Tolerance. The modern, cultural elite praise this virtue in every school setting, media outlet, and job training workshop. There seems to be no truer way to love another person than to fully accept everything about them. Christians have often joined the tidal wave of this mainstream value and often long to be known for their acceptance of others’ opinions and lifestyles. On the surface it seems to be a positive virtue, one that exemplifies the life of the Christian.
But have you ever considered that tolerance is never encouraged in the Bible? The fruit of the Spirit includes love and kindness, but missing from the list is tolerance. In fact, Christians aren’t called to tolerance, because we serve an intolerant God.
Just consider a few stories from the Old Testament:
The Garden: God didn’t tolerate Adam and Eve’s sin. He didn’t accept their lifestyle choice to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He banished them from Eden and left an angel with flaming swords to guard the entrance so they couldn’t return.
Noah and the Flood: While the sanitized version of this story is pleasantly detailed in children’s storybooks, we cannot forget this story is about immense judgment. Picture a tsunami of destruction instead of a nursery filled with smiling stuffed animals. The flood involved terror, suffering, and death. It was a catastrophic event that only one family survived.
Uzzah: One of the most uncomfortable accounts of divine intolerance is found in 2 Samuel 6. This story recounts Uzzah’s attempt to steady the ark of the LORD after an oxen stumbled on the journey back to Israel. When he reached out and touched the ark (an expressly forbidden action), God didn’t say, “Well, his heart was in the right place. I know he was just trying to help.” Uzzah’s instinctive response was met with God’s intense anger, and Uzzah was immediately struck down.
We could go on and on throughout the Old Testament, considering Achan, Korah, Aaron’s sons, the Canaanites, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, just to name a few. All perished by the very hand of God. He did not tolerate their sin; he punished it.
Greater Judgment
Lest we somehow think Jesus represents a different God than the one of the Old Testament, though, consider his teaching to the disciples in Matthew 10:14-15:
And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
Jesus claims a greater judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah for those who reject the message of the gospel. He warned many would believe they knew him, only to learn they have been rejected with these words: “Depart from me, all you workers of evil!” (Matt. 7:21-23; Luke 13:22-27) Rather than find welcome into God’s kingdom, they would find themselves in a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Both the Old and New Testaments display a God who doesn’t tolerate sin. Yet there is one story in Scripture that demonstrates most clearly the intolerance of God.
It is the story of the cross.
Take a fresh look at the terrifying and uncomfortable reality of the cross. Here is an innocent man—whipped, beaten, nailed to a tree, bearing the sins of the world. For you. For me. Is this the picture of a tolerant God who ignores evil? No, this is a gruesome picture of divine wrath and judgment. The story makes no sense if God is a tolerant God.
The cross demonstrates God’s character in all its complexity. It shows his love, kindness, and mercy united with his justice, holiness, and wrath. It perfectly demonstrates a God who surpasses understanding. The Lord is giving us a glimpse into the immensity of his love for us. The love of God is not a tolerant love. It is much better. It is a redemptive love.
Tolerance Is Unloving
Sin must be paid for. To tolerate evil is to deny justice. God unleashes his full wrath on evil because he’s good. If good tolerated evil, it would cease to be good. Refusal to tolerate sin, then, is an essential part of loving others well. It might be tolerant for a mother to let her children play in a busy street or run with scissors, but it’s not loving in the least.
We also should hate sin because it’s harmful, even if we don’t always understand the harm that may be caused. As a child is unaware that a car may quickly appear, we must understand that we’re unaware of all the dangers of sin. God, our loving Creator who understands our frame more fully than we do, bids us to flee from evil and find abundant life in him alone. Life outside the revealed will of God doesn’t ultimately fulfill; it leads to misery and emptiness.
As his people, then, how should we live? Romans 12 provides helpful insight:
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
God calls us to abhor evil, while at the same time warning us against being agents of his wrath. We should hate the act of stealing while showing mercy and compassion to one who steals. Loving people well doesn’t mean we must embrace the choices they make. It means we openly welcome and embrace all who come into our lives with a heart of understanding and the message and hope of the gospel. We love people well when we call them out of sin into relationship with King Jesus. It may not be the world’s definition of tolerance, but it’s the truest way to love.
Melissa Kruger serves as women’s ministry coordinator at Uptown Church (PCA) in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the author of The Envy of Eve: Finding Contentment in a Covetous World (Christian Focus, 2012) and Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood(Waterbrook/Multnomah, 2015). Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary, and they have three children. She writes at Wits End, hosted by The Gospel Coalition. You can follow her on Twitter.
Article originally posted at https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-loving-intolerance-of-god/
