People say that Jesus was all about love. Therefore, He would approve two people loving each other. He rejoices in two homosexuals loving each other. Those who oppose a homosexual relationship are out of step with Jesus and are haters.
Jesus certainly taught, and modelled, and values, love. A large part of the Bible is about relationships and love stands at the centre of the teaching.
But…
Love is not some absolute that is always laudable. In other words, not every type of love is automatically a delight to God. It is not love that is esteemed. It is love of a certain type and love of certain things.
The Bible actually condemns many types of love.
1 John 2:15
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
James 4:4
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
If love is always good, then love for the world is good. That means that having no love for God is good and that is a thoroughly ridiculous argument. It is not the love but the object of the love that determines whether it is good or not. Some loves are not good.
Some people love evil.
John 3:19-21
19 This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
We could give multiple examples of wrong love. Hopefully it is so obvious, we do not have to.
Furthermore, true love for Jesus is demonstrated by obedience, not continued sin. (John 14:15, 23, 24)
Secondly, people making this argument are not talking about love. They are talking about sex. Jesus has no trouble with homosexuals loving each other. He does teach that and desire that. There can be, and should be, very profound friendships, as demonstrated by David and Jonathan and many other biblical examples where there is no suggestion of a sexual relationship – even Jesus’ relationship with His disciples. Our society seems to have forgotten that non-sexual friendships are possible. We seem to think that everything has to be sexual.
Christians would celebrate deep and profound friendships. But that is not what is being talked about here. Those making the argument are not content to stop at love. They want to justify sex. To suggest that Jesus delights in sexual activity that God has called an abomination is insulting to Jesus.
Thirdly, the type of love that is exalted in scripture is primarily agape. The key distinctive of agape is that it gives selflessly. It is self-denying whereas those who choose sin are not denying themselves. Quite the contrary. They are modelling the opposite of agape.
A homosexual could care for a person of the same sex in a sacrificial way. That would be agape and would be consistent with the biblical teaching on agape. By all means love selflessly but do not confuse that with base erotic behaviour.
Sexual love is eros. That can, of course, be beautiful when found between a married couple (male and female) i.e. when it is consistent with God’s design. The Song of Solomon is an extended celebration of sexual love. But sex outside of that context it is not praised in the Bible. To claim that all so-called love is morally pure and a delight to Jesus is to misunderstand the Bible.
The statement, “This is loving therefore it is good” is far too superficial. Questions need to be asked about it and when they are, it is seen to be an attempt to say that God approves what God has already said He does not approve.
Although Jesus summed up the Law and the Prophets elsewhere using two commands regarding love (Matthew 22:36-40), He explicitly said that one of those two was the greatest. The greatest command is that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind. Love of God must be first and love is shown by our obedience (John 14:15, 21, 23).