Tag: Love

The Sheep’s Wool (Matthew 25:31-46)

When Jesus separates the sheep and the goats pronouncing judgment upon them, neither one is shocked by the destination, but the reasoning given. The sheep are blessed for the ministered to Jesus in His need, whereas the goats are cursed because they failed. But we shouldn’t mistake this for saying the sheep merited their destination.

The decisive grounds upon which the sheep and goats are divided is that one is comprised of sheep and the other of goats. The deeds of mercy act as an outer mark that identifies the sheep. They are the evidence, not the grounds. Some similar language about those who eat sheep may help.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. —Matthew 7:15-20 (ESV)

The eating of sheep does not make one a wolf; the being a wolf means an appetite for sheep. The bearing of good fruit does not make one a good tree; the being a good tree means bearing good fruit.

The King/Shepherd says, “All sheep may enter,” and then He turns to you and says, “Come, for you are covered with wool.” The wool didn’t make you a sheep. The last thing any sheep will say on that day is, “I got in by the wool on my baaack, baaack, baaack. Yes this wool, I did it.” If so, an interrogation would commence. “Were you always a sheep? Who then transformed you into a sheep? Who gave you the only food, and water (the Spirit and the Word) that then can cause such wool to grow? Who gave you health and life so that the wool could grow? Who protected you and led you beside still waters so that the wool could grow?” The Shepherd gets all the credit. When He says, “Come for you are full of wool,” He is saying, “Look at what I did. See. This one is mine.”

What is the distinctive wool specifically mentioned here are a mark of those who are the Good Shpeherd’s? Love for the church. Shouldn’t we as Christians love all who are destitute? Certainly. Is that the point of this text. By no means. “The least of these,” are “my [Jesus’] brothers.” This language echoes Matthew 10:40-42 and Matthew 18 where the “little ones,” are Jesus’ little ones, His disciples.

One evangelical pastor wrote a popular book titled They Love Jesus but Not the Church. He had some legitimate criticisms of the church, but he missed it with his title. You cannot love Jesus and not love the church. If you fail to love the church, you do not love Jesus. You are a goat.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. …If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. —1 John 4:7-8, 20-21

Get Drunk and Love (Matthew 22:34-40)

When it comes to gods, deep down everyone is a monotheist. There can be only one. Either God is God, or the individual. All of life is love. Love is constantly being expressed. Man cannot not love. Every bit of existence we have is spent loving, worshipping, something. Yet, fallen men cannot love. In loving themselves, they hate love (John 3:19-20). Men hate light because they love darkness, which is another way of saying that they hate love.

By God’s common grace, and because man is made in God’s image, there is a muted echo of love that the unbeliever may hear and that may resound off and through the unbeliever, but it is always second-hand, always an echo and never the original tune. It is always muted, never amplified. It is always a first-grade crush on your married teacher, never marriage consummated and well aged like a vintage wine. It is like saying that you have tasted wine when a drop, a single drop, fell into your full glass of water. The world’s concept of love is diluted. You could never get intoxicated on it.

Jesus extends the cup of the new covenant, the intoxicating, behavior altering wine of His blood, that we might know love and love. If fallen man loves to hate love, how can he ever love love? Let me give you two answers, which are two ways of saying the same thing: covenant and a heart transplant. Listen carefully to the command, “love the Lord your God.” The context for this command is Deuteronomy, redemption, salvation. God, not because of anything Israel has done, calls a people unto Himself. He enters into covenant with them. And His covenant love gives His people a new heart (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 31:31, 33; Ezekiel 36:26-27). A heart that loves Him, that loves His Son, that loves His law, that loves others, that loves His creation—that loves, really loves.

The Pugilist: Duty and Love

Love itself, indeed, is a duty; and in loving, we fulfil our obligation. When Augustine says, “Love and do what you please,” it is with the maxim in his mind that love is the fulfillment of the law, in the sense that love is in order to duty, and instrument to the meeting of obligation. It is a fundamental mistake to set love and duty in opposition to one another, as if they were alternative principles of conduct. We cannot try a cause between the religion of love and the religion of duty as litigants — as if we were trying the cause between spontaneous and legalistic religion. Love should be dutiful and duty should be loving. What God has joined together, why should we seek to separate? If we could think of a love which is undutiful — that could not be thought of as an expression of religion; any more than a dutifulness without affection. What we are really doing is discussing the affectional and the ethical elements in religion and seeking to raise the question whether we prefer emotion or conscientiousness in religion. The only possible answer is — both.  -B.B. Warfield, The Mystical Perfectionism of Thomas Upham

Matthew 11:20-24 & Jesus’ Love

Jesus’ mighty works call for repentance? This is backwards from how we might normally think of Jesus miracles. Simplistically we may think Jesus’ mighty works only demonstrate His love and compassion.  Certainly it makes no sense to think that Jesus’ cleansing the leper was a demonstration of His wrath, His judgment. He did not condescend thinking, “I’m so angry I want to heal someone.”

We understand acts of judgment calling for repentance like those we see in the Exodus against Egypt and those against Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. The many judgments on Israel throughout the Old Testament called for repentance. Those were mighty acts of judgment, but here, Jesus’ deeds are mighty acts of salvation.

So how is it that Jesus’ cleansing lepers, healing the sick and paralyzed, casting our demons, restoring sight to the blind and speech to the mute, and raising the dead call for repentance? It is because these deeds, while they do demonstrate Jesus’ love and compassion, also evidence His authority; a supreme authority that calls for full and total allegiance. His miracles are a summons to Himself. His miracles are wed to His message, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17).” You may not enjoy the show without submission. You cannot take the benefits of the Christ without the cost of the cross.

We cannot neuter Jesus’ love. It is a holy love, a love that comes with authority, a love that demands. Jesus’ love is love with a backbone. It is a love that would not be loving if this were not so. Jesus doesn’t just love us for the sake of loving us. He does not save us just to save us. He saves us for His glory. We must remember that Jesus is not idolatrous. There is something He loves more than you and me, namely, Himself. Jesus is holy, He is unique, His love is like no other. God is the only being in the universe for whom vanity is a virtue. In upholding the value and worth of His name, Jesus is making much of that which will most satisfy our souls.