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Jude 1:4 – Spiritual Hippies
Some modern day “Christians” remind me of the hippies back in the 60’s and of the Gnostics of Jude 1:4. The hippies were right to emphasize love, but their application tended towards acceptance of sin and the rejection of authority. They were right to accept people different than themselves because we’re all God’s children, but wrong to accept all different behaviors and to reject God’s will. As 1 John 4:3 says, sin is the transgression of law. If there is no law, there cannot be sin. Therefore law exists or no one could ever sin. Grace has been turned into promiscuity (Jude 1:4). And as we know, the hippies of the 60’s preached promiscuity because “all you need is love.”
In defiance against violence, they reacted with violence. And amazingly, when the hippies of the 60’s get involved in politics, they often use law and government even more pervasively than their opponents. The spiritual hippies of today can react just as violently against their accusers, as their accusers acted against them. Often there is no one more intolerant than those preaching tolerance. Each side mirrors the other in their hatred for opposition.
Ironically both the hippies of yore and the “spiritual hippies” of today have turned love into the greatest act of selfishness there is. They don’t condemn others because they do not want others to condemn them. It is not love for others that motivates, but love for self. “I’ll leave you alone because I want to be left alone.” Love does not mean accepting all sin but rather accepting all sinners. Ironically again, but this time in a good sense, the cross is an amazing combination of law and grace. Someone had to die (law); Someone took our place (grace). I guess you could say the cross was really violent because people were lawless. So love, but love God and His law and love those who do not, but do not love their sin.
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