How Honey Became Vinegar

If knowing about love is not enough if we want to live it, what can we do then? In order to be able to answer this question, let’s make a short journey through time.

Let’s start from the beginning: Genesis 1:26-27 says: 26 „Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” What a wonderful description of man! What a great past is revealed here! Not according to chimps or other creatures but according to “Our likeness”! God made man in His image; God used Himself as a model. Although we cannot say that we were God, we can say that we were like God. And we have seen that God is love. So we were love too! This means we were living for others and not for ourselves.

What happened then? How that we are here, in this self-centered society? If man was created like God which is love which it manifest itself by living for the benefit of others, then how that we are living in a way that is exactly the opposite of what the Bible describes as the beginning? The true story goes like this: one day the man, the one created like God, decided to stop living for others and start to live for himself. He decided to stop listening to God and start listen to his/her desires, feelings, appetites. One day he decided that he will try a self-centered life. And … here we are. This is what the Bible calls sin. How do I know that this is sin?

As we have seen, Jesus summarized the whole Bible, including the law of God, in just one word, one command: LOVE. We have seen also that love manifests itself by living for the benefit of others. In 1 John 3:4 we are told that “sin is the transgression of the law” or “sin is breaking of the law”. And as the law (as the whole Bible) it’s a description of love/God so sin is the opposite of love, breaking of love which is self-centeredness or selfishness. This is sin: living for me and not for the others.

Have you ever seen the law as the description of love? Have you ever seen the law of God as love described by words? How that today our understanding of the law of God is so different from the way it is in reality? What do you think/know about this?