Kevin DeYoung has a footnoted quote that well summarizes this chapter. Jean Lloyd, a former lesbian, said, “Continue to love me, but remember that you cannot be more merciful than God. It isn’t mercy to affirm same-sex acts as good…Don’t compromise truth; help me to live in harmony with it.” (Footnote #2, p. 127)
The “God is Love” argument is meant to suggest that “love”
should silence any moral concerns about just about anything. The revisionists
act as if love is the trump card that ends any discussion about right or wrong.
DeYoung reminds that God’s love doesn’t “swallow up” His
other attributes – like holiness, justice or goodness. He uses one of the seven
churches or Revelation, Thyatira, as a case study in tolerance gone wrong.
Thyatira was a loving church, but it tolerated false teaching and immoral
behavior. And Jesus would not tolerate
this compromise. He promised a terrible judgement upon those who gave up truth
for “love” (Revelation 2:23).
QUOTES
They [the church at Thyatira] made being a Christian much easier, much less costly, must less counter-cultural. But it was a compromised Christianity, and Jesus could not tolerate it. (p. 125)
The God we worship is indeed a God of love. Which does not, according to any verse in the Bible, make sexual sin acceptable. But it does, by the witness of a thousand verses all over the Bible, make every one of our sexual sins changeable, redeemable, and wondrously forgivable. (p. 127)
