Cover the Sin with Love

"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. ⁸ And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." 

1 Peter 4:7-8

One little word makes a huge difference.  This is one of the verses from the King James Version I have been memorizing lately.  In the New King James Version, the last part of verse 8 is a quote taken from Proverbs 10:12:  "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins."  I am most familiar with 1 Peter 4:8 in the NKJV which reads, "And above all things have fervent love for one another, for "love will cover a multitude of sins."  As I repeated the verse a few times according to the KJV, I began to consider the difference between the use of "a multitude" or "the multitude."  Though I am not a Greek scholar by any means, upon further examination the original Greek in this passage does not contain the definite article "the."  The English indefinite article "a" does not appear in Greek at all!  The text literally says, "...love will cover multitude sins."  In translating the Greek into English, "the" or "a" have been added as well as "of" to allow the verse to flow naturally.

One thing I refuse to do is to pit differing literal translations of the Bible against one another.  I do not believe I need to choose either the King James or the New King James version as divinely inspired and view the other as spiritually-substandard.  The words we read in English are intended to aid us in knowing God as revealed in scripture.  Both versions are fully supported with scripture.  With the help of the Holy Spirit granting us wisdom and discernment, we can know the heart of God because He dwells within us.  Love covers a multitude of sins, and love covers the multitude of sins.  This minor difference reveals two versions of a single, powerful truth.  As I read the scripture over and over to memorize it, the truth "love shall cover the multitude of sins" made a deep impression upon me.

Peter encourages the believers to above all have fervent love among them.  The Bible says Christians are to be known for our love for God and one another.  There are some in the world which ignorantly brand all Bible-believing, church-attending, Christ-professing people as hypocrites.  This is only partly true.  A more true and accurate statement is, "All people are hypocrites."  The great irony is that the only way to become a Christian is to first admit that you are a rotten sinner, doomed to eternal damnation and separation from God because of your own sin.  After confessing sin in repentance, a Christian is born again through faith in Jesus Christ and receives forgiveness of sins.  No doctrinally sound Christian could claim he is sinless through his own merit, as 1 John 1:10 says, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him [God] a liar, and His word is not in us."  As a follower of Jesus Christ, we are to forsake sin and walk according to Christ's precepts.  But no man clothed in human flesh can do this perfectly.  We all stumble and fall, and we are not hypocrites to admit it.  In fact, we begin to strip away our hypocrisy when we do this!

What comfort there is for Christians in 1 Peter 4:8:  "And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins."  There are some people who have spent years looking for a church that meets their standards.  These same people would probably leave a church where Jesus Christ Himself was pastor because of all the sinners who attended!  Love does not just cover "a multitude of sins," but "the multitude of sins."  Even in church fellowships with only a few people, there are multitudes of sins represented.  Jesus knew and knows this:  people are sinners who need a Saviour!  I love the fact that Peter does not speak theoretically:  "If there's a multitude of sins, love will cover them."  No!  He says, "There are sins in abundance, and love covers them all."  Proverbs 10:12 affirms, "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins."  God knows our frame:  He remembers we are dust.  We do well to remember this too and refuse to stand in judgment of one another because a person's Bible translation of choice is a different translation than our own.

Proverbs 17:9 reads, "He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends."  When the Christians in Corinth were taking private matters of offense before the legal system, he had strong words of challenge for them in 1 Corinthians 6:7:  "Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?"  It would be better for me to allow myself to be cheated than to stray from walking in love.  1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us a wonderful description of this kind of love:  "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."  I can't count how many times I have read this passage, but it still blows me away.  What love is this, the love of God shown sinners through Jesus Christ!  We can't shed our blood to forgive sins, but we can cover them with the love of Jesus as we trust Him.  Let us be faithful to cover the multitude of sins with God's love.