When Love Grows Cold

Agape toward God is keeping His commandments, and Yeshua also told His disciples what makes that love grow cold. He said it on the Mount of Olives, when they asked Him about the end of the age.

Matthew 24:10-13 At that time many will skandalizo σκανδαλίζω skan-dal-id'-zo(fall away, be caused-to-stumble) and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness) is multiplied, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end — he will be saved.

The word for love in verse 12 is agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay. The sentence states a cause, for in Greek “because” is dia with an infinitive. The multiplying of anomia, Torah-lessness, is the cause, and the cooling of agape is the result.

Removing the Line

Scripture has two words that we usually lump together as sin. Parabasis is transgression, stepping over a Torah one has: “where there is no nomos νόμος nom'-os(law), there is also no transgression” (Romans 4:15). Anomia is Torah-lessness, treating the Torah as if it were not there: “sin is anomia(Torah-lessness)” (1 John 3:4). In Matthew 24:12 the word stands in the singular, naming the state itself and its power.

Picture a busy crossing with a sign that says “Do not cross.” The man who steps out against the sign is transgressing; he knows the line is there. Now picture someone pulling down every sign and painting over every crossing. The danger is the same, but no one knows where it is. That is anomia. When the line is gone, people no longer know when they have crossed it. Torah-lessness multiplies, and agape toward God, which is keeping His commandments (1 John 5:3), grows cold.

Yet the verb is psycho, to grow cold, not to vanish, and it is the love of “most people,” not of all. The next verse speaks of those who endure to the end, and Revelation names them: “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua” (Revelation 14:12).

Already at Work, a Little at a Time

Paul said this power was already at work in his day.

2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of anomia(Torah-lessness) is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.

Paul adds that the coming of the lawless one is “in accord with the activity of satan(the adversary)” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Yeshua said of the tares in the field that “his enemy came and sowed” them (Matthew 13:25). The work is quiet, and it moves by small steps. “A little zyme ζύμη dzoo'-may(leaven) leavens the whole lump of dough” (Galatians 5:9). Yeshua warned against the one who “breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same” (Matthew 5:19), and He told the teachers of His day, “you have nullified the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). The verb is akyroo, to make void, and the cause is paradosis παράδοσις par-ad'-os-is, tradition.

The prophets had seen the same pattern in Israel.

Ezekiel 22:26 Her priests have done violence to my Torah, and they have profaned my holy things; between holy and common they have not separated, and between the unclean and the clean they have not made known; and from my Shabbat they have hidden their eyes, and I am profaned in their midst.

That one verse is anomia at work: the lines God Himself drew are blurred until no one sees them. Isaiah says the earth is defiled “because they transgressed the Torah, violated the statute (choq חֹק khoke), broke the everlasting covenant (berit בְּרִית ber-eeth')” (Isaiah 24:5), and Malachi tells the priests, “you have caused many to stumble in the Torah” (Malachi 2:8).

Times and Law

Daniel saw a power that would set itself against the saints and against times and law.

Daniel 7:25 And he shall speak words against the Most High (Elyon), and he shall wear out the saints of the Most High (Elyon); and he shall think to change times (zimnin זִמְנִין zem-awn', Aramaic) and decree (dat). And they shall be given into his hand until an appointed time (iddan, Aramaic) and appointed times (iddanin, Aramaic) and half a time.

The Aramaic words are zimnin, set times, and dat, law or decree, and the verse says he will “think to change” them: it is his intent, set against what God appointed. History records what happened to the set times and the law of God in the church. In the second century, the churches of Asia, who kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month, came into dispute with the church of Rome, which kept the feast on a Sunday instead. In 321 the emperor Constantine ordered the courts and the trades of the cities to rest on Sunday. In 325 the Council of Nicaea decided that all the churches should keep Pascha on the same day, no longer depending on the Jewish reckoning. In the same century the Council of Laodicea ruled, in its twenty-ninth canon, that Christians must not rest on the Sabbath but work on that day and honor the Lord’s day instead. In 380 the faith of the church became the religion of the state. Many of the Reformers read the little horn of Daniel 7 as the papacy.

Daniel’s two words, set times and law, are exactly what that record shows being changed. Reading Daniel 7:25 as fulfilled in the changing of God’s appointed times and Sabbath is a very persuasive reading of what history shows. The text itself does not name the little horn; the reading rests on that fit.

At Ease in Zion

At the end, good and evil are turned around: “Woe to those who say of evil good, and of good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Those who urge keeping the commandments are called legalists, as Daniel was accused over “the decree (dat) of his God” (Daniel 6:6) and the Way that Paul followed, “believing everything that is in accordance with the nomos(law),” was called a sect (Acts 24:14). Yeshua called such people blessed (Matthew 5:11-12).

Cold love and comfort go together. “Woe to those at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1). Yeshua said to Laodicea:

Revelation 3:15-17 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. Because you say, "I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are the wretched and pitiful and poor and blind and naked one,

The worry of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth “choke the logos λόγος log'-os(word)” (Matthew 13:22). People “accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own epithymia ἐπιθυμία ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah(desires, cravings)” (2 Timothy 4:3). Paul wrote of those “who set their minds on earthly things,” and added, “our politeuma πολίτευμα pol-it'-yoo-mah(commonwealth-citizenship) is in heaven” (Philippians 3:19-20). “Set your mind on the things above” (Colossians 3:2). The faithful of old “desire a better homeland — that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

The Common Answers

Most Christians who hear this are sincere believers who confess, as this series does, that we are justified by grace through faith and that obedience is fruit, not a price. Their common answers deserve to be stated fairly. Yeshua came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17), and what is fulfilled is finished. The law was a guardian to lead us to Messiah (Galatians 3:24), and Messiah is its end (Romans 10:4). The feasts and Sabbaths were a shadow (Colossians 2:16-17). The moral law remains, but the ceremonial law has passed. And Yeshua gave a new commandment, to love one another (John 13:34). Books 1 to 3 opened most of these passages at length; here, beside them, stand the verses Scripture itself gives.

Matthew 5:18-19 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota ἰῶτα ee-o'-tah(smallest Greek letter) or one keraia κεραία ker-ah'-yah(stroke of a letter) will pass away from the nomos(law) until all things are accomplished. Whoever then breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever keeps and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.

Romans 8:3-4 For what was impossible for the nomos(law) — in that it was weak through the sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) — God, by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful sarx(flesh) and concerning sin, katakrino κατακρίνω kat-ak-ree'-no(condemned) sin in the sarx(flesh), so that the dikaioma δικαίωμα dik-ah'-yo-mah(ordinance) of the nomos(law) might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the sarx(flesh) but according to the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit).

The word is dikaioma, ordinance, and it is “fulfilled in us” who walk by the Spirit, rather than set aside. The new covenant puts the Torah within:

Jeremiah 31:33 For this is the covenant (berit) that I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put My Torah within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Scripture does not divide the Torah into parts that stay and parts that go:

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole nomos(law) but stumbles at one point has become accountable for all of it.

The “new commandment” is not a new law:

1 John 2:7 Brothers, I am not writing you a new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the logos(word) that you have heard from the beginning.

And faith does not cancel the law:

Romans 3:31 Do we then nullify the nomos(law) through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we uphold the nomos(law).

Return

If love grows cold when the commandments are taken away, then the way back is not a warmer feeling. It is a return.

Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the LORD: Stand by the ways, and see, and ask for the ancient paths, where is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh). But they said, We will not walk in it.

Malachi 3:23-24 Behold, I send to you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the day of the LORD, the great and the dreadful. And he shall turn the heart of fathers to children, and the heart of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with utter destruction.

Acts 3:19-21 Therefore metanoesate(repent, spiritual domain) and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away, so that kairos καιρός kahee-ros'(appointed-time)s of refreshing may come from the face of the Lord, and that He may send Yeshua Messiah, who has been appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things that God spoke through the mouth of all His holy prophets from of old.

The ancient paths, the hearts of the children turned to their fathers, the restoration of all things: this is the call to Christians and to Messianic believers alike, to return to the faith of the first-century ekklesia ἐκκλησία ek-klay-see'-ah, which kept the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua. From the love that came first to this call to return, the whole line of agape belongs together, and it can be told as one.