Evil and good

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another; - Romans 12.9-10

Abhor evil. Cling to what is good.

It doesn't get much clearer than that does it? While we spoke of love with dissimulation regarding other yesterday, it also refers to our love for God. We are to love God with unmasked love, and a key element of that is to abhor evil and cling to, or as the old King James put it, cleave to that which is good.

Amos wrote of the same concept when he wrote ‘hate evil, love good; Establish justice in the gate. It may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.’ Peter writes of the good man ‘eschewing, shying away, from evil, and doing good.’ All of these writings speak is one thing – holiness – and it is holiness that is the result of living a truly sacrificed life.

The two are in great contrast – the words are stark and very clear cut. You can’t get much more opposite than ‘abhor’ and ‘cleave.’ I am going to use the old King James word here because, though in this sense it is somewhat archaic, I really think the sense of the word is closer to the Greek word used here.

Abhor what it evil. Our English word here is not related to the Greek word, but to its Latin equivalent. If you look at ‘abhor’ you can see that it is related to our word ‘horror.’ The idea is to ‘reject with horror.’ That’s pretty close to the full meaning of the Greek word – ‘to shrink away with all abhorrence.’

It is not enough just to not take part in the evil of our world. Here we are told to shy away from the evil of the world with absolute horror. Does the evil of the world make us shrink back in horror?

Do we really have that kind of abhorrence of evil? Sadly I think many of us are pretty comfortable with flirting with the evil that we are supposed to ‘shrink away from with abhorrence.’

On the other hand we are to cling to or cleave to good. The Greek word there was used to describing gluing two pieces of wood together. This is how, by the way, husbands are to cling to their wives. While we are to shy away from the horrors of evil we are to actively stick to good like we are glued to it.

As we go through today let’s examine how we deal with evil. Will we turn away in horror, or we so deadened to its effects that we are comfortable just cozying up to it? 

I found this in my Valley of Vision the day after posting - I think it nail the idea of abhorrence. 

Give me abhorrence of all evil,

as a vile monster that

defies thy law, casts off thy yoke,

defiles my nature, spreads misery.