Sept 22-The Relationship Between Doctrine And Christian Love

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.... If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:11, 12, NASB.

I suppose that if we could earn salvation under our own steam we might have reason to be proud of our accomplishments and even treat other "lesser beings" with a bit of disgust since they hadn't managed to reach our high level of accomplishment.

But that's not the way it happens. All have failed and continue to do so. It is only the love of God that rescues us. Given that fact, the only possible response is love to Him and to our fellow beings. Love is the only proper response to a God who has saved us in spite of ourselves.

It's not that doctrine isn't important. Ellen White, for example, had a profound interest in the correct understanding of the Bible and Christian doctrine. Yet she was even more concerned that Bible study and doctrinal discussion take place in the context of Christian love.

Back in 1887, when she saw the cruel spirit of Minneapolis on the horizon, she had written that "there is danger of our ministers dwelling too much on doctrines,... when their own soul needs practical godliness" (Lt 37, 1887).

Again in 1890, D. T. Jones (secretary of the General Conference) wrote to W. C. White that "your mother and Dr. Waggoner both say that the points of doctrine are not the matters at issue at all, but it is the spirit shown by our people in opposition to these questions which they object to. I am perfectly free to acknowledge that the spirit has not been the Spirit of Christ. It has not been so in my case, and I think I can discern enough to be safe in saying that it has not been so in the case of others. I have often thought over the matter and wondered why it was that such unimportant matters, practically, should cause such a disturbance, such a division....The point in your mother's mind and in the mind of Dr. Waggoner was not to bring in these questions and force them upon all, but to bring in the doctrine of justification by faith and the Spirit of Christ, and try to get
the people converted to God."

There's the crucial point! Let's face it--when our "Christianity" makes us unloving we obviously don't have the real thing, even if we are correct on all the doctrines. But when we realize that Christ, through the grace of God, has truly rescued us from the pit of sin, our response will be love. A lack of it indicates that we have yet to be rescued ourselves.