Brotherly love ‘is something far higher and deeper than church rambles and other organised friendship activities, useful as these may be,’ writes the author. The great goal is philadelphia love, a New Testament term indicating ‘a depth and tenacity of love equal to the love of a blood tie.’
Why is such a strong term used? What is the scope of mutual affection and loyalty, required in Scripture? When does love become inappropriate – even a vice? What obstructs and hinders brotherly love? And what are the steps we must take in order to promote and preserve it?
Here is an illuminating and searching treatment of a topic vital to the holiness and happiness of all Christians and churches.
Extract
In defining brotherly love, there is a subtle and dangerous snare which must not be overlooked. Love can be a vice as well as a virtue. This is not so well appreciated today among some Christians who think that love is always a virtue. Accordingly, they love wrongdoers as though they did no wrong. They love false teachers as though they taught no wrong, and so on. Among ecumenists, falsehood is loved as much as Truth; the pope as much as the Bible, and ‘works’ as much as ‘grace’! Whether love is a vice or a virtue depends on the quality or morality of the object loved. If we love things which are wrong, then love is a vice.
If we love the world, and the things in the world, then such love is a vice condemned in the Scripture (1 John 2.15). If we love a badly behaved person for the sake of that person’s badness, our love is a vice. If the badness is for some reason attractive to us, then we also sin against God. If someone in our church behaved in a way that was factious or wicked, or sought to spread false doctrine in the fellowship, or tore down the reputation of others by malicious gossip, then our love for such a person would be profoundly affected.
It would be right to long for the restoration of that offender. It would be right to feel deep concern for that person, and to pray for his deliverance and return to righteousness. But it would be a vice if we continued to love in a full, unreserved, joyful and cordial manner, as though nothing had gone wrong, and no sin was being committed. To shut one’s eyes and to excuse or tolerate the sin would turn love from a virtue into a vice. Love would become a cloak and concealment for sin. Love would then encourage and perpetuate the sin. Love would then aid the destruction of others, wink at the damage to church life, and smile at the grieving away of the Spirit.
Brotherly love, certainly, must identify with the other party. It must stand four-square, and bind people together. But it is brotherly love. It exists because we are of the same stock, and share the family likeness, values and goals. If a brother or sister turns away from the Lord, the Head of the family, spurns His rules, disdains His Truth, hurts His cause and spites His people, then love for the family must prevail over love for the offender.
Our love for the offender must take a different form. We will love what he was, and what he will be, as the Lord hears our prayers. We will love him for what he has meant to us, and what he may have done for us in times past. But we cannot rejoice at what he is at present, or at what he does to God and the Lord’s family. This is, after all, brotherly or family love. We must show a different aspect of love by pining and praying for his repentance. We therefore lament and sorrow and hope (as the exiled Israelites did for their beloved country). But we remember that if love becomes detached from the standards of God, it has become a vice.
Perhaps the day will come when we also stumble and fall, and we also shall be grateful for a love from others which knows when to recoil; when to show a stern face; when to reprove and to withdraw the warmth of acceptance. It often takes that to bring the loved one to repentance (1 Corinthians 5.5-13 and 2 Corinthians 2.1-11).
