God loves to save
sinners because: “The wages which sin pays is death, but the free gift of God
is eternal life through, in union with, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23
AMP.
Christians love to
save those among us who have sinned: “My brethren, if anyone among you strays
from the Truth and falls into error and another person brings him back to God,
Let the latter one be sure that whoever turns a sinner from his evil course
will save that one from death and cover a multitude of sins, (procure the
pardon of the many sins committed by the convert.” James 5:19-20 AMP.
Christian love
exposes, reproves, and convicts: “Take no part in and have no fellowship with
the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be
so in contrast as to] expose and reprove and convict them.” Ephesians 5:11 AMP.
God’s wrath is
against sin because He loves the sinner:
Romans 1:18 AMP:
“For God’s holy wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and
hinder the truth and make it inoperative.”
Romans 1:22-32 AMP:
“Claiming to be wise they became fools [professing to be smart, they made
simpletons of themselves]. [23]And by
them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged
for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and
reptiles.
[24] “Therefore God
gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity to the
dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading
power of sin], [25] Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed
forever! Amen (so be it).
[26] “For this
reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading
passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and
abnormal one, [27] And the men also turned from natural relations with women
and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another – men
committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and
personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and
going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.
[28] “And so since
they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth
the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not
proper or decent but loathsome, [29] Until they were filled (permeated and
saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous
greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife,
deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters
and gossipers, [30] Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence,
arrogance, [and] boasting, inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and
undutiful to parents.
[31] “[They were]
without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless
[and] merciless. [32] Though they were fully aware of God’s righteous decree
that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves
but approve and applaud others who practice them.”
