Which is more important, love, or truth? Well, in a very real sense there can be no division, for God is eternally both truth and love. But forgetting this reality, we are apt to pick sides between the two, and thinking that love must be the kinder of the pair, it is love most often that we choose. We read “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law,” (Rom.13:10) and therefore assume that love must be the answer to our question. But I would argue that truth must be preeminent if we would understand what love must be. Before we can ask what is loving, we must first ask what is true. In this verse, we must first define what “harm” is to know how love would act. We cannot rely on mere feelings when determining the path of love, we must seek out what is true. And only when we know and love what is the truth can we know for sure that there is any truth within our love. Why is this the case?
The Universe is the product of our loving Creator. The delighting love of Father, Son, and Spirit is the source of all that is. Not only did everything come into being through this love, but that reality is also sustained each moment by His gracious word of power. Nothing, therefore, in all creation can be amoral or inconsequential to the truth, for love defines morality as well as what is true. There is a loving design to all the things around us. To suggest that something in creation is amoral is to say that it has no purpose, and to say that it has no purpose is to say there is no God. No, reality is the overflow of the love of God, and to pursue a more accurate knowledge of reality is to see that love a little clearer. Because God is true and God is love, love will always be most clearly seen within the truth. Truth is where love lives.
The inverse is also true. Falsehood veils the love of God. To the degree that we don’t see reality as it is, to that same degree we miss the goodness of God. Like a dense and early morning fog that conceals the road before us, misinformation obscures the loving path that we should take. Just as every kind of advantage that has come to man has come from a deeper knowledge of the world around us, so ignorance or bald deceit has plunged the world into chaotic misery every time. When truth is hidden love is lost as well. Even when truth is violated innocently as when kind intentions are not based on facts, the damage done is no less destructive for their loving motives. Error distorts the motions of love and causes more hurt than healing.
Consider how misleading our comfort or pain can be when determining the nature of love. Deception may assuage our fears, but it doesn’t make us safer. If our comfort isn’t consonant with the truth, it’s a tottering wall we lean against. Likewise, “Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, as do stripes the inner depths of our heart.” (Proverbs 20:30) Sanctifying discipline is a loving pain that we can never do without, and we are better for these blows and stripes. No, truth alone must define the shape of love. And how often it’s our fears and our unsubmissive hearts that disfigure the face of love. We see a monster beckoning us to plunge into the pool, not recognizing the joys our fears resist. Truth always seems a rude and unrelenting oppressor when we refuse to yield to it. But love will never let us live in lies for that is not where love abides.
It behooves the Christian, therefore, to love the truth wherever it is found. While only the word of God can convert the soul and make one wise unto salvation, there’s doctrine in the declaring heavens and earth as well. We must care about Election and elections, verses and viruses, masks and manifestos, lockdowns and liturgies. What is true about each one of these should concern the lot of us. We cannot bifurcate our quest for truth between the sacred and the secular, caring only about the veracity of our Bibles. The love of God is on the line wherever “truth” is on display. The Gospel that we’ve been given isn’t simply that “God is love.” But it is that this God of love has been revealed within the Man of Truth and that He laid down His life to cancel out the lies of sin. Truth is the body love inhabits and He will always work to see us live within it. May we humbly search for truth in every realm. “He who gives a right answer kisses the lips.” (Proverbs 24:26) This certainly doesn’t mean that truth-tellers go around kissing everyone, but that the sweetness of love is tasted when we speak the truth.
