Abhor What is Evil; Hold Fast to What is Good...Continued from page 2

Which leads us to the third observation.

3. The Bible Commands That Our Emotions Be Changed Even Though We Don’t Have Immediate Control Over Them

You can’t make yourself immediately abhor what you like. But when Paul says, “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good,” he is commanding our emotions to be one way and not another way. Don’t ever fall for the argument that God does not require that our emotions be one way and not another, as if God only has requirements for body or the will. God commands not only that we choose the good but that we love it, and not only that we choose against evil, but that we hate and abhor it.

But what if your heart is in such a condition that you love the evil and hate the good? How will you obey this command? The answer is that we must be born again. That which is merely born of the flesh loves the things of the flesh. That which is born of the Spirit loves the things of the Spirit (John 3:3-7; Romans 8:7-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14-16).

Or to use different biblical terms: the new covenant, purchased for us by the blood of Christ (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25), must be fulfilled in our lives, if our emotions are going to conform to God’s view of good and evil. Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.” God must give us a new heart if we are going to hate and love as we ought. The way we get for ourselves a new heart (Ezekiel 18:31) is by despairing of self-change and crying out for mercy from God in the name of Christ that he would take out the heart of stone. And when Christ has given us a new heart that begins to see the world the way he sees it and feel the way he feels it, we must go on fighting for daily transformation: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [Jesus] we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Christian living is not mere choosing. It is choosing with intensity: Abhor what is evil, embrace what is good.

4. Objective Moral Good Is Good for Us, and Objective Moral Evil Is Bad for Us

I see this mainly in the relationship between the two halves of this verse. First, verse 9 says, “Let love be genuine.” And then, without starting a new sentence (in the original Greek), it goes on to say, “abhorring what is evil; holding fast to what it good.” The link between the command to love and the command to abhor evil and embrace good is very close. It looks as if Paul is saying something essential about love.

Everyone agrees that love means, at least, doing things for people that are good for them, not bad for them. So when Paul says, “Let love be genuine, abhorring the evil and embracing the good,” I take him to mean that it will be loving thing to do if we abhor the evil and embrace the good. Which means that what God calls evil must be bad for people, and what God calls good must be good for people.