded unduly harsh:

• But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” (Acts 8:20-23) 

However, after being cut by his words, Simon asked for prayer. Therefore, it looks like Peter’s words were loving and merciful. Likewise, Peter had preached to the crowd that they were guilty of crucifying Jesus, but this harsh accusation produced fruit:

• Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:36-38)

Peter did not gloss over their guilt. He went right to the core of their problem and pricked their conscience. This represented true love.

Likewise, Peter’s Master spoke many harsh words against the religious leadership, for example:

• “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:13-15)

This may not look like love to us, but if God is love, and everything He did was done out of love, then this too is love. From this perspective, these leaders needed strong words to penetrate their hardened hearts.

However, Jesus also spoke harshly to His own disciples:

• But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23)

Love doesn’t always speak soft-cuddly messages. It speaks words that best serve the listener – words like what God had instructed Isaiah to proclaim:

• Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:16-20) 

Bill’s understanding of love in not the biblical understanding of love. He is like the false prophets who preached “peace” when there was no peace. Bill’s “love” is not a love that pleases God. It is a “love” that fails to heal, because it brings words that do not belong to God.

 

False Religions and Spiritualities

Contrary to popular opinion, Jesus was not a religious pluralist. He was not live-and-let-live regarding other religions, even the religion of those closest to Him – the religion of the Pharisees:

• "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. (Matthew 7:15)

• Then He charged them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the leaven [teachings] of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." (Mark 8:15)

Jesus is very exacting about what He’d have His church believe:

• Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

Believing in Him as the Savior of the world was not an option:

• “Therefore I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am ⌊He⌋, you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24)

• Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) 

His Apostles were no less theologically exacting (Gal. 1:9). Paul understood that salvation depended on a softened heart made amenable to right belief. Placing trust in the wrong things would place salvation in question:

• Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

What we believe can make prisoners out of us. However, there are many things about which we think wrongly – history, time, space, matter, DNA, and even life. However, this isn’t the problem. Instead, it’s a matter of where we place a trust – what we believe in. Our trust has to be exclusively invested in Jesus (Gal. 3:1-5; 5:2-4). In contrast, we are taken captive by alien philosophies when we place our trust in them:

• Let no one disqualify you [of eternal life], insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind. He [the false teacher] doesn’t hold on to [Jesus] the head. (Colossians 2:18-19)

To place our trust in anything in addition to Jesus is to no longer trust in Jesus – to be “disqualified”:

• If you get yourselves circumcised [to become a Jew and follow the Law], Christ will not benefit you at all.  Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to keep the entire law. You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:2-4) 

I used to think that I’d play-it-safe by earning my worthiness before God by performing good deeds and in trusting in Christ. However, I condemned myself to obsessive introspection, trying to convince myself that my deeds were good enough – something I never could do! Nevertheless, we are to perform good deeds but for the right reasons. To perform them to earn God’s love represents a refusal to believe what He tells us to believe – that salvation is an absolutely free gift, apart from any good deeds (Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 3:27-28).

What were these dangerous philosophies (teachings) that Paul warned against? One was an ascetic mysticism through which its adherents claimed visions (Col. 2:18). Mysticism is the belief that we can access God through a variety of techniques like meditations, visualizations, imaginations, and repetitions of a single word or phrase. Ascetic mysticism believes that God can be accessed through severe afflictions or depravations. About this, Paul warned:

• Why do you submit to regulations: “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?  All these ⌊regulations⌋ refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are commands and doctrines of men. Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence. (Colossians 2:20-23) 

“Severe treatment of the body” (asceticism) – the attempt to achieve a worthiness before God - has been a central part of many religions. It had been so for the reformer Martin Luther, according to blogger, Bill Spears:

• When Martin Luther tacked his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences in 1517 on the church door at Wittenburg, Germany, initiating what would be called "the protestant reformation", he was turning away from a life of self-mutilation, self-condemnation, and self-castigation. He was instead forwarding a cause favored by grace and freedom. The Reformation was a change in theological thinking that had held a firm and frightening grip on Europe throughout the dark and middle ages. And with that change in thinking came the Renaissance and scientific method. The world has never been the same since.

Later, Luther confessed that his “severe treatment of the body” represented a denial of the severe treatment that our Savior had endured to free us of our sins - grace. Through his self-afflictions, Luther had hoped to win God’s approval but almost died as a result.

However, others are convinced that by paying the severe price of self-mutilation, they have succeeded in making themselves both worthy before God and even before men. This is the core of self-righteousness.

The Flagellants were a sect that sprang up while the Black Death was ravishing Europe. Convinced that the Plague was the result of God’s wrath, the Flagellants whipped their bodies bloody to ward it off. As they wandered through the cities of Europe, they earned praise for their sacrificial behavior. Convinced of their spiritual superiority, they violently installed themselves in the place of the priests, whom they beat and tossed out of their parishes. This is the fruit of self-righteousness.

Others try to achieve spiritual worthiness through other forms of physical punishment or the rejection of anything pleasurable. Some take vows of silence, sexual abstinence, or fasting for long periods. However, Paul insisted “they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence [sin]” (Colossians 2:23). In fact, they are even worse than useless if we place trust in these depravations to make us worthy before God.

Another evil arises from these practices. When we think that we have achieved a higher spiritual state through such practices, we tend to believe in our own sanctity. We sanctify our thoughts, feelings, and imaginations as did the Flagellants. According to Paul, these mystics claimed “access to a visionary realm and [became] inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind” (Colossians 2:18).

When people become self-righteous, they tend to glory in their thoughts and imaginations. In Celebration of Discipline, mystic Richard Foster insists that:

• As with meditation, the imagination is a powerful tool in the work of prayer. We may be reticent to pray with the imagination, feeling that it is slightly beneath us. (172)

• Imagination often opens the door to faith.” (173) 

Does God really care about our imaginations or in faith, confession and righteousness? Scripture never mentions that “Imagination often opens the door to faith.” In contrast to Foster, the Apostle Paul claimed that we are not free to imagine and visualize God according to our own inclinations:

• For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21)

Our imaginations provoke God’s wrath. Why? Because it represents a rejection of true, biblically prescribed worship! Although humankind knows God, we refuse to worship Him “as God!” As a consequence of refusing to abide in God’s light, we become darkened by our own imaginations, as God revealed through the Prophet Jeremiah:

• This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The Lord says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts [“walketh after the imagination of his own heart;” KJV] they say, 'No harm will come to you.'” (Jeremiah 23:16-17; Ezek 13:2; Luke 1:51) 

If we are to represent the Lord, we cannot speak from our own thoughts or imaginations, as if they are coming from the Lord. If we are to walk in the light, it has to be according to the light of His Word (Isaiah 8:20; 1 Peter 4:11; 1 Cor. 4:6-7)

As Paul claimed, many of these ascetic practices have the “appearance of wisdom” and spirituality:

• Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created. (1 Timothy 4:1-3) 

Interestingly, “the teachings of demons” have the appearance of piety. How self-sacrificial and godly to deny oneself sex and a family! Such a person must be more worthy of God, right? Also, the giving up of all animal products has the appearance of spiritual worthiness.

Meanwhile, there is nothing the matter with rejecting meat products or marriage if that is one’s calling. Likewise, there is nothing the matter with taking vows of poverty or chastity if one wants to make such sacrifices in order to more effectively serve the Lord. However, if we place trust in such vows in order to make ourselves more acceptable before God, we are denying Christ and the adequacy of His Cross.

What we believe can tear us down, but it can also build us up, giving us all spiritual blessings:

• May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:2-3) 

When I believed that I needed to earn or be worthy of God’s salvation, I placed myself in torment, never certain that He loved me. Instead, I began to see how unworthy I was of anything coming from Him. Even after I began to teach, I was afflicted with thoughts of unworthiness, as if the Devil was telling me:

• You teach? You are a hypocrite, getting in front of the class as if you are some kind of role-model. I know who you are! You are a loveless, faithless fraud, you disgusting hypocrite!

After allowing me to be torn down, my Savior began to build me up in His holy Gospel. I realized that it wasn’t about me but Him; that it wasn’t about my worthiness but His, entirely. Consequently, when I was accused by Satan, I responded:

• Satan, you are right. I am entirely unworthy, but I have a God loves and forgives me. It is He who has given me a task to perform. As a result, I am so glad to be reminded of my unworthiness. This awareness just causes me to adore my Savior all the more!

What was Paul’s solution to these philosophical threats? Awareness of Jesus and our unmatchable inheritance in Him (Col. 1:15-20; 2:8-15)! When we understand how rich we are in Him, we will not be enticed by a bag of trinkets.

Universalism and Religious Pluralism: Their Appeal and Problem

I must confess that I find universalism (“everyone gets saved”) appealing. My Jewish parents passed away without giving any indication that they believed in Jesus. I want to see them again and to be with them forever. While I can always hope, the Bible gives me no explicit basis for such a hope.

However, our Lord does keep certain things hidden (Deut. 29:29; 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2). I therefore hope that He will be gracious in ways that He hasn’t explicitly revealed through Scripture. In fact, I tend to think that the stillborn and perhaps also some of the mentally challenged will receive His mercy (Luke 12:47-48). However, He hasn’t given me the liberty to preach or teach these uncertainties as if they were verities. Instead, where He is clear about the nature of His mercy, hope, and inheritance, I too must be clear and unequivocal. However, where His revelation remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainly, I too must reflect the same in my speech. This is part of what it means to be faithful.

We do not have the liberty to tamper with His revelations or go beyond them. He explained this to the Prophets of Israel:

• When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

In so many ways, Scripture teaches that if we abide in His Word, we will thrive (Psalm 1; Josh. 1:8; John 15:7-14); if we refuse, we will suffer (Deut. 28-29). He warned Isaiah that to go beyond His Word demonstrated willful ignorance and incurred grave consequences:

• “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’ But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? See, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back… I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.” (Jer. 23:16-21)

The false prophets inevitably prophesied a popular message – one that could be successfully marketed. However, they confidently spoke, even though God “did not send these prophets.” They therefore stood guilty before God, along with those who, in “the stubbornness of their hearts,” embraced their comforting message.

I think that we need to take a course in astronomy or simply meditate on what our eyes reveal. Time and space are unfathomable. The galaxies are uncountable, along with the stars in each galaxy! In comparison, our minds are small. And yet we are confident that we can get our minds around the spiritual mysteries of God. We are so confident that we have little hesitation to invent things beyond what Scripture has revealed. It is like an astronomer throwing away his telescope, saying, “I don’t need this. I can learn more about the heavens by just sitting in my armchair.”

This is arrogant presumption and not truth. However, we require truth more than self-absorbed comfort, more than the self-satisfaction we might find by conjuring up in our own minds the nature of the universe. Therefore, God continued to Jeremiah:

• “But if they [the false prophets] had stood in my council [My Word], they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” (Jer. 23:22)

Surgery can be painful, but it is sometimes necessary. The truth can also be painful, but it can bring healing and reconciliation, while the comforting message can enable us to repress the real problem – the turning away from God.

If we play fast-and-loose with what God has revealed, we stand guilty before Him. However, the Apostle Paul claimed that he had been faithful to God’s Word and, therefore, bore no guilt:

• “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” (Acts 20:26-27)

Even the unpopular teachings of Scripture! Paul also warned the church to not go beyond what the Bible states:

• Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Cor. 4:6-7)

The Corinthian church had gone far “beyond what is written!” Therefore, they committed a costly error by boasting of the spiritual superiority of their particular faction. Consequently, Paul had to remind them that, if they had any good thing, they had to regard it as a gift from God and not a reason for boasting.

I’d rather preach a popular and all-inclusive message – “Everyone is saved” or “Everyone has her own path” (Religious Pluralism). I would then be invited on all of the talk-shows and to the exclusive parties.

Instead, we are called to walk a costly road with a toll-booth at every intersection. Jesus had to pay the price and warned that we also will:

• “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:18-20)

If, instead, you find that the world is readily accepting your message, it is very possible that you are on the wrong road.

While there is always Room for another False Teacher, the Truth is very Demanding

Jesus warned that the last days would be characterized by mass deception:

• “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:23-24)

Deception comes in many packages – the most appealing packaging arises from within the church itself. Paul lamented:

• “I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.” (Acts 20:29-30)

Several scholarly wolves have even insisted:

• In the beginning, Christianity did not have a fanatic concern about doctrine and orthodoxy. This was an aberration that introduced later.

This represents one of many attacks on the teachings of the Bible originating from our postmodern culture in its disdain for truth. Instead, this culture favors mystical techniques to “experience God.” However, from every indication that we have, the central focus of the Bible is the teaching of truth/doctrine. The early church was “continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). They insisted that “everything we need for a godly life [is given us] through our knowledge of him” (2 Peter 1:3). Likewise, Paul proclaimed that the Word of God “can build you up and give you an inheritance” (Acts 20:32).

It can be argued that everything that the Apostles wrote and taught reflected their overriding concern for right doctrine. Paul insisted that anyone who taught a different take on Jesus’ teachings should be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9) and that anyone who disagreed with his teachings was misguided:

• If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. (1 Tim. 6:3-4)

Not only was Paul himself profoundly concerned about right doctrine, he insisted that these truths had to be safeguarded and used as the standard to correct false teaching. Therefore, Paul insisted that elders had to be able to teach according to the Gospel and that “opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). The elder had to be able to “refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:9) and to oversee the teaching ministry of the church (1 Tim. 1:3-4; 2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 3:9-10; Rom. 16:17). All of this gives us the impression that doctrine was of utmost importance.

The other Apostles reflect the same priority. The Book of Revelation contains letters to seven churches. Two of them were castigated by the Spirit for allowing teachings that contradicted the Gospel (Rev. 2:14, 20). John concludes with a warning:

• I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll. (Rev. 22:18-19)

Clearly, John not only regarded his epistle as authoritative doctrine, he also regarded it as Scripture! In contrast, the false teachers claim that the Apostles never regarded their teachings as Scripture. However, this is clearly untrue. Paul declared his own epistles to be Scripture:

• And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. (1 Thess. 2:13)

Despite their differences, Peter also regarded Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16), as he did the other apostolic writings (2 Pet. 3:2). All of the Apostles seemed to have regarded their writings as authoritative and normative for the church. Consequently, those who rejected these teachings were to be brought up on charges and subjected to expulsion if they refused to repent.

Equally problematic are the charges of the false teachers that, “Jesus came to bring a new life and not a set of stale doctrines.” However, this charge is also meritless. Jesus was intimately concerned about right doctrine. He was the herald of the Good News. This took precedence even over healing. Therefore, when Peter instructed Him to return to the village to heal the many people who had assembled, Jesus corrected him:

• “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Mark 1:38)

His message was weightier than any of His other blessings. Embracing His message was a matter of life and death (Mat. 7:24). It was both the key to salvation (Luke 11:52; John 6:29; 8:24; 17:26) and sanctification (Mat. 13:23; John 17:3, 17). He therefore amply quoted Scripture and insisted that it was life:

• The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Mat. 4:3-4)

For Jesus, the Word of His Father was everything. He had no doubt that Scripture was the Word of God. Therefore, His disciples would have to live by His every word or teaching! Scripture and its teachings were of such preeminence that Jesus opened the minds of His disciples to understand it:

• Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” (Luke 24:45-46)

Having a saving relationship with Jesus was unthinkable without also following His teachings (John 15:7-14; 14:21-24). Consequently, when He commissioned and sent His disciples out, He instructed them to instruct the nations to embrace everything that He had taught them (Mat. 28:19-20). He never said anything like this: “Don’t worry about the teachings as long as you love one another.” Clearly, Jesus is doctrine-centered. It would be impossible to live the life He had taught without His teachings.

As obvious as all this should be, many have drifted away and have adopted a doctrine-less Jesus – a Jesus who suspiciously resembles the dictates of their own hearts.