But I Have This Against You
As the students and faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City confessed their sins and asked for forgiveness from house plants in chapel a number of years ago, there are questions of how far off track the entirety of American Christianity has veered. The Apostle Paul’s warning that the reprobate mind will worship the creature, rather than the Creator, is in view (Rom 1:25).
It is painful for me to visit most churches because they have become so homogeneous. The mission slogan is always some variation on love. The music is the same and so is the preaching. Obviously, I am not opposed to love, but it has resulted in a one dimensional deity. Is this really love?
Is it possible this one dimension of “God is love, only” is idolatry, in today’s church? The worship of plants is obnoxious, but twisted love is clever and insidious. How strange it would be to receive a letter from the Apostle John, claiming that we have left our first love, by making an idol of the theme of love, in place of the Person of God.
Love, on its own, is both broad and deep. This lends itself to the confusion. The only way to approach a definition and a practice of love is to look at the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God (Jn 1:1; 10:30; Titus 2:13), and God is love (1 Jn 4:8). God loves His beloved from eternity and to eternity (I speak as one in time).
Knowing that God’s motive is always love for His chosen people in Christ (Eph 1:4–5; Rom 5:5, 8), we do celebrate our love relationship (1 Jn 4:19), in which God first loved us, and by His Spirit, we love him in return (1 Jn 3:17). This is an exclusive love (Eph 5:25), and it is utterly faithful on His part (read Hosea).
The love in most churches is accompanied by Universalist doctrine and communication. The preacher declares, “God loves you. He loves everyone.” No one questions this perversion of God’s love because there is such ignorance of the Scripture. The homogeneous churches also mean you hear the same message, regardless, whether you are in a Dispensational, Reformed, Lutheran or Episcopal Church setting.
The love message is expounded over and over again, but one must only listen to hear the void. There is no mention of sin, no cross, no substitutionary atonement, and no sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the message is psychology mingled with philosophy, to the effect that one can contrast the love preached from the pulpit, with love explicated from the Bible. There is a love that is not biblical and not of God.
Only by learning God in Christ do we learn what true love is all about. Of course, both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John wrote helpful chapters on the topic: 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4, respectively. The centerpiece of knowing God’s love is seeing it at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:8). Christ’s love for His church is sacrificial to the point of death.
This is why a thorough study of the Scriptures is necessary because even an accurate interpretation of the cross is too narrow a view of the subject. To pin down one definition or even one explanation of love will be deficient. This is why the mission slogans are practically meaningless. The term, “love” cannot be captured succinctly and then understood fully. God is infinite and so is His love, within the Trinity and in the incorporation of His adopted children (Rom 8:15, 23), whom He chose in love (Eph 1:4–5).
Mission statements/slogans are imported from the world, so they hardly serve the church, anyway. Would regular exposition of the books of the Bible serve the church? Pet doctrines, like “love” are balanced with other attributes of God, where verse by verse preaching is normative. Thematic preaching (one topic and then a different one next week) invariably reverts to the default theme of love. It is as if Beatles theology has taken over the church in this generation, with the only thing believed is, “all we need is love.”
Meanwhile, expositions of judgment, hell, sin, repentance, etc., actually feed and protect Christ’s sheep. Being a slave to love, when it is the wrong love, is nothing compared to the liberty of knowing the truth of God. Instead of denying the attributes of God’s hatred (Ps 5:5; 11:5), anger (Ps 7:11), and wrath (Mt 3:7; Lk 3:7; Rom 1:18; 1 Thess 1:10), we would do well to understand them.
The idolatry of “love only” preaching is about as unloving as it gets. It produces a cult, where ignorance of the God of the Bible is bliss, and the feminization of the church is ripe. This misrepresentation of our Triune God is reprehensible. It must be called out for what it is, idolatry, and preachers must repent.
The hard sayings and difficult doctrines are the bugaboo for the hireling and false teacher. If all you preach is love, in some variation each week, then, who will lead the group ready to out the pastor? No one, actually, because it is a soft subject, obsessed upon by spineless men, and even more, by the disobedient women who take their stand in a Christian pulpit (1 Cor 14:34–36; 1 Tim 2:9–15).
The cult of love in the American church must be called to repentance. The churches must be challenged to forsake their singular message, in favor of the whole counsel of God. Bibles must be opened, exegeted, and expositionally preached. Mission statements and slogans must be forsaken, and the Holy Spirit must be trusted for the building up of the body of Christ, by the preaching of the Scriptures, by faithful men of God, not psychologists doing group therapy in the church worship service.
May God grant us this desperately needed reformation. Pastor, water your plants, worship the one true God, and preach the Word of God to the people. Repent, if you are guilty of promoting strange love.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
September 8, 2022
