Holy Love: Virtue or Vice?

In a world deeply confused about the nature of love, Romans 12:9–21 serves as a clarion call to believers in Jesus Christ to understand and live out truly Christian love. These verses contain a series of imperatives, each of which is a manifestation of the supreme virtue of love.

The first of those imperatives is found in 12:9b: “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” This apostolic instruction teaches us that Christian love is not passive, permissive, or indulgent, but pure, principled, and holy.

Paul challenges believers to examine the nature of their love, urging them to abandon hypocritical sentimentality and embrace holy, God-centred love that detests evil and embraces good.

The world, which has rejected the God of love (1 John 4:8), has perverted love as sentimentality, selfish indulgence, and lust. Worldly “love” is little more than self-interest and emotional gratification. This distortion has tragically crept into many churches, where tolerance of sin is confused with love.

Biblical love does not ignore or overlook sin. Indeed, it actively embraces ethical obligations. It desires the best for others, and evil can never be in anyone’s best interest. Thus, biblical love hates sin because sin destroys the one loved.

Romans 12:9 calls believers to love without hypocrisy, which includes holy hatred for evil and earnest embrace of what is good. “Abhor” implies utter revulsion. Christians must not merely dislike sin; they must loathe and avoid it. Importantly, believers must hate evil itself, not only its consequences. The psalmist writes, “I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law” (Psalm 119:163).

Conversely, Paul commands us to “hold fast to what is good.” “Hold fast” is the language of marital intimacy (see Matthew 19:5). It means to be glued, joined, or stuck to something. Christians are to attach themselves to goodness, as a husband is joined to his wife.

This call to holy love is not optional or occasional. The commands to “abhor” and “hold fast” are present active participles. They represent ongoing, continuous attitudes and behaviours. True love is not passive but passionate and active.

William Newell writes, “To be a good Christian, one must be a good hater.” Stuart Olyott exhorts, “Let your rejection of whatever is sinful or doubtful be total.” And Leon Morris adds, “The Christian is committed to the way of goodness.” This sort of love actively chooses to turn from evil and intentionally clings to righteousness. It is about cultivating character, not merely emotional reactions.

To practically display holy love, we must understand the biblical nature of “good” and “evil.”

“Evil” is a broad term in Scripture, with many implications. Some English translations of the Bible speak of general calamity as “evil,” but here the word is used in its ethical sense, which refers to anything that opposes God’s holy standards—not only actions, but also systems, influences, and even people (see John 8:44). If we love God, we must hate that which opposes him (Psalm 97:10).

Evil might actively resist or reject God or substitute something else for God. Jeremiah 2:13 speaks of evil in these terms: “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” They both openly rejected God (“they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters”) and substituted other things for God (“and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water”). It is not hard to understand evil on these terms.

Proverbs 6:16–19 describes things pride, deception, impure thoughts, and deceit, which exalt themselves against God, as evil. In Jesus’ parable, the unfaithful steward was evil because he did not do what was expected with what was given to him (Matthew 25:14–30). Unbelief is evil (Hebrews 3:12). We use our tongues for evil when we speak untruth or slander others (3 John 10). Evil is anything that is contrary to God’s character.

By contrast, good is that which is in keeping with God’s character. He is the standard of goodness (Matthew 19:17) and therefore honouring him for who he is and obeying what he commands is good. Good is anything that deepens your relationship with God and reflects his holy character. It includes truth, purity, holiness, and love, as defined by Scripture rather than culture. To love purely is to be passionately attached to godliness.

Paul’s instruction to embrace “genuine” love implies that there is something, not genuine, that masquerades as love. Hypocrisy is love’s most flagrant imposter. Hypocrisy may pretend to be love, but it leads us on the road to evil. There is no more common excuse for people to reject Christianity than perceptions of Christian hypocrisy. To be sure, many accusations of hypocrisy ring empty but, when we are guilty of hypocrisy, we shame Christ and his gospel.

People despise hypocrisy—and rightly so. But the unbelieving world also hates holiness. Jesus said, “People loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19–20). Ironically, the unbelieving world hates holiness as much as it hates hypocrisy, which is why “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

Biblical love is intolerant of sin. It abhors evil and clings to what is good. This holy love is radical, passionate, and unwavering. Yes, the world may hate you for it—but it will equally hate you for hypocrisy. Far better to be hated for holiness, which honours God, than for evil hypocrisy.

Let us then choose the path of holy love. Let our lives reflect the integrity, passion, and purity of Christ. May we be people who “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).