Love That Incurs Hatred

The world’s version of virtue is embodied by “getting along,” avoiding moral judgements, and proclaiming and living the gospel of “niceness.”
Peace, kindness, and love are terms that the secular culture has hijacked, disfigured, reinterpreted, and manipulated as an imposition on the Christian man that he might become manageable, even buckle in shame of his moral convictions, and retreat from his steadfast fidelity to his Christian ethical standards.

According to the modern secular cult, to hold fast to one’s moral convictions is unkind, uncharitable, and an act of judgment and condemnation of others.

For if a man believes truth without imposing it on others, others believe his very presence to be an imposition of his beliefs upon them.

The dictatorship of relativism demands that the Christian man surrender his belief in Christ and adherence to Jesus’ commands for the purpose of “keeping the peace.”
If secularists could identify anything as sinful, it would be the Christian’s audacious resolute fidelity to his faith in Christ.

The Gospel of Christ is perceived by contemporary society as a tool of division that causes feuds, strife, and discord, whereas social kindness and peace connote the idea of harmlessness and equality.

Yet, when these ideas are wielded by the modern anti-Christian culture, they are used to propagate a lethal tyranny aimed at depriving a man of his ability to express his fidelity to Christ or to call others to fidelity in Christ.

Often, if a man is to establish peace, he must wield the sword of the Gospel; if he is to unite peoples, he must proclaim a truth that often divides; and if he is to love his neighbor, he must hate evil, precisely the evil that binds his neighbor in spiritual death.
To love God is to hate evil (see Prov 8:13, Ps 97:10).

With the vision of the Cross and His ignominious death on the horizon, Christ imparted to His disciples, and to us, perhaps His most definitive teaching: “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12).

By saying, “This is my commandment” (emphasis added), Christ is differentiating His command as having ultimate authority over the Mitzvot (613 legal prescriptions), while also summarizing the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) into one single divine command.

This raises the question: What love does Jesus speak of?

“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
With this statement, Jesus brings our attention to the fact that He has chosen us to be His friends, and, therefore, He is determined to demonstrate His commitment to this friendship by sacrificing His life to ensure that this friendship endures.

Friendship, by its very nature, is reciprocal.

If Christ has chosen us to be His friends, then we must choose Him and His friendship in return.
Yet, this friendship with Christ is dependent upon a single principle: that we obey Him.
As He says, “You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you” (Jn 15:14, emphasis added).
And His command is clear: “These things I command you, that you love one another” (Jn 15:17).

Jesus’ particular command is that we love as He loves, and to love as He loves demands that we become His friends, and, to be His friends, we are to keep His commands, and His command is that we love one another.
To love Christ is to love as Christ loves and to do as He commands.
Resolute obedience to Christ’s commands, born from a friendship with Him, frustrates the designs of the secularists who realize that they cannot manipulate, control, or bribe the Christian man to surrender His beliefs and moral standards.

Therefore, to love God is to hate evil, and to hate evil is to be hated by the world.

For this reason, Jesus warned His disciples and us, “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you” (Jn 15:18).
“I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (Jn 15:19).
“If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20).
Love begets love in the heart of one who will receive it.
But love can also bring out the worst kind of hatred by those owned and deceived by Satan.

Christian love can never be reduced to well-wishing in an effort to “get along,” especially with those who maliciously and conspicuously abort human life, attempt to redefine marriage, or propagate transgender ideology wherein a human denies that he is made in God’s image and attempts to make himself in his own image, which is human idolatry.

Love is truth, and truth, especially when animated by love, draws the vehement hatred of those who oppose it.

To be a friend of another is to “consistently, effectively desire to do good to another” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
And the greatest good we can do for another is to give them the salvific truth of Christ, which liberates man from being enslaved to evil.
Though this love infuriates our enemies, it has the greatest potential to convert them.

The paradoxical Gospel of Jesus is that by loving man you will be hated by men, and, yet, you are to love them nonetheless.

By striving for moral goodness, the Christian will be perceived by the world as evil.
To be a Christian is to be despised, rejected, unpopular, and hated, even by those whom we love.

Friendship has been defined as having the same will.
To be Jesus’ friend, we are to will what He wills, which is what He commands, and to live His commands is the proof that we love Him, and this love will be contested and hated by the world.