375'
August 1929
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K i n g ' s
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Love Covers a Multitude of Sins A C ommun ion S ermon by C larence E dward M acartney Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa.
“For charity shall cover a multitude of sins .”—1 Peter 4 :8. ETER introduces this statement with another word, "The end o f all things is at hand.” We wonder if he would have put it just that way, had he known that the world was going to run on for almost two thousand years before Christ came. Yet, before we convict Peter of error, we must remember his other saying, "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” In a personal and individual sense, it is always true with us that the end of all things is at hand. For that reason we can all profit by hearing what Peter had to say in view of the nearness of the end. What he says is th is: "Be sober and watchful unto prayer. Above all things, before all other things, be fervent in love among your selves; for love covers a multitude of sins.” When the end of all things came for a man, you never knew one to have the conviction that he had loved too much in life, but rather, too little. "Love Covers a multitude o f sins.” This is one of those Scriptural sayings which have many and beautiful variants, both in the Old Testament and the New, each with a slightly different shade of meaning, but all bear ing witness to some kind of influence which Christian love has upon sin and upon sinners. Each variant is, as it were, the flashing facet of one central stone of beauty and of truth. I. L ove C overs A M ultitude of S in s in th e M an W ho L oves Take the text, first of all, subjectively. Taken that way, it means, “Love one another, be kind one to another and forgive one another, for by so doing you cover, or cancel, your own sin.” The presence of Christian love in a man’s life, makes up for many other shortcomings in his character. This seems to be the thought of St. James in his great variant of this text, where he is speaking of the Christian love which expresses itself in converting a sinner from the error of his way. He says that he who does so shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. He would seem to mean here the sins of the man who converts his brother. To a degree, we all recognize that this Christian love and charity in a man’s life has a collateral value as an index to his soul and to the genuineness of his conversion and faith. We commonly hear it said, after one has enumerated the faults or shortcomings of a man, “But he had a big heart; he was generous to a fault.” And this is said in a way which plainly intimates that when you sum up the man’s sins and shortcomings you must take into the reckoning the effect and influence of his generosity and his love. There seems to be some warrant for this idea in Christ’s great judgment scene, for they who are ad mitted to eternal life, are they who clothed the naked, fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, took in the stranger and visited the sick and in prison. Christ also said to Simon, when he found fault with our Saviour for permit
ting a woman who was a sinner to wash His feet and dry them with the hair of her head, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she hath loved much.” But from what Christ said immediately before, that is, His question to Simon as to whether the man who had been forgiven little or forgiven much owed the most to the one who had forgiven him, it is clear that when Christ said "for she hath loved much,” He did not mean that that love was the ground of her forgiveness, but rather the fruit and result’ and evidence of her forgiveness. ' We must be careful not to exalt this idea of the reflec tive value of Christian love into1a doctrine of justification by love, by our own love, instead of by the love of God in Christ Jesus, for, if the Scriptures teach anything, it is that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ; But we can at least say that Christian love in a man’s heart is one of the proofs of his having received the love of God in Christ. The forgiven ought to forgive. II. L ove C overing F aults in O thers Let us now take the text objectively. Thus taken, it would mean as follows: “Love covers a multitude of sins in other men.” This surely is the meaning of the beautiful Old Testament variant of the text (Prov. 10:12), "Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covers all sin.” Hatred will drag out, expose, parade, exaggerate and rejoice in the sins of other men; but love will seek to cover them up, and will hardly be willing to believe that evil exists, even on infallible evidence. This is what St. Paul meant in his own great hymn on Christian love, when he said, "Love thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity.” Love, is blind, is a very familiar and true saying. In fatuation discovers no fault. In a higher sense, a loving father or mother, or husband or wife, is blind to the faults of those whom they love. That seems to have been the case with David and his handsome, magnetic, blackguard son, Absalom. David saw the fine qualities and attractive traits of Absalom but not his faults. Even when Absalom had been exiled as a murderer, the heart of David "longed to go forth unto him.” But the highest illustration of the blindness of love is when Christian love covers up a brother’s fault. This does not mean that a man is to lose sight of the distinction between good and evil, or the line which separates the hemisphere of right from the hemis phere of wrong. We are not to condone evil or look leni ently upon violations of the moral law, but rather to look with kindness and sympathy upon those who have trans gressed. " I f a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual restore such a one, REMEMBER ING T H Y SELF , lest thou also be tempted-” In the Old Testament we have a tragic; and yet beau tiful, incident which illustrates the truth of o u r . text. When Noah lay drunken and uncovered in his tent, his son Ham came, and seeing his father’s condition, instead of hiding it and keeping silent about it told his brothers about it and was cursed for it. But those two brothers, Shem and Japheth, took a garment between them, and walking backward, with averted eyes, covered the nakedness of their father. Love with its mantle of charity seeks to hide
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