How can you be sure love wins?

Carrie Underwood has a single out at the moment called “Love Wins”. It’s one of those anthems that has a catchy tune and is full of noble sentiments—telling us that even though life is terrible at times, a day is coming when love will win, so we should reach out and care for each other. Well, you can’t disagree with that. It almost sounds Christian, although she makes no mention of God. But my question is, how can you be sure love will win?

The reason I ask is because the prevailing belief system most people live with provides no reassurance that that will happen at all. Listen to Richard Dawkins as he writes about the universe he believes we live in:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

There you have it: no justice, just pitiless indifference. That gives no guarantee that love will win at all and effectively removes any reason even to show love. And that makes Carrie Underwood’s song look like an empty and sentimental hope that we are powerless to bring about, rather like building a sandcastle to live in and hoping that the tide doesn’t come in. Love can’t win, because the selfish gene has to reproduce.

But, of course, Carrie Underwood is basically right, even if it is for the wrong reason. For a start, the universe is not driven by blind physical forces, but by the wisdom and sovereign power of God. This means that, in the face of all the evils the world throws up (and did you notice that Dawkins says there is no evil or good?) God will bring justice. More than this, truth will triumph, wrong will be defeated, and love will win. And we know this because we have seen how love has already won.

We see the victory of love in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was both love and justice that sent Jesus to the cross. Justice demanded that we should face the penalty of our sins and that we should be punished and separated from God. Love drove Jesus to be the one who would pay that penalty for us, enduring separation from God and dying in our place. But Jesus then rose from the dead, defeating death and showing that love’s offering had been accepted and justice was satisfied. And this victory 2,000 years ago assures us that that God’s love will conquer the world in the end. We will see people from every nation finding their place under his love.

So how should we live in the light of this? If we know love has already won, then sacrificial love must be our answer, since that is what the Saviour has modelled for us.  Dawkins’ empty philosophy strips away any hope for the future, purpose for life, and reason to be loving, but we are not following him. We follow the God who is love, has loved us from eternity, sent his Son in love to redeem us, and now calls us to imitate him in living a life of love. We have no excuse for withholding love, acting selfishly, or turning away from people in need. It’s what it means to be salt and light, so let’s make sure we find ways of making a loving impact on our world and our community.