Jesus came to earth to save sinners. The statement is so common to our ears, it is easy to miss its significance. Save means to “rescue from imminent danger.” Jesus came to rescue us because we were in danger. What was the danger? What was Jesus rescuing from? Here is the answer. Jesus did not come to rescue us from our ignorance or our poverty or our oppressors or even from ourselves. Jesus came to rescue us from the Father [who is utterly holy and compelled by His very nature to judge sin].
—Greg Koukl—
Key point: Divine law, love, and authentic freedom and liberty are tightly intertwined.
In the excellent documentary film Enemies Within the Church, narrator and pastor Cary Gordon interviews a generous number of evangelical leaders on how the social justice movement and its advocates have infiltrated the church and weakened it significantly. The following audio clip offers brief portions of four interviews. It’s just three-and-a-half minutes long, but the insights presented in it make the entire movie worth seeing and taking to heart. You can hear and read a transcript of this clip on this page.
There are several important takeaways that arise from this audio clip. I’m going to list six, and then in the remainder of this post, I’ll offer two additional takeaways that the church needs to understand and take to heart.
Here are six important takeaways from the three-and-a-half-minute clip.
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- As Bishop Jackson states, “You can’t have justice without God’s law.”
- Social justice crusaders are replacing God’s law with subjective feelings rather than objective facts, or absolute truth. — Dr. Everett Piper
- Love and law go together; they are inseparable, just as Dr. Piper indicated. Another possible way to express this is that love and law are two sides of the same coin.
- As Dr. Scott Stewart indicates, church leaders, churches, and many, many Christians today no longer understand the biblical definition of love.
- In his conversation with Dr. Stewart, Rev. Gordon observed, “You have to have the Ten Commandments to really understand love.” Dr. Stewart echoed this when he quoted 1 John 5:3, which says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” Dr. Steward also could have quoted Jesus when He identified the two greatest commandments. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
- As Michael Hichborn observed, social justice crusaders in the church are gutting words of their biblical meanings and redefining them. The example he gave of Marxists redefining love and making it primarily about affection rather than sacrifice and commitment is key.
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The First Additional Takeaway
In redefining love as Michael Hichborn described in item 6, Marxists in the church not only are divorcing love from the law, but they’re redefining freedom as well; and their new definition also divorces freedom from God’s law. However, Cary Gordon and the leaders he interviewed are correct. Not only do law and love go together, but liberty is intertwined with these two as well.
Not only do law and love go together, but liberty is intertwined with these two as well.
This is a theme we’ve explored repeatedly at Word Foundations. Here’s an example we cited in a previous article.
In a Family TalkTM booklet titled Discipline, Dr. James Dobson relates a story loaded with lessons for us today. Countering the idea that parents and their children should “be on an even playing field—making decisions by negotiation and compromise,” Dobson recalls observing his daughter’s pet hampster fidgeting in his cage, anxiously trying to escape. The little guy
worked tirelessly to open the gate and push his furry little nose between the bars. Then I noticed our dachshund, Siggie, sitting eight feet away in the shadows. He was watching the hamster, too. His ears were erect, and it was obvious what was on his mind. He was thinking, Come on, baby. Open that door, and I’ll have you for lunch. If the hamster had been so unfortunate as to escape from his cage, which he desperately wanted to do, he would have been dead in a matter of seconds.
Dobson goes on to discuss the difference between the hampster’s perspective and his own: “I was aware of dangers that he couldn’t have foreseen. That’s why I denied him something that he desperately wanted to achieve.”
In this respect, children are like that hampster—but so is everyone else in the human race, regardless of age, before he or she is willing to acknowledge the big picture offered by “Nature and of Nature’s God,” to quote the the Declaration of Independence.
But wait! The Declaration does not just speak of “Nature and of Nature’s God,” but of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” (emphasis added). What? In the Declaration of Independence? [Conventional wisdom would say an emphasis on laws should make it a Declaration of Dependence. In this instance, conventional wisdom is wrong, and]…[o]ur founders got it right. True freedom and liberty—on both personal and societal levels—can be established and maintained only when individuals and society affirm “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” or absolute truth. Dr. Dobson’s perspective in relation to his daughter’s hamster parallels the one we need with regard to the world, life, and the universe.
True freedom and liberty—on both personal and societal levels—can be established and maintained only when individuals and society affirm the laws of nature and of God, or absolute truth.
Additional Word Foundations posts have carried this same theme. Apparently many more articles that emphasize this truth are desperately needed — because the church, the very institution that ought to be upholding it faithfully, has forgotten it, or perhaps 21st-century Christians never have heard it before.
You’ve heard it here, but I’m only echoing what the Bible teaches. For example, just before giving the Ten Commandments to His people, God declared, “‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (emphasis added). Don’t ever forget this important reality: You can’t have authentic freedom and liberty without a reverence for God’s law and a respect for absolute truth.
The Second Additional Takeaway
There’s something else vitally important for us to consider and take to heart. God’s signature attribute is not love. It is holiness, something we cannot understand without God’s law. Today, having divorced God’s love from God’s Law, we’re no longer aware that God is utterly holy and righteous, and that He must, and will, judge sin.
Martin Luther (1483-1546), a major figure in the Protestant Reformation, was terrified of God. The church of his day advocated this kind of posture toward God and even made money off of it through indulgences. Luther worked desperately to please God and sought Him earnestly, but initially he felt just as far away from Him as ever. Then he discovered that “the just shall live by faith” and came to know the freedom and liberty that comes from relying on the Lord for a righteousness that human beings never can achieve.
So, sadly, the church of Luther’s day didn’t properly emphasize God’s love. It misrepresented God and maintained power by making and keeping people fearful of God for the wrong reasons. Even though all this was true, however, Martin Luther benefitted from fearing God because his fear drove him to seek the Lord with abandon, and it drove him to the Scriptures, where he learned the truth. Unfortunately, today’s church, like the Catholic Church 500 years ago, also is presenting a lopsided portrait of God. The difference is that today’s church is overemphasizing what the church in the 16th century neglected.
While the Church in the 16th century made the mistake of emphasizing God’s wrath over His love (and didn’t really talk about His wrath in full accordance with biblical teaching), the church today is making the opposite mistake. We do need to talk about God’s love, but in the context of a proper emphasis on His justice and wrath.
Mark it down. This proper emphasis is impossible to understand, hold, or present without a deep love and appreciation for God’s law.
Can anyone be saved by keeping God’s law? Absolutely not, because all are sinners and sinners deserve eternal death or separation from God forever. The law cannot save, but it makes us aware of our need for a Savior and leads us to Christ. Further, it shows us how to love God and treat others. And it paves the way for a society to have freedom and prosperity at the same time.
Oh, let us, without becoming legalistic, cultivate a much-needed love for God’s law! Let us echo David’s words with both our verbal testimonies and our lives —
Psalm 19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward.
The Bottom Line
Remember the six takeaways from the audio clip from Enemies Within the Church:
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- You can’t have justice without God’s law.
- Social justice crusaders are replacing God’s law with subjective feelings rather than objective facts, or absolute truth. ‘
- Love and law are two sides of the same coin.
- Church leaders, churches, and many, many Christians today no longer understand the biblical definition of love.
- You have to have the Ten Commandments to really understand love.
- Social justice crusaders in the church are gutting words of their biblical meanings and redefining them.
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Remember these two additional takeaways, and share all eight of these insights with others.
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- You can’t have authentic freedom and liberty without a reverence for God’s law and a respect for absolute truth.
- God’s signature attribute is not love. It is holiness, something we cannot understand without God’s law.
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A PDF file of this slide is available here.
Finally, meditate on God’s law and obey it —
and as you do, love God wholeheartedly, and present an accurate picture of God to others, both inside and outside the church.
Copyright © 2022 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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