Untitled Sermon
Nowhere else in Paul’s writings do we find a more concise collection of ethical injunctions. In these five verses are thirteen exhortations ranging from love of Christians to hospitality for strangers.
What they deal with are basic to effective Christian living.
Love is the circulatory system of the spiritual body, which enables all the members to function in a healthy, harmonious way.
Nowhere else in Paul’s writings do we find a more concise collection of ethical injunctions. In these five verses are thirteen exhortations ranging from love of Christians to hospitality for strangers.
What they deal with are basic to effective Christian living.
Love must be Perpetuated.
9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
Love must be Emancipated.
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Love must be Unadulterated.
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us. 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God xwhom he hath not seen? 21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.
The adjective translated “sincere” (anupokritos) means “without deception or hypocrisy.” Apparently there is a danger that in certain cases what looks like love is actually something quite distinct. Calvin comments, “It is difficult to express how ingenious almost all men are in counterfeiting a love which they do not really possess.”34 Love must never be used as a disguise for ulterior aims. True love is free from all pretense and hypocrisy.
This is the essence of the agapē enjoined upon us as Christians. It differs from the other forms of love in that it does not depend upon some uncontrollable inner emotion or desire or need for fulfillment within the one who loves, but rather is a deliberately willed attitude of concern and good will based on the needs of the one who is loved.
The point of Paul’s injunction is not that Christians should love one another, since this commandment should be something engrained on every Christian’s mind from the beginning of his renewed life. Rather, the point is that the love we profess must be sincere; it must be from the heart and not be an external mask only.
The word for “sincere” is ἀνυπόκριτος (anypokritos), which means “unhypocritical, unfeigned, genuine, not counterfeit, without pretense or sham.” Literally it means “without a mask.” In the world of Greek drama “the hypokritēs was the ‘play-actor’ who projects an image and hides his true identity behind a mask” (Dunn, 2:740). Metaphorically and morally, a hypokritēs (a hypocrite) is anyone who pretends to be something he is not. Christians are commanded to be without hypocrisy not only in love (see also 2 Cor 6:6; 1 Pet 1:22) but also in faith (1 Tim 1:5; 2 Tim 1:5) and wisdom (Jas 3:17).
Murray notes that there is no vice worse than hypocrisy, just as there is no virtue surpassing love; thus hypocritical love is the ultimate moral contradiction (2:128).
Agape love is a divine love which wishes and sacrificially does good to everybody, even at the cost of the total sacrifice of self.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us. 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God xwhom he hath not seen? 21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.