Loyalty: Evidence of Love
Or a Bargaining Commodity?
For years I struggled to understand Love. The confusing messages of Love I obtained from movies, music and literature varied from outright sexual lust to inexplicable feelings to outright manipulation to self-sacrifice for other’s desires. The Christian camps out in a selection of verses that do not explain love but does detail what love looks like (1Co 13:4-8). Often Christians simply hide behind, “Jesus is Love,” which explains nothing. Finally, I have come to understand that love is about loyalty. But, what is loyalty?
It may sound strange but though I grew up an army brat, I did not experience loyalty. In the 1950s-1960s, the civilian community did not embrace the military community; especially in the Deep South. Military bases were integrated, and all I knew, but living in Southern civilian community with black friends was dangerous. Isolated from extended family, and often living overseas in foreign lands kept one isolated. The one message that experience drove home continually was if one wanted loyalty, one had to be like everyone else: Conformity. Problem is, no one is like anyone else and Simon and Garfunkel’s song, Sounds of Silence, proved that this was no isolated condition. It seemed to be the common condition of mankind.
The military, like any other small and large organization, operates on the principle of, You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours (if it does not interfere with my goals). In fact, loyalty is such a rare commodity in the World that Paul actually used it as an example when explaining Christ’s Love; i.e., loyalty, toward the Saved (Ro 5:7). The military actually gives special medals to those who sacrifice to save others; those these often become political tools for political ends. But, is this loyalty?
Merriam-Webster defines loyalty as, “the quality or state or an instance of being loyal;” which violates the rule I learned in school. One should never use the word being defined as its definition; form of circular reasoning {Logical Fallacy violating the Law of Identity}. You may say, “Loyal is not the same as loyalty;” so let us look at Loyal’s definition. Faithfulness, allegiance to something, depending on the purpose for which one is loyal. But, I hear you saying, “Love is not part of the definition; how can it be associated with loyalty?”
Let us look at an empirical, and thus more easily grasped concept, metaphor to illustrate our problem with understanding Love. What is heat? We define heat by what it does and how it is measured. However, this does not explain heat as an energy; such as how is it generated? Natural philosophy, in the early 19th century, tried to define heat energy and gave up. Soon after natural philosophy self-divided itself into philosophy, as we know it today, and science, which stills cannot define heat energy except by its effects. This holds true for gravity, magnetism, electricity, nuclear energy and so forth; all are defined by what they do and how they are measured but not by their fundamental essence as energies. Hence, our harnessing of these energies is incomplete, some with significant and dangerous side effects, reflecting our incomplete knowledge. Such is the concept of Love.
Our aforementioned passage defines love by what it produces in the believer and how the believer should reflect that concept to others; i.e., love the brethren (1Jo 3:13-15). Now, after years of trying to: bear all, endure all, believe all and hope all; I find myself in the same quandary as Paul in Romans chapter seven: Frustrated with my failures (Ro 7:14-20)! Like Paul I cry out, “Wretched man that I am? Who will deliver me… (Ro 7:24-25)?” It is the same answer: Christ!
The World pays lip service to loyalty, even to praising those foolish enough to practice sacrificial loyalty so that it can advance its own selfish, self-serving goals. Rousseau’s Social Contract is about YOU being loyal to government, even at the point of a gun, while government is loyal only to its own empowerment! Loyalty is praised only if it advances the safety and needs of those in Control (Ro 2:1-3). People congregate together only if they can legitimize their own Worldview making them the hero of their own story (Ro 1:32). And, as usual the World has turned the Truth on its head; they demand loyalty flow from the bottom-up. Socialism in its historic and monarchial forms demands bottom-up loyalty in exchange for essentially nothing but more lies and degradation (Jn 8:44). But, there is one example though it comes from out of this World!
Loyalty is Love’s Quintessential Expression
It Flows from Top-Down and Reflected Back
Man’s only expression of loyalty occurred before sin when Christ introduced Man to Woman and he said, “…they shall become one flesh” (Ge 2:24). After sin, Man threw Woman under the bus to save himself {failed} and Woman ever after sought to exert Control over Man (Ge 3:12, 16). Hence, the First Adam failed; but, where he failed the Last Adam, Christ, succeeded (1Co 15:45-49).
Christ humbled Himself to bear the Father’s wrath for our sin so that He could present the Saved to the Father; He died while we were still sinners undeserving of mercy (Ro 5:5, 8-11; 1Co 15:20-28, 50-57; Ph 2:3-11). This is undeserved loyalty; this is what Love looks like. Christ was loyal to us based solely on the Father’s will and choice; not our own since it occurred in before Creation (Ep 1:3-14)! And though we are often unfaithful, disloyal, He is never disloyal toward the Saved (Ro 3:3-4; 2Ti 2:13).
Christ’s example of loyalty to His Church is the template for family relationships of the Saved (Ep 5:22-6:4). The husband, representing the position of Christ {humble, serving, supportive} loves or demonstrates loyalty toward the wife regardless of her successes and failures (1Pe 3:7. Hosea and Gomer is the quintessential Old Testament example of this loyalty and forgiveness (Hos 1:2; 3:1-34). This demonstration of undeserved top-down loyalty is Love. The wife is to respect or demonstrate this expression of received loyalty by being loyal, faithful, to her husband. In this mutual two-way expression of loyalty the two can return to being, “One Flesh”! The children from such a interdependent union learn that Love is Loyalty and not about satisfying self at the expense of another which is the World’s true definition of love; i.e., love of self by consuming others for pleasure, gain or just evil selfishness.
Now, both will fail because both remain in the flesh and therefore will succumb to selfish sin. Loyalties will be divided, like Hosea and Gomer or David and Bathsheba. Parents will over or under discipline their children driving them to anger. Wife and children will be tempted to rebel due to insecurity about the husband’s-father’s loyalty; however, like Sarah, they are to trust in Christ to watch over and protect them (1Pe 3:1-6). God hates rebellion and disloyalty is the rapacious devour of marriages and families (1Sa 15:23). Children who hate discipline hate parents because biblical discipline is an act of love, an act of loyalty even though at times it may be both unpleasant and even unfair (He 12:7-11). The child who accepts discipline from godly parents will learn God’s ways and not depart from them when he, or she, is an adult with their own families (Pr 22:6; 23:22-25). Parents who do not discipline their children do not love them and will be brought to many tears (Pr 10:1; 17:21).
So, toward the end of my many days I have learned that Love is expressed by Loyalty; first to Christ who is our example and gives one the wisdom and strength to express loyalty to wife and children. And though it has come late in life for some, I hope that it has come in time for others so their path may be easier in Christ than my own. Thus, when John writes of loving the brethren, he urges us to express loyalty to Christians even to the point of correcting them as Paul did to Cephas and as Christ instructed us in Proverbs (Pr 27:17; Ga 2:11-14). It is a shame to Christians when the Lost express greater loyalty than the Saved.