The second great command is not, “You shall love the sinner as you love your sinful self.” As Augustine succinctly put it: “No sinner is to be loved as a sinner.” Rather, we are to love our neighbor “as a man for God’s sake.” This involves first realize that “God is to be loved for His own sake. And if God is to be loved more than any man, each man ought to love God more than himself.” When we fail to place these truths in their proper order there is no end to the sorts of evil that we will readily tolerate in ourselves and promote in others.
Nick Batzig
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