When love takes precedence over God's commands, then it is based on nothing more than sentimentalism.

You point to the sermon on the mount --
here you admit that love MUST be based on God's Word, not upon the mere concept of "love".

Human beings have no true understanding of "love" unless it is subjected to God's commands.

Only then, by following God's commands can there be true love.


God is love; and infinite love will devise infinite laws based upon love. But when we push aside those laws, and try to define love by our own finite standards, we will miss the mark, just as Adam followed his own concept of love and plunged the world into darkness.

The human mind can easily turn Adam's choice into an ultruistic act of selfless love, giving up his own position of being right with God, to be with his wife.
But it was SIN. WRONG and caused death to become the lot of all his descendants.

Basically what I see in the replies, since you come right out and say "i'm mistaken" is that you believe love takes precedence over and above the commands of God.

No-- love can never take precedence over and above the commands of God. We will never understand love unless we subject it to God's Word.

Righteousness is far greater than simply an outward compliance to God's commandments.
Righteousness is state of being. It includes agape love, obedience to God's righteous law, gentleness, goodness, caring about the needs of others, and all the other atributes of godliness.

Righteousness is the opposite of sin.

Love can be righteous and it can be sinful.

Righteousness as it is presented in the Bible is not really the same as world commonly understands the term. The failure to comprehend its meaning is perhaps the most responsible regarding some people's concept that "righteousness" is legalistic. This misunderstanding destroys one of the most important concepts of the Bible.

The Hebrew word for righteousness is tseh'-dek [Strong:6663]upright, just, straight, innocent, true, sincere.

It is best understood as the product of a relationship with God and reveals itself in our relationship with others and how we relate to life in general. Thus a righteous person is morally true and pure, dependant totally upon God not only for his righteousness, but also for guidance for direction in life, walking with God in humble obedience and faith, (Thy will be done not mine own will) and this is revealed in thoughts and actions, which of course includes agape love for others.

i agree very much!! a very humble and Christlike person. i know its a struggle for me. cant wait till i feel for others as Christ has felt for us.

i think what bothers me most about this statement and the conclusions it can come to is that if adam was wrong for loving eve and not wanting to be separated from her then that makes God also very wrong for loving us and not wanting to be separated from us.

i think where we all agree is that adam should have trusted God, that is where he failed. but he didnt fail because he loved eve and didnt want to be separated from her. that kind of reasoning would make God a "sinner" as i see it.

there is only one kind of love. anything else is a counterfeit, or selfishness, as arnold puts it. there is only the true and the counterfeit of the true.

i dont see anything like that in this post. i see him pointing out the difference between claiming to "love" and actually loving as God did/does and told us to.

"love your enemies" is just as much a command as "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor". they are both love. i see no difference between love as God would have us practice it and the law.

they both say, "stop hurting your fellowman and do good to him".

Me neither.



Or, to put it another way, "Be like God." I agree with characterizing things this way, which is a reason I have difficulty with the ideas some have in regards to what God has done in the past or will do in the future.

Acts, in describing Jesus, says He went around "doing good." That's what God is like. He just does good. The problems come when good is eschewed for evil.

The difficulty is this --

My question wasn't about "contrasting law and love"
That was a strawman erected by Vastergotland.

I have never contrasted love and law.

My question was what takes precedence- what comes FIRST, obedience to God's will or what appears to be the loving way.

Is love to be subjected to God's will and law, or does love supercede God's will and law.

By arguing against me you are both indicating that you have problems with my belief and statements that love must be in subjection to God's will and law in order to be righteous love, it's on this premise I've addressed the posts.

Love is NOT the opposite of sin.
Righteousness, which includes righteous love, is the opposite of sin.



That is part of the lesson.

Romans 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace takes us from sin to righteousness.

Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Romans 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

Romans 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.

1 Cor. 15:34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not;

2 Cor. 5:21 For he hath made him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

The concept that love can operate on its own as the ultimate standard is the trump card of New Age beliefs!

That's why I can't understand why people are taking opposition to my statements that love must be in subjection to God's will and law in order for it to be righteous love. Love on it's own is NOT the ultimate standard.

To say love is the opposite of sin, is removing the standard that defines sin and placing that which IF UNDER THE DIRECTION of God's law is one of the highest attributes of righteousness, on it's own, as if it is the standard in its own right.

If you go back and read the whole concept it stated that AT the point where Adam let his love for Eve go against God's command, it became sin. His love at that point showed that he loved Eve more than he loved God.

The difference between Christ and Adam is huge.
There in the garden of Gethesemanie Christ prayer:
"If possible let this cup pass from Me, but NOT MY WILL BUT THINE BE DONE.

Do you see the difference?

Also there are other texts in the Bible like --
Luke 14:26 "If any come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

That is a "hard saying" of Jesus. What does He mean here? Are we to hate our family members? Of course not -- at least not in the sense we understand the word "hate". What it means is that we are not to let our love for anyone come between us and our God. We are to obey God rather than people.


I suppose a story best illustrates --

A young man was convicted to follow Christ all the way in baptism. His mother wept and begged him not to become one of those cultic Sabbath Keepers, it would "kill" her, to think her son had taken up this belief system. If he were to be baptized it would ruin there relationship with each other, she said.

The young man didn't know what to do. He loved his mother very much and didn't want to hurt her. The situation dragged on for some time, the young man feeling the Holy Spirit draw him into making a commitment, yet his mother pleading with him to drop this religious stuff.

Then one night he read Luke 14:26.
It was clear to him what he must do.
Follow Christ! He must not allow his love for his mother to stop him from following Christ. He was baptised.

Cruel? Some thought so.
But by following Christ he found the road to salvation, and as the years passed, his mother too came to the truth.


Adam let his love for Eve come between him and God.
That's what was wrong with his love.

somehow we seem to be talking past each other.