“Therefore, as elect ones of God, holy and beloved, put on [a] heart of compassions, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving yourselves, if anyone has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also you [should forgive]. And above all these, love, which is [the] bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you also were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and exhorting yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And everything, whatever you do in word or in work, [do] all things in the name of [the] Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and [the] Father through Him” (Colossians 3:12-17; underlining mine).
One extremely capacious and unbelieving fellow correctly writes about the following things that, taken together, connect love as the bond of perfectness that seeks and promotes each other’s good. This “good” includes taking up the Shield of Faith to defend their brothers and sisters, and drawing out the Sword of the Spirit to hew down the enemies who fixate cruelly and focus their Christ-hating lives on imperfect adherents of the true gospel.
Here are the quotes I referenced above from the one extremely capacious fellow.
“Love is the bond of perfectness that unites the members of this society together. They all have a disposition heartily to seek and promote each other’s good.”
“So Christians have the same common enemies that seek their hurt and overthrow. He that is an enemy to one saint as a saint, is an enemy to all.”
It is no light and breezy thing; it is not a puny peccadillo. Rather, it is a somber and weighty thing to devour God’s people as bread (underlining mine in the Scriptures, below).
“Have all doers of iniquity not known, eating My people [as] they eat bread? They have not called on Jehovah. There they were afraid of terror, for God [is] in the righteous generation. You have shamed the counsel of the afflicted, for Jehovah [is] his refuge. Who will bring the salvation of Israel out of Zion? When Jehovah brings back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice; Israel shall be glad” (Psalm 14:4-7).
“For so says Jehovah of Hosts: He has sent Me after glory, to the nations who plundered you; for he who touches you touches the pupil of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8)
“Brothers, we are bound to give thanks to God always concerning you, even as it is right, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each one of you multiplies toward one another, so as for us to boast ourselves in you in the assemblies of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions, and the afflictions which you endure, a clear token of the just judgment of God, for you to be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you indeed suffer; since [it is] a just thing with God to pay back tribulation to the ones troubling you, and to [give] you, those being afflicted, relief with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from Heaven with angels of His power, in flaming fire giving full vengeance to those not knowing God, and to those not obeying the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will pay the penalty: everlasting destruction from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of His strength, when He comes to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe in that Day, because our testimony to you was believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:3-10).
“The righteous is delivered from distress, and the wicked goes in instead of him” (Proverbs 11:8).
“The wicked [shall be] a ransom for the just, and the treacherous in the place of the upright” (Proverbs 21:18).
Agrammatos 