Before Jesus went to the cross, he gave his disciples a last
final comprehensive commandment: “Love each other, you must love each other as
I have loved you. All people will know that you are my followers if you love each
other” (John 13:35 NCV). Commenting on this sermon text last Sunday, Pastor Allan Hutchison concluded,
loving one another is the best way to live out the church life.”
Pastor Allan offered three adjectives that he believed define
God’s love: 1—love undeniable; 2—love unselfish; and 3—love unconditional.
God’s love as expressed in John 3:16 is without question, undeniable.
The long history of Israel as the People of God had but one purpose and that
was to introduce the Messiah (Jesus) as Emmanuel, “God with us,” The
New Testament is the church's witness of the undeniability of God’s love as expressed in John
3:16-17.
We know political Israel missed the truth of the Messiah’s
coming and they rejected Jesus, sentencing him to a Roman cross. Nonetheless,
declared the Apostle to the Gentiles, God showed his love for us via the death of
Jesus while we were still undeserving sinners. That love was revealed as both unselfish
and unconditional (Romans 5:8). Paul consequently challenged us to live for God by becoming our own LIVING sacrifice and be changed from the inside out (Romans
12:1-2).
This transformation is elsewhere described as the New
Birth, or being Born again (i.e., born from above and beyond the natural—supra-natural)
This is above and beyond anything we can do for ourselves, but God does it by
his own plan. Paul announced “God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus,
God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our
lives doing” (Ephesians 2:10 NCV).
Should you question this way of thinking, you need go no
further than the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said when you love those that love
you, you are only doing what is expected of you; therefore, love your enemy and
pray for those who deceitfully use you (Matthew 5:44)). Love is uncompromising.
When we love God supremely within our Christian fellowship, we also love our
neighbor as we love ourselves; and, we live at peace with all humanity as much as
is within our power (Romans 14).
Why is this so important, you ask: because if there is
any one thing that is clear in reading John’s epistles, it is that God is light
and love in his essential nature. Paul concludes that love is the supreme gift and that if we
do not love, our good works become nothing more than tinkling cymbals and
clanging bells (I Corinthians 13).
This is not a philosophical dialogue of war vs peace or
militarism vs pacifism. It becomes an issue when the world sees-and-hears us the church expressing militarism and a militant
diplomacy as a biblical expression of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The world is not
seeing the true church when the church aligns itself with political power and the military-industrial complex. This presents a false church that
is heretical in its very essence because it twists and perverts the biblical
view of God, God’s people, and the true nature of the church. At best, military might offers a substitute gospel as the best
way to live out God’s diplomacy of love and reconciliation.
The militancy proclaimed by current premillenialist Franklin
Graham and President Donald Trump unequivocally denies the gospel of suffering
that found Jesus in the Garden praying ”Not my will but … thy will be done.” It
offers a substitute gospel of retaliation and indescribable damage ... if you touch me wrong.
It serves as the spirit of anti-Christ (study I John 2:18-25).
From Warner's World, this is:
walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com -
to which gospel do you subscribe
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