There is also a tension between sin and love. Sin, interwoven in the cosmos, is like cancer. It keeps coming back. According to Paul, the Law, meant to bring life, incites sin and brings death. Try not think about a pink hippopotamus. Humans actually are prone to break a law simply because it is a law.
The experiment of the robbers cave (https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html) revealed human nature, community, and violence. The experiment had to be cut short. The moral: sin in its insidious way turns even the good to evil. In this case, a sense of community and belonging incites violence. The Milgram experiment shows how cooperation and obedience can lead to great evil.
But, we don’t need science to tell us this, we have our own lives to bear witness to it.
The other side of this, the hope in despair, is love. Philippians 2:5-11:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death -- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
There is evidence that this was a hymn early Christians used to say to one another. This was a proclamation, telling us who and what we are.
God calls us to embody, rather than imitate, Jesus. We, as the Body of Christ, live within the Law of Love.
We do not own the Love of Christ. We cannot keep it to ourselves. We must share it. This is a new twist on the Parable of the Talents - I need to think more about this.
