The love of many will grow cold,
In Matthew’s gospel, when discussing the ”end times” Jesus says that during that time, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold”.
I never realized that verse could be referring to the love of many Christians growing cold. Unfortunately, the week following the 2024 Super Bowl I saw the love of many Christians grow cold.
If you watched the Super Bowl then chances are you saw this commercial from the “He Gets Us” campaign that has lots of Christian people talking.
The ad simply shows people who are drastically different from each washing each other’s feet as Christ did. It says Christ didn’t show hate, he showed love. It then directed you to its website about loving your neighbor as yourself.
For those who are not Christian or are unfamiliar with feet washing, it signifies showing love for someone by lowering yourself to being like a servant. Like Christ did. The Christian website, GotQuestions.org has the following to say about foot washing:
“In the society of the time, foot-washing was reserved for the lowliest of menial servants. Peers did not wash one another’s feet, except very rarely and as a mark of great love…By washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus taught the lesson of selfless service that was supremely exemplified by His death on the cross…To refuse to follow the example of Jesus [humility and servitude] is to exalt oneself above Him and to live in pride.”
Jesus is often called the suffering servant. He tells us to imitate Him. It is important to note that He didn’t just wash the feet of those who believed in Him, he also washed the feet of Judas who He knew would betray him. The whole point is that He lowered himself below his status to serve and be an example of the unconditional love of God to the world.
What I saw was a commercial that beautifully illustrated the teachings of Jesus Christ and what it should look like today. I also think it did a great job of showcasing the love and compassion of the pro-life movement. You can read more about my thoughts on that in my article He Gets Us Gets the Pro-Life Movement.
Unfortunately, there are many Christians who, for some reason are against this commercial that encourages people to follow Christ. In the weeks since this ad debuted, I’ve heard people call it demonic, racist, political, and “woke”. I have seen comment after comment saying that this is the “theology” or “doctrine” of demons. But last time I checked, demons didn’t want you to follow or obey Christ.
I honestly, in good faith, cannot figure out why supposed christians are saying that. All the commercial does, as their commercials last year did, is reiterate Christ’s teachings. Regardless of who you are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, Christ loves you. He’s not a distant God that is off far away and doesn’t understand you, he came to earth as a human and endured the temptations and struggles that we deal with. He GETS us, He understands us, He can relate to the struggles we have, and he loves us regardless. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It’s all about grace. We didn’t deserve him but he came to us and freely offers forgiveness, eternal life, and a relationship with him to all who simply believe.
The Religious Crowd
From what I’ve seen online, a big chunk of the Christian people attacking the commercial seem to come from a more theologically liberal persuasion that doesn’t hold to a literal historical grammatical hermeneutic of scripture (often pulling scripture out of context, inserting new meanings into scripture, and changing the definition of words). And there are certain branches within that crowd that have a reputation of being more legalistic and condemning in nature. Obviously that isn’t true for every one of the religious people who are against this, but it seems to be a common thread.
I’ve heard people complain because the commercial doesn’t tell people to do good works to be saved, because it doesn’t use a fire and brimstone “you’re going to hell” approach, because it doesn’t focus on condemning people or calling out their sins. First of all, this commercial doesn’t even mention anything about salvation, let alone whether salvation is by grace or works. That isn’t its purpose. Its purpose is simply to remind people to “love your neighbors as yourself”. It lists a website that takes viewers to info about Jesus and links them to an online Bible.
Secondly, even if it was about salvation, those who say it should be more condemning and calling out of sin seem to have forgotten that was not Christ’s approach when he was here on earth. He met people where they were and showed them love and compassion and that led them to a changed life following Him. When He met the woman at the well, He knew her past, He knew she was sleeping around with different men, He knew she was a Samaritan, but that is not what He led with. He led with letting her know that He cared. For all intents and purposes, He should NOT have been talking to her for societal and religious reasons. But that didn’t stop him. He showed her love and compassion and that is what brought her to faith. Not condemnation, not judgement, LOVE. He knew that people like her were already being condemned by others, but He chose to show her grace and love.
One person I know said that he felt “uneasy” about the commercial because it made it sound like Christ’s love was all inclusive and available to all. That shocked me. This line of elitist thinking usually comes from a Reformed position that believes that God only loves some special elect people and hates and damns the rest. They believe in a faulty five-point flowery philosophical system that unravels quickly when compared to scripture. I guess he and his theology missed these verses:
“For God so loved the WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” –John 3:16
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8
“This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He LOVED US and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” –1 John 4:9-11
The commercial simply shows modern day examples of what “loving your neighbor as yourself” looks like. That shouldn’t be controversial to those who claim to follow Christ. When Christ said to love your neighbor as yourself, someone asked “who is my neighbor?” Christ then tells the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. Jews hated Samaritans. They were dirty gentile sinners that could never do any good. Yet he shows in the parable how Pharisees and others passed by the man from Jerusalem who had been beaten and left for dead. They showed no compassion for him because he wasn’t their problem, he wasn’t their neighbor. He then tells how a Samaritan took the time to help and show love to the man. That was unheard of. His point wasn’t to just tell us to help those who need help, it was to help even those who we are diametrically different from. This ad shows what that would look like today.
A son washing the feet of his father, a Hispanic cop washing the feet of a black man, a pro-life woman washing the feet of a young girl outside of an abortion clinic, a daughter caring for her seemingly drunken mother, an old white man washing the feet of Native American man, a preppy cheerleader-looking girl washing the feet of an emo punk rock looking girl, a suburban housewife washing the feet of a seemingly homeless mother, a white woman washing the feet of a middle eastern woman, a black woman washing the feet of an Asian woman, an old black man and old white man washing their feet in the same bucket, a priest washing the feet of what appears to be a transgender person. Those beautiful images are what living for Christ looks like in our society today. It doesn’t matter who someone is, what they’ve done, where they come from, what they look like, what they believe, or what they struggle with, Christ commands his followers to love all in humility and service.
Many commenters and YouTube pundits have gone so far as to completely lie about the ad and insert their own ideas into it. An eisegetical analysis instead of an exegetical analysis. They claim that “it shows that Christ isn’t God”, “Christ accepts your sin”, “Christ doesn’t want you to change”, “it’s okay to live in sin”, “those who sin will be rewarded”, “white people are all racist”, the list goes on and on. None of those sentiments are stated in that ad, their other ads, their book (written with evangelical author Max Lucado), or their website. But I guess that doesn’t matter to people who just want there to be hatred and conflict. There is rarely love shown by those who fixate on condemnation. Many have pointed out what appears to be a transgender person in the ad, a drunk woman, and a woman outside of an abortion facility, and they are angry that those things are shown without the ad saying “these are sins” or “these are wrong”. And because the ad doesn’t, they automatically assume that the ad is affirming of those sins and lifestyles. Again, the ad doesn’t need to address that because that’s not the focus of the ad. It’s simply to encourage people to love your neighbors as yourself. They seem to forget that once someone starts to follow Christ, it is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict and change their old lives into one that glorifies God. If they actually paid attention, on the website FAQ section about LGBTQ people it clearly says that Jesus loves them (because they are humans) and that He offers forgiveness. If they were trying to push a pro-LGBTQ “agenda” (like many claim they are) they wouldn’t say that those people need forgiveness for their actions.
The He Gets Us website says they are founded by an organization “committed to sharing the life and love of Jesus, that believes Jesus was human and divine, he rose from the dead, and more”
They are a small team of less than 10 people “who are curious about this man (Jesus) and his story and want to explore it for themselves, those reconstructing their faith, and those who believe in their hearts that Jesus Christ is the son of God. All of us work together relentlessly to share the transformative power that unconditional love, forgiveness, and sacrificial generosity have to change us, our families, our communities, and our country.”
They recognize the hurt, loneliness, and pain in this world and also how many who claim to be Christians have caused a lot of hurt and pain by not living out their faith. They simply want to rectify that and point people back to Christ.
“We love because he first loved us.” –1 John 4:19
“I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” –John 13:34
Another reason why I think many in the Christian crowd have their backs up about this as is because of the overuse of the word “love” by the LGBTQ community. It has long been a tactic of the LGBTQ community to use the phrase “love” in all their marketing. “Love is love” and “love, wins” etc. They also try to redefine love as meaning that you must affirm and agree with what everyone does and says. Their overuse and new definition of that word has made many who believe LGBTQ actions are sinful think that any use of the word “love” means it is part of the “LGBTQ agenda”.
I think many assume that when this ad talks about loving one another and shows what appears to be a member of the LGBTQ community, then that is what they mean. They think rather than speaking of Christ’s love, the ad has to be talking about the more worldly definition. It’s a Christian ad putting out quotes from Jesus, it’s pretty clear that they define love as Jesus defines it rather than how the world defines it.
The Political Crowd
While the first crowd mainly consisted of more theologically liberal people, the second crowd hating on it mainly consists of the far right politically conservative people.
It seems like any time someone other than white people are shown, for many on the right, it automatically makes it a political statement. They are calling this ad “liberal” and “woke” because it shows a Hispanic cop washing the feet of a young black man, because it shows what appears to be a transgender person having their feet washed by a priest, a preppy girl washing the feet of a emo goth looking girl, a white man washing the feet of a Native American, a white woman washing the feet of a middle eastern woman. When they look at those things, they think it is trying to further push what they see as the liberal “woke” agenda.
Again, the entirety of the message was to reiterate “love your neighbor as yourself”, and from that biblical story, it was about loving even those diametrically opposed to you. And those images showed a vast array of people groups that have historically been in opposition to each other in the 200+ years of the United States and have often been accused of hating one another. White and black, 2 different minorities, drunk and sober, police and black, popular and unpopular, Native American and white, pro-life and pro-abortion, LGBTQ and Christians.
If they had taken the time to actually look at the images and read the site that the commercial links to, they would see what the real purpose of the commercial and campaign was. Instead they automatically were triggered, jumped to conclusions, jumped onboard he cancel culture train, and tried to make a non-political ad political. News flash: not everything is political.
Their website states,
“We’ve done a lot of homework on our culture. We researched how people feel about each other and what they think about Jesus and Christianity. We’ve connected with thousands of people of various faith traditions and those who claim no religion. We spoke to all kinds of people — different backgrounds, beliefs, and, yes, political affiliations. And this is what we’ve learned: From politics to sexuality and religion, so many of us feel like our values, beliefs, and identities are under attack by the ideological “others” around us. Many perceive those who differ with them on issues of justice, dignity, and humanity as not just wrong or misguided but also as evil. As enemies. We often see these “others” as close-minded, selfish, hypocritical — and if we’re honest, many of us respond in kind.
The more ideologically defensive we become, the more we are willing to sacrifice things like kindness, patience, and the respect and dignity of others for the sake of victory — the righteous ends justifying the dehumanizing means. And it’s tearing us apart. We experience it in politics, in the workplace, in schools, and even in churches. And at the heart of the conflicts is a fundamental disagreement about what it means to be good.
Throughout our shared history, Jesus has represented the ultimate good that humankind is capable of aspiring to. And though some no longer believe in God, most are still compelled by the idea of a person capable of unconditional love for others despite their differences. But many of us simply cannot reconcile the idea of that person with the way our culture experiences religion today. Whether it’s hypocrisy and discrimination in the church, or scandals both real and perceived among religious leaders, or the polarization of our politics, many have relegated Jesus from the world’s greatest love story to just another tactic used to intensify our deep cultural divisions.
How did we get here? And what might we learn from the example of Jesus to help move beyond the animosity we feel for one another? How can we rediscover the life and teachings of Jesus, the world’s most radical love activist? That is our agenda at He Gets Us: to move beyond the mess of our current cultural moment to a place where all of us are invited to rediscover the love story of Jesus. Christians, non-Christians, and everybody in between. All of us.”
As you can see, the campaign goes out of its way to be strictly NON-POLITICAL and to stir one another to reconcile differences. The reaction of this commercial from both of theses big groups I’ve listed has proven EXACTLY what the organization’s website says is the main issue.
Conclusion
As a believer in Christ, I have been horribly grieved by seeing my fellow Christians attack this ad that simply reiterated Jesus’ command to us. To see Christians call Jesus’ teaching “demonic” was shocking. The past few weeks have been rough for me grappling with what I was seeing. It was like I was living in the Twilight Zone. Christians saying we shouldn’t show agape love to everyone, Christians saying Jesus was all about condemning people.
There is some comfort in knowing that others have been seeing this happen as well. Russell Moore once spoke about how multiple pastors told him about experiences after preaching about the sermon on the Mount. Congregants asked them after the sermon where he got the liberal talking points about “turning the other cheek”. The pastors told them they were quoting Jesus, to which the congregants said “that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” I’ve seen similar remarks from people I know claiming that we can’t rely on Jesus’ teachings if we want to “win”. They resort to worldly tactics in order to “win” whatever worldly politically driven war they are in. They have no problem with name calling and putting other people down because it makes them seem tough. They justify their name calling and condemnation of others by saying they are “speaking truth”. Instead of focusing on the majority of what Jesus spoke and taught about, they fixate on him flipping the tables and calling out the pharisees. Sadly, they forget some key verses about how important love is.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 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.” –John 3:17-21
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ” –1 Corinthians 5:12-13
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” –1 Corinthians 13:1-8
During this time of reflection on all that I had seen and heard, a completely random fragment of a verse popped into my head: “the love of many will grow cold”. It’s an odd verse to jump into my head, so I figured it must be important for the Lord to bring it to my mind. I looked up the passage and it was in chapter 24 of Mathew’s gospel. Jesus is discussing the ”end times” and in verse 12 He says,
“Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold”. -Matthew 24:12
Seeing what was transpiring before me made me see this verse in a different light. I always thought that verse was talking about the evil sinful world becoming so lawless that nobody loved like they used to. That is certainly a possibility of what it means, however, it could be seen a different way.
Due to the state of rampant sin, evil, and lawlessness that engulfs our world, so many Christians have gotten discouraged and feel defeated. So many Christians have allowed anger of sin and politics to drown out the teachings of Christ. They’ve resorted to rudeness and hatred rather than following Jesus’ teachings to love as He loved us. A people who are supposed to be known by their love for others has allowed the things of the world to turn their love cold.
One of the pastors at my church reached out to me about my frustration and shared this verse with me.
“But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,” –Philippians 1:18
Even if this ad was produced by someone who had false or deceptive motives (which I have seen nothing to indicate that being true) Jesus Christ is still being talked about by so many people, and in that we should rejoice.
The View Point 