"Love" Is Not Enough
Fanning Yater Tant
(Early last summer Brother Jimmie Lovell, publisher of a monthly journal called Action invited ten other editors to submit an article by each to be published in a special issue of his journal. Each man was left free to write on what he pleased, and as he pleased; but brother Lovell suggested that he'd like to see us all write articles on things that might make for more unity among us. Responding to his invitation were Walter E. Burch of Mission; Paul Easley of Christian Chronicle; B. C. Goodpasture of Gospel Advocate; Charles Holt of Sentinel of Truth; W. Carl Ketcherside of Missionary Messenger; Reuel Lemmons of Firm Foundation; Gordon R. Linscott of Word and Work; Cecil Willis of Truth Magazine; M. Norvel Young of 20th Century Christian, and this editor from the Gospel Guardian. Herewith is the article we submitted. All ten articles were published in the November issue of Action — and this issue went to 46,000 families.)
"What the world needs most is love — sweet love." So go the words of one of the current banalities referred to as popular music Popular, yes; music no. But when it comes to the matter of religion, man's relationship to an infinite Creator, the hackneyed words are half-way right. Half-way, mind you; not all the way. For human love, however sweet and rewarding, can never solve our problems. It can solve some of them, but never all of them. For love of mankind for his fellow-creatures is only one side of the coin. That "love" is not enough; indeed, it is secondary and inferior to the greater and more encompassing love. Meaning man's love for God.
If love for one another could give the total answer, then surely life would be much simpler and easier for all of us. But it is possible for two people to love one another with a total and consuming fervor, and be completely indifferent, or even antagonistic toward God. Both history and literature are filled with examples of men and women who loved, but whose lives ended in bitter frustration and misery. They loved — but they did not love God Abou ben Adhem wanted to be recorded as "one who loved his fellow men," and Abou's creator wanted to equate that with "love of God." Not so. We cannot love God without loving our fellows, but we most certainly can love mankind without loving God.
All of which has deep significance for those of us who believe ourselves to be children of God. That differences exist among us is obvious. Ignoring them will not remove them; neither will loving one another remove them. Of course, there are some differences that love can resolve, but that's not what we are talking about. Those differences may all be removed completely, and still we may be poles apart.
There is a kind of love, however, which DOES solve our problems — the love we have for God. "For this is the love of God," wrote John, "that we keep his commandments." (I John 5:3) The man who says he loves God, but does not keep God's commandments has deceived himself. He does not love God; he may have exalted his own opinions and judgments and prejudices to the point that he is confused as to what are God's commandments. But if that be the case his lack of humility has blinded him. This is probably what has happened in the recent tragic division within the body of Christ. Brethren were so CERTAIN they were right that they gave little time or thought to a careful, diligent, and prayerful study as to just what the will of God was.
Surely the time is long overdue when brethren should sit down together as brethren, lay their differences out for full and frank discussion — not to prove who is right or who is wrong, but to ascertain what can be done by all of them to find and follow exactly the will of God! They may love another and not follow this course; but it is indisputable truth that they cannot love God and refuse to make any effort toward reconciliation. When a man loves God he is automatically and without fanfare or ado in fellowship with every other person on the earth who loves God; when a man does not love God, he is out of fellowship with every person who does love him.
This really is a very simple sort of editorial. It is summed up in the words of Christ to a certain lawyer, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:27). For too many years it has pretty clearly been demonstrated that the words of Christ, spoken first by Isaiah to ancient Israel, "This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me," could be applied with deadly accuracy to a great number of "Church of Christ people" in the twentieth century. When strife and alienation and bitterness exist, when fellowship is broken, when congregations are divided, SOMEBODY does not love God!
There are two fundamental concepts which, if tenaciously held to, will forever make impossible any division among God's people over a matter of doctrine. They are (1) the absolute authority of God's word, and (2) the fact that God's word is clear enough for men to understand his will. Those two bed-rock principles being accepted totally and without reservation, what happens when a difference between brethren arises (no matter what the difference: human evangelistic arrangements, benevolent institutions, instrumental music in the worship, or what-not)? Sincere brethren go immediately "to the law and to the testimony," to learn and understand, and fully comprehend exactly what the Bible teaches — they believe the Bible CAN be understood on every matter affecting our eternal salvation. Having determined Bible teaching, they accept it as final. This has to do with the authority of the Bible.
That one or the other of those two concepts (maybe both) have been abandoned in fact (while adhered to in theory) by many thousands of Christians today is too patent to need comment. Let us hope that men of good-will may yet find a way out of the debacle. Maybe an occasional edition of Action such as this one can make a contribution in that direction. At least it ought to help a little bit to encourage more "love of the brethren:" and that is one step toward the ultimate necessity for unity — love of God.
— F. Y. T.