“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” ~ 1 Peter 4:8
Our verse declares that love/charity for each other, love in the church, the Body of Christ, is “above all things”. To be clear, this is not the fickle feeling that the world calls love. Our text is referring to God’s love.
God’s love, is sometimes called by its Greek analog, agape, or, in older Bible translations, charity. By definition, it is only active where God is active. And it is only available from God or through the children of God.
Moreover, this is the love that pleases God. It is the love to which all mankind is called to deliver. And it is the love we give to God Himself.
Love and the Law
Matthew 22:36-40
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus showed that love for God and for mankind are the ultimate, overarching, goals of The Mosaic Law. Love is the great commandment. Yet, the Mosaic Law could neither make us love God, nor love our neighbour. It could only show us that we didn’t. It could only show us our depravity.
We need more than the Law.
The Law required that Jewish males be circumcised to show they belonged to God. But much more than circumcision of a body part, we need circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 30:6). The law could give an outward sign, a mark to identify God’s people. But it couldn’t produce an inward reality to match the outward sign.
And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed,
Deuteronomy 30:6
to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
As we are, we just don’t have the heart, the mindset, to love God and to love mankind. To love we need a new heart and we need God working within that heart.
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you:
Ezekiel 36:26-27
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,
and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Love and Salvation
Salvation solves our inability to love God, because it addresses both needs. As described in Ezekiel 36:26-27, God will give us the heart we need and His Spirit to enable us to obey Him. This is how we become able to love Him and, thereby, able to love mankind.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
2 Corinthians 5:17
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Salvation makes us “new creatures” and “new creatures”, of course, have new hearts. Moreover, the new heart is the true/real sign that we belong to God. The new heart, the circumcised heart, is what matters and all outward circumcisions (The Mosaic Law) are meaningless.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing,
Galatians 6:15
nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
Salvation makes it possible for us to love God and to love our brother as God intended. Therefore, the evidence of that new heart is our love for each other. Indeed, it is the most important, the most crucial, the most impactful, and the singularly defining identifier of a child of God. There is no child of God through which God’s love doesn’t flow.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;
John 13:34-35
as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Our love for each other confirms to the world that we are disciples of Christ because that love isn’t available from any other source. Only the disciples of Christ, only those who are born again, have hearts that can love.
Beloved, let us love one another:
1 John 4:7-8
for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.
Only those that are “born of God” (saved) and “know God” (have an intimate relationship with God) love others. We can’t love without God and the new heart He gives us through salvation. And they who belong to God, MUST love, because love is of God, not of man, not of the world.
Therefore, we come to Christ for salvation so that we can love God and love others/mankind. The essential outworking of our faith is love.
Love and my Brother’s Sins
Our verse closes with “charity (love) shall cover the multitude of sins”. To grasp the meaning, consider the next verses:
Hatred stirs up strifes: but love covers all sins.
Proverbs 10:12
He that covers a transgression seeks love;
Proverbs 17:9
but he that repeats a matter, separates very friends.
Charity/Love covers my brother’s sins, not my sins. And the idea here is NOT that the sins are overlooked or not dealt with (e.g., 1 Corinthians 5). Rather, the point here is that past sins, forgiven sins, past failures are covered. They are not brought up again, and again, and again. They aren’t used to shackle someone to their past mistakes.
Love does not trap my brother in his old self. Love celebrates my brother as he is now, for how God has transformed him. God does not hold our past sins against us (Psalm 32:1-2). He deals with us as we are now.
Jesus didn’t hold Peter’s (or the other disciples’) denial against him. Jesus dealt with Peter as he was after he had confessed his sins. Jesus restored Peter (John 21:15-17) and encouraged Peter to look beyond his own past failures. That’s what love does.
Blessed is he whose
Psalm 32:1-2
transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom
the LORD imputes not iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no guile.
My neighbor, my brother, my fellowman, has a multitude of past sins that I can dredge up. But the love of God that flows through me from God to my brother covers his past sins.
If God loves me enough to cover my past sins. Then He loves my brother enough to do the same. Therefore, who am I to uncover (bring up) sins that God has already covered?
While being wise, while first requiring the fruits of repentance, let us not then hold each other hostage to past sins.
When sins are not confessed, when there is no repentance, we should not and MUST not cover it. Rather, we should confront our brother/sister. And challenge them to reject the sin or be rejected from the fellowship (Matthew 18:15-20, 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 6:1).
However, when, and only when, a sin is confessed, and when repentance has been demonstrated, then let us leave that sin in the past, where God leaves it (Psalm 103:12).
The aim is not to “cover up” un-addressed, un-confessed, un-repented sins. The aim is to cover, to not bring up again, sins that have already been confessed, repented, and rejected.
A Believer’s goal for a fallen brother is restoration not reprobation.
As far as the east is from the west,
Psalm 103:12
so far hath He removed
our transgressions from us.
Indeed, it is the refusal to cover past sins that reveals the absence of love. For example, a husband stops loving his wife when he continues to bring up her past sins against him after she has confessed, and sought forgiveness, and demonstrated repentance.
God doesn’t hold us hostage to our past sins and we shouldn’t hold each other hostage to past sins. Love, God’s love in me, lets my brother/sister move forward.
Paul murdered Christians. Yet, after he was saved, after his repentance, God used him mightily to spread the Gospel.
And fellow Christians, though hesitant at first, loved Paul. They covered his past sins. They loved him for who he had become, instead of resenting him for who he had been.
Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.
2 Corinthians 2:6-8
Reflections in The WORD 