WHEN LOVE IS SINFUL
When is love sinful? It sounds almost blasphemous to even ask such a question today. Love is seen as the ultimate deciding factor, the motivation that is always right, the sure-thing you can always count on, the final absolute for all things. The world says that if something is done out of love it must be OK, even if it goes against Scripture. They justify same-sex attraction by saying it is done out of love, so it must be right. How could anyone even question it if love is involved? Love is the ultimate, the final, the all-consuming, the most powerful force that makes everything it touches right, or so they say. But that doesn’t hold up against the Bible or against logic.
Lets start with logic. If a married man loves a married woman who isn’t his wife and has sex with her, is it all right because they are in love? If an old man loves a little girl, does that make it OK? Or if someone loves to inflict physical pain on another person as their way of showing ‘love’, do we give approval? NO to all of those!
What really undermines the “love is love” idea is that we have a sin nature. Our motives are broken, our heart depraved. If we were pure and holy then we’d only love what is right and good while we hated all that was wrong and bad. But we don’t. We love sin and hate self-denial. We are born with a sin nature and it rules over us. Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Ephesians 2:1-3: Describes humanity as being “dead in trespasses and sins” and by nature “children of wrath.” Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Isaiah 64:6: “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness’s are like filthy rags.” Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”
It’s easy to misinterpret self-centered lust and rebellious misbehavior for “love” because of the strong desire we feel. But that desire comes from our sin nature and not a pure, God-given ‘love.’ That’s why God gives us standards of right and wrong, absolute truth, in the Bible. We ourselves are not the final determining factor as to what is right or not based on how we ‘feel’ about it.
So yes, love can be sinful because it can be rooted in a self-centered nature within us. That isn’t to say everything we love is wrong, but it does mean that just having strong positive feelings about something doesn’t make it right. So how can we tell if our love is right or wrong? If we can’t go by our feelings, what can we go by?
We have already seen 1) we can’t go by our cravings and desires for our sin nature pollutes and strongly influences them. Also, 2) we can’t love something God says we are to not love. I John 2:15-17 says: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” The ‘world’ here doesn’t refer to our planet in space or the ground under our feet. It refers to the whole world system which is under Satan’s control and does not submit to God. This is clear from such verses as 1 John 5:19; 2 Corinthians 4:4; John 12:31; Ephesians 2:2 and Luke 4:5-6. If ‘love’ leads you to do something God forbids, then it is sin, not love.
But what about those who don’t know or don’t believe God’s standards in the Bible? Are they still guilty of breaking them? Yes, because God has written those same standards in their heart and when they reject those God-given standards of right and wrong they do it willingly and are without excuse (Romans 1:15-32). God says they are fools and what they do is futile.
So, love isn’t some noble standard that makes all things right. It can be a coverup for sinful rebellion and self-centered disobedience. So don’t be mislead by the smokescreen of “love” making all things right. When someone says God made them to love the same sex you know how to answer. They have a strong desire, but it comes from their sin nature and is disobedience to God. There’s nothing loving about that!
Do you excuse a friend or family member who is making sinful choices because they say they are doing it out of ‘love’?
What is the truly loving thing you should do to help them see truth an find real, eternal love?
cto Rev. Dr. JERRY SCHMOYER
Christian Training Organization
Jerry@ChristianTrainingOrganization.org
(India & Africa & Spanish Outreach, Spiritual Warfare, Family Ministries, Counseling, World View)
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