If disciples are commanded to love others, does that mean we should ignore their sin? Isn’t that what Peter and James say? This daily devotional looks at what they were saying when talking about covering sins.
Nuggets
- When Peter told us to love one another, he was talking to and about disciples.
- God’s love covers our sins when a backsliding disciple is returned to the fold.
The worldview says disciples are to tolerate sin to show love to others. The second greatest commandment directs us to love others. Does that mean we should allow them to go on sinning?
Glossary
Doesn’t I Peter: 4: 8 and James 5: 19-20 back up that assertion? Peter is quoting the last part of Proverbs 10: 12. “Hatred stirs up conflicts, but love covers all offenses” (Prov. 10: 12 CSB).
So, this isn’t just a command that Peter got from Jesus. It is a Old Testament God command.
Let’s dig in and see what we can find out.
Love Helps Us not to Sin
“Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins” (I Pet. 4: 8 CSB)
When Peter told us to love one another, he was talking to and about disciples.
- “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you” (I Pet. 1: 1-2 CSB emphasis added).
- “Finally, all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult for insult but, on the contrary, giving a blessing, since you were called for this, so that you may inherit a blessing” (I Pet. 3: 8-9 CSB emphasis added).
This isn’t talking about how we deal with worldview people. It is talking about how we deal with other disciples.
Vaughan reminded us that this verse doesn’t say we use love to cover someone else’s sins. The love covers our sins. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Glossary
To use this verse as saying anyone should get a free pass to sin is misunderstanding it. It is all about how disciples respond when others sin against us.
Ainger reminded us that loving God isn’t just about head knowledge and love. It is about submitting to giving up our love for sin and choosing to navigate the Sanctification Road so that we can be more like Him.
Resource
- Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- The perfected state indicates the combination of the spiritual graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
Love is a distinguishing mark of our being disciples. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13: 35 ESV).
Ainger called love “… a disposition of the mind …” It does have to be part of our character.
We just have to remember that the love comes from God, not our desire to do right in the world.
Ainger described it this way. He wrote, “When the favour of God, the present blessings of this life, and the eternal joys of another, are promised to charity, it is not such and such special acts of benevolence which shall be so signally rewarded; but it is the earnest inclination to benefit our fellow creatures, and the continual and diligent habit of doing good which are of such high price before God.”
That is telling me that it is not the specific acts of love that are considered love. It is the character of love. It is being, not doing.
So, how are we supposed to “cover” someone else’s sin? Vaughan wrote that we “… love, by silence and by veiling, hides from man; and by prayer and by converting, hides from God.” That means, when others sin, we are not to judge them for it. We are not to play judge, jury, and executioner.
Resource
The reason sometimes used to explain about covered sins is that Christ’s righteousness covers our unrighteousness. It does — when we repent of our sins.
If we don’t repent, it doesn’t.
We have to remember what repentance is. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to changing ourselves through obedience so that we no longer do the wrong things.
- Realizing it is a sin.
- Asking for forgiveness.
- Stopping the commitment of the sin.
Is this really what the worldview person is asking, or are they just trying to get a pass so they can keep on sinning and shut disciples down?
Back to “… love covers a multitude of sins” (I Pet. 4: 8 CSB). The only way Jesus covers our sins is when He applies His righteousness to them. The only way He does that is for us to ask for salvation.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
- The consequences of sin are spiritual death and physical separation from God.
- Eternal life is the promise of living eternally – even if we have died in this life – because we have admitted our sins, believed Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God as Sovereign Lord.
Glossary
Ainger thought the sins that will be covered are not those we commit against others that love covers. We aren’t perfect yet, so we don’t have the grace that would stop us from committing those sins.
Ainger wrote, “It is equally certain that charity towards men cannot atone for our sins against God; for though the love of our neighbour be a characteristic badge of our Christian profession, though it is vain to pretend our love towards our Heavenly Father, whilst we hate our fellow creatures; though the second commandment necessarily springs from the first, and is like unto it in its nature, still it cannot be made in any degree to supersede it. It can only mean, therefore, that charity will cover, or conceal, and forgive the sins which they commit against us.”
It isn’t talking about our actions toward other disciples. It is talking about how we respond to their actions against us.
We are to love and forgive them.
Go back to Proverbs. That verse is talking something totally different. It is contrasting hatred and love.
What I read that to be saying is hatred causes more sins to occur. Love forgives, so it disparages the anger, eliminating the opportunities to sin.
This is very applicable to the context that I Peter 4: 8 is in. He is telling them to maintain love for one another in the end times.
Peter is telling the church to be strong.
Our Sins Are Covered by His Love
“My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Jas. 5: 19-20 ESV)
God’s love covers our sins when a backsliding disciple is returned to the fold.
James also talked about covering sins. It is in the context of heresy. Heresies are the belief in something — opinions or feelings — that are different from what the church believes or the opposite of the truth.
Again, James was talking to disciples, not worldview people. “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back …” (Jas. 5: 19 ESV emphasis added).
James was talking about disciples who did not follow God’s laws and commandments. In fact, they paid no attention to the gospel.
Parker made an interesting statement. He wrote, “Men may think falsely, and live virtuously; or they may live immorally, and think correctly. The one class are intellectual sinners: the other moral transgressors.”
Resource
If we try to be good people but miss the fact of God, that should be met with love. The other is a conscious decision to live opposite to what God wants.
True, both will be judged on judgment day to be a goat on the left because they have not consciously chosen to be a sheep on the right. An indecision is a decision against God.
Glossary
But remember, we are talking backsliders here, not someone who has never made a profession of faith.
Barfield gave us reasons that disciples backslide.
- “A false estimate of the requirements of discipleship.
- “A false estimate of one’s own strength.
- “Intellectual pride.
- “Neglect of the means of grace.”
Resource
We are to help fellow disciples come back into the fold. Yes, we are our brother’s keeper.
There are several ways, according to McGatrie, to help a backsliding disciple to come back to God. We are to encourage them. We can use our influence and example to show them the way. We always should pray for them.
Resource
McEwen cautioned that we need to follow God’s plan for our lives. It is in following that plan that we will be happiest.
In the last part of the verse, James talks about saving his soul from death. McEwen contended that James was talking about the “for the wages of sin is death …” (Rom. 6: 23 ESV) verse.
We could probably see the judgment as fitting the crime when we consider that the sinner committed a multitude of sins. But we are to respond in love.
Resource
Making the Connections
Sometimes, it is really hard to convince people that something is a sin. McEwen noted that it is hard to convince some on a heart level all of the sins that they have committed. He wrote,
“Sometimes slowly, but sometimes in a moment, it dawns upon him that every page and every line of the [book] of his life must be read aloud. And then, dear friends, when that truth gets hold of us, when we see what a shabby, shameful, damning story it would be, how we should be stung with shame and filled with remorse as one secret sin after another was disclosed, how absolutely helpless we should be to justify ourselves — then we feel how blessed a thing it is to have all ‘hidden,’ all that multitude hidden through God’s great mercy and the merits of our Saviour.”
Resource
“We are, therefore, never nearer to Christ than when we are making ourselves, in any way we can, the coverers of sin.”
Resource
God wants His people to be loving and forgiving. He wants them to be unified.
How Do We Apply This?
We need to ask God to forgive us of our sins and repent of them.
So, how do we cover someone else’s sins?
- Don’t be a gossip. It isn’t our story to tell.
- Don’t cut someone else down to build ourselves up.
- Build others up by focusing on their good qualities.
- Look for extenuating circumstances when a sin has been identified.
- Imitate God by forgiving others.
- Don’t give sin an opportunity.
- If you can’t just forget it, correct others with love.
- Help others to come back to God by reminding them of God’s truth.
- Help others come back to God through our influence and example.
Resource
There is only one way in coming to God to have Him forgive us of our sins. That process begins with us admitting our sins. If we don’t do that, Jesus will not use His blood to cover our sins.
We have to genuinely ABCD.
Father God. We admit our sins. We believe in Jesus as our Savior. We confess that You are Sovereign God. Help us to demonstrate this as we interact with other disciples. Amen.
What do you think?
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