Although no interpretation of biblical love may be used to overthrow the responsibility for scriptural separation, no amount of hate may be employed to bring about a schism among true believers if we follow biblical separation.

When so many believe love and peace and unity are greater than truth, we must still persist:

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace (James 3:17-18).

Two great truths are presented in this passage from James. First, the use of the tongue in the ministry and in private should be "pure." The Greek word for pure (hagnei) is a cognate of hagios, which means separation and holiness. All of our words must be spoken in "wisdom." Vine expounds: "First in rank and time. Hagnos is from the same root as hagios (holy), old adjective, pure from fault, not half-good and half-bad; like that above." The man of God does not conduct his ministry or his life by the earthly mood of his generation but by the heavenly norm of eternity. He knows that his very first responsibility in his ministry is to please God.

Second, this passage places peace after purity. Then comes gentleness, approachableness, mercy, fruitfulness, without hesitancy and hypocrisy. The first and last words ("pure" and "without hypocrisy") box in all other words into a submission that this heavenly wisdom demands. The postscript (verse 18) assures the reader that the heart of such a man of God has peace in it, and only those who act with a peaceable heart are entitled to any peace procured through these wise ministries of the tongue.

In the 1990's, men are seeking peace without purity. The conflict is not between love and hate; it is between righteousness and sin. All love is not good, and all hate is not evil. The Bible interprets its own words, and these biblical definitions are according to God rather than deduced from man's experience. It may seem like an impossible combination to find, but we must seek God Almighty in prayer and execute our ministries with both biblical love and a biblical hate. We still believe that wherever Jesus went people either loved Him or hated Him. There is no world of in-between in this matter; we are either for Christ or against Him, and only a biblical separation is the answer. I know of no other way to have doctrinal purity or an honest heart than to pursue and persist in a practical separation from those who do not believe in the fundamentals of the Bible, as well as from those who do not behave separated from those who do not believe in the same biblical fundamentals. Otherwise, confusion and hypocrisy will reign.

The balance of biblical separation remains:

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us (II Thessalonians 3:6).

A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject (Titus 3:10).

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted (Galatians 6:1)