Love is Love
Whether it’s songs, t-shirts, comic book titles, or shouted at pride rallies, the phrase “Love is Love” is a catchy little slogan meant to convey something bigger. Taken at face value, the phrase doesn’t mean much. It’s akin to saying “A=A,” meaning it’s essentially useless.
The phrase’s hidden power, however, is in the idea that you can load the word “love” with your own definition. “Love is Love” is used as a hammer to argue that whatever I call love must therefore be love. If you like love--and who doesn’t?--then surely you will like what I say is love.
Similarly used is the phrase “God is love.” Once again, we load up the word “Love” with whatever definition we desire and then use that as a way to define God. If God is love, then surely he must approve of what I call love. In this way, anything could be smuggled in to define God.
Most people are indignant at a man having a sexual relationship with a child and calling it love. Yet that man can use his definition of love to attempt to define God and demand all accept that “love is love.” “Well,” you might say, “we are talking about real love.” That begs the question: What is real love?
The phrase “God is love,” taken from 1 John 4:7, is actually helpful here. But rather than leaving “love” up to our own definitions, it teaches us what love is. God embodies the definition of love because love proceeds from him. Love is of the very character and nature of God, so if we want to define love rightly, we must start with God.
It is God in his works and Word who provides the definition of love. God’s commandments define love. This is why the same book that says “God is love” also says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments,” and, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:2,3).
Love is the fulfillment of the law of God because God’s commands come from the God who is love. His commandments teach us how to love him and our neighbor. To define love, we look at commandments like:
Thou shalt have no other gods but God.
Honor your Father and Mother.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not covet.
You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.
The one who breaks the commandments of God is being unloving. Anything that goes against God’s moral law is hateful. The Bible is clear; homosexual practices are anything but loving. They are called “abominations,” acts that the loving God hates. If we are to be loving, we will love what God loves and we will despise what God hates.
The Bible says that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but instead rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). True biblical love exposes evil and warns of imminent danger. It is not love to celebrate homosexuality and transgenderism but hate. Why?
First and foremost, homosexuality and transgenderism are rebellion to the Creator God. Jesus said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female” and, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” God created two and only two sexes, and he designed them to complete each other. The male and female bodies and minds were designed to complement each other and to enable each other to have children and to serve God well.
Those who commit homosexual thoughts and actions are rebelling against the way God designed man to live. It is a giant middle finger raised against the God who is love. Because sexual immorality is rebellion against God, it is dangerous to the body, mind, and soul of everyone who practices it.
The Body:
Homosexual acts, whether man on man or woman on woman, are dangerous to the body. The statistics for sexual disease and other harmful side effects are astronomical.
The Center for Disease and Control (CDC) reports:
Anal sex is the riskiest sexual behavior for getting and transmitting HIV...carrying a risk twice that of sharing syringes for drug use.
1 in 6 “gay” and bisexual men (Men who have sex with men-MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes.
The American Cancer Society reports:
Receptive anal intercourse also increases the risk of anal cancer in both men and women, particularly in those younger than 30.
MSM have twice the risk of various cancers and are affected by it 10 years earlier, compared to heterosexual men.
The CDC has also published the following:
Once nearly eliminated in the U.S., syphilis is increasing, especially among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM). “In men, sores can occur on or around the penis, around the anus or in the rectum, or in or around the mouth. These sores can be painless, so it is possible to have them and not notice them. Correct use of condoms can reduce the risk of syphilis if the condom covers the sores. However, sometimes sores occur in areas not covered by a condom. It is still possible to get syphilis from contact with these sores.
Diseases like gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, genital warts, HPV, and shigellosis have also been reported at much higher rates in MSM than in other groups.
In addition to diseases that ravage the body and lead to much shorter life spans for homosexuals, the physical effects of anal sex have been documented to lead to incontinence. A study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology reported that there is a 119% increased risk of fecal incontinence in men who have sex with men. In said study, fecal incontinence was defined as leakage of liquid or solid stool, or mucus, at least monthly. This requires men to use adult diapers or maxi pads after repetitive anal sex.
The impact of sin on the body is not limited to male homosexuality. Women who have sex with women (WSW) are at significantly higher risk for developing breast cancer than heterosexual women according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Between 50-90% of WSW have had sexual relations with men, a high number of them being men who have also had sex with men. STD rates, especially for HPV, are higher among WSW than women who only have sex with men.
The Mind:
The Bible says that those who rebel against God by refusing to honor him as Creator are given over to debased thinking. Their minds become corrupted. Rebellion to God takes a toll not only on the body but also on the mind. The guilt and shame of sin, rather than being eliminated by parading rebellion under the banner of PRIDE, eat away at a person.
The study on incontinence mentioned above also found that “a history of major depression was strongly associated with having anal sex in both men and women.” A similar study, which examined the risk of psychiatric disorders among individuals with same-sex partners, found that “during the previous 12 months, women with same-sex partners experienced more mental health disorders—such as major depression, phobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder—than did women with opposite-sex partners.” It has been well-documented as well that men and women who practice homosexuality or are transgendered are much more likely to have substance abuse issues.
The European Journal of Epidemiology reports, “Among same-sex married men the suicide risk was nearly three-fold greater as compared to different-sex married... Even in a country with a comparatively tolerant climate regarding homosexuality such as Sweden, same-sex married individuals evidence a higher risk for suicide than other married individuals.” This rules out the argument that mental illness and suicidal rates are because of intolerance.
In addition, the CDC reports that “when compared with straight adults (17.5 percent), a significantly higher percentage of lesbian or gay adults (56.4 percent) and bisexual adults (47.4 percent) report experiencing intimate partner violence.” In other words, these supposedly loving relationships are often riddled with domestic violence, abuse, and infidelity.
The Soul:
We only have space to mention a small number of consequences for rebellion to God that happen in this life. Yet some may skirt through life fairly safely, avoiding the consequences of their rebellion. So while we cannot deny the mental and physical effects of sin, it is the danger to the soul that is most haunting.
The God who is love says in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”
He says, “Do not be deceived.” Why would he say this unless we could be deceived? This is the deception of our age. We have convinced ourselves with silly slogans like “Love is love” and “Thou shall not judge” that God is okay with our sin. We have deceived ourselves and others into thinking that what God calls abominations are in fact loving and good.
We have not, however, deceived God. Because God is loving, he is also a just judge. His righteous love cannot allow rebellion and evil to stand. Therefore, do not be deceived. The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. The effeminate (that is, those who refuse to live as the sex God created them in their physical body) and the homosexual (those who lust after and have sex with people of the same sex) will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who practice these things will not spend eternity with God but will face the eternal justice and wrath of God. Their souls are in grave danger.
There is one more thing that the Bible says about love that you must know. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).” And Romans 5:7-8 says, “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
This is your only hope. Jesus Christ laid down his life in an act of love to take upon himself the eternal penalty that sin deserves. Christ paid the penalty for sin to rescue those who practice the evil of homosexuality from the wrath of God and to free them from the power of it. He came to set free those who practice homosexuality and to show them what true love is.
This is why right after 1 Corinthians 6 says the effeminate and homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of God, it also says, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Many who were enslaved to the filth that destroys body, mind, and soul have been washed clean and made holy. You can be, too!
This is the good news of the love of God. If you will repent--that is, turn from trusting in your own wisdom and turn to God, admit the depth of your sin without blaming anyone but yourself, and cry out to God for mercy while trusting in Jesus Christ, you will be forgiven and have the hope of eternal life. He will transfer you from the domain of darkness and into the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through his Holy Spirit, Jesus will enable you to truly love God and your neighbor without hypocrisy. He will enable to you fight against temptation and to live in purity. Repent today, and turn to the one who defines love.