The Failure to Love

Article by Jason Francis

We have been working our way through the book of Romans at our church for a little

over a year now. We have seen in chapters 1-11 The condition of man which could be

summarized by Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Sin is defined by our failure to keep the commandments of God as found in Exodus 20.

His commandments are His very nature as seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ

who is the only person to ever keep them perfectly. The problem is we cannot keep

them.

I worked with an atheist that said, “I feel that the Bible is just a means to control man.”

My response was “You are absolutely right!” I then asked  him to give me a

commandment of God that was not beneficial to humanity as a whole. He couldn't do it.

We all want to be treated fairly. We want others to apply the law in dealing with us but

fail to treat others with the standard we expect, which is the law. I can’t think of anyone

that likes being lied to or dishonored by their children. I’ve not come across any sane

person that wanted to be murdered or to be the victim of adultery. No one wants their

belongings stolen. Coveting is the root of most, if not all, of these things.  We fail at

treating others rightly and this is breaking the Law of God. This is due to our fallen

nature going all the way back to Adam, as Romans 5:12  reiterates, “Therefore, just as

through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin...”

In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus summed up the law with these words, “You shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first

and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as

yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” To love God is

to keep the first four commandments. To love your neighbor as yourself is to keep the

last six, but again we fail miserably. Charles Spurgeon notably said this about the law:

“Moses could not carry the tablets they were written on without breaking them, nor can I

do any better.”

The commandments are what’s best for humanity as a whole, but what are they at their

core? The common denominator in Christ’s summation of the law is love. Paul, in

Romans 13:10, echoes this sentiment in saying, “Love does no harm to a neighbor;

therefore, love fulfills the law.” Breaking the law is a failure  to love. A failure to love

brings condemnation. In Psalm 5, David is lamenting over his great sin of adultery with

Bathsheba. He had failed to love his neighbor rightly as he had let his lust

overtake him. He is confessing and begging for restoration. “Have mercy on me Lord

according to your lovingkindness; according to your tender mercies,” he says. He had

failed to love God rightly in breaking the commandment of not committing adultery.

“Against you only, have I sinned, and done evil in your sight- that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge.” David’s sin was great but it was

far greater than the physical act of adultery. David also murdered Bathsheba’s

husband.  The Lord’s name was profaned, which is a violation of the 3rd

commandment, in that everyone knew he was a Godly man. We tend to think that taking

the Lord’s name in vain is using it as a cuss word. It definitely is, but it goes so much

deeper than that. Any time we fail to rightly love, we have taken His name in vain. We

have committed “cosmic treason” as R.C. Sproul puts it. 

We see in Romans 7:13 -23, Paul’s inner struggle with his failure to rightly love. Just like

Paul, we all have this inner struggle. We still battle sin as defined by the law which is “at

war in our members,” as he puts it. Paul goes on to say, “In me, that is my flesh nothing

good dwells.” We have new desires in Christ, but our flesh is yet to be redeemed; and

we still fail, giving in to our fleshly desires. So our desire is to rightly love, but often still

fail. In vs. 24, Paul, much like David, is broken hearted, lamenting over his failures as he

says, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver men from this body of death?” We

tend to think of the word “wretched” as something vile or nasty don't we? In the original language It is telaiporos, which is a compound word derived from talanton meaning

“heavy” or “burdened,” and peira which is a trial or troubles. He is heavily burdened by

his sin in failing to rightly love. This “body of death” is an analogy from a tribe near

Tarsus where Paul is from. If you murdered someone in their culture, your punishment

was to have your victim tightly lashed to your body forcing you to carry it around. The

dead body would decay and eventually infect you and ultimately kill you. I can’t think of

a more vivid picture of Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” Then Paul in his

understanding to rightly love looks to his only hope in v. 25: “I thank God-through

Jesus Christ our Lord!” 

The reality is that we have all failed at love. Our failure has earned us an eternal death

sentence. The good news is that our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, did not fail at

love. He condescended, took on flesh, loved His Father perfectly, loved His neighbor

perfectly, and then took our inability to love, AKA sin, upon himself; and died a sinner's

death on our behalf. He was tried by sinful man. He was beaten by sinful man. He was

mocked by sinful man. He was spit on by sinful man. He was nailed to a cross by sinful

man to die a death of a common criminal in the most brutal death anyone could endure.

Then he prayed this: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” What great

love is this? Praying for those actively murdering you? Amazing! On top of all of this, His

Father, out of His great love for us, poured out His wrath on His Son whom he had loved

perfectly from all eternity. Christ, the only person to have ever lived that knew what the

righteous wrath of God looked like, took this wrath owed to us out of His great love for

both the Father and us! The sheer thought of this brought so much stress He perspired

blood. Dear children, we will not be able to rightly love but Christ our Lord has always

and will always rightly love. His love, AKA righteousness, is credited to us. Our failures have been covered by the love of a Holy God. “For it is by grace through faith you have

been saved…not of works” (Eph 2:8-9). Why? Because we cannot love rightly in and of

ourselves. It’s only in Christ we are capable. It is through “The renewing of our minds”

(Rom 12:2) that we are able to rightly love. It is only in Christ that our failure to rightly

love is made perfect in Him. Love is the law working through the Gospel of Christ, and

in the end, beloved children, all you need is love.

Jason Francis is an elder at Shepherd's Rock Bible Church in Kingsport, TN. He and his wife, Kelly have two wonderful children and faithfully serve the Lord through their local church and the Northeast TN area.