Verse explainer
Love isn't just warm feelings — it takes sides, grieving over wrongdoing and genuinely cheering when truth wins.
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
BSBLove takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth.
The plain meaning
Paul is midway through his portrait of love in chapter 13, listing what love does and doesn't do. Verse 6 gives love a moral spine: it is not neutral. The first half rules out a subtle but ugly pleasure — the quiet satisfaction some feel when a rival stumbles, or the tribal glee over an enemy's ruin. Adam Clarke points out that αδικία here can carry the sense of both unrighteousness and falsehood, so the rejoicing ruled out is any delight in wrong or deceit, including celebrating unjust outcomes when they happen to fall in your favor. The second half is equally active: love genuinely rejoices when truth advances — when honest dealings prevail, when the Gospel spreads, when a person walks uprightly. This is not passive tolerance but a settled alignment of the heart. Read with v. 4 (love is not envious) and v. 5 (love is not easily provoked, takes no account of evil), v. 6 shows that love has a conscience. It cannot be recruited to celebrate what is wrong, no matter how satisfying that might feel in the moment.
The common misreading
What the commentators say
Clarke presses the word αδικία hard, noting it covers both unrighteousness and falsehood. He specifically names the case of someone who, having been wronged, quietly rejoices when God's punishment catches up with the offender — calling that a form of rejoicing in iniquity. Real love, he argues, cannot comfort itself that way. It rejoices instead in the spread of truth and true religion, and actively helps both forward rather than hindering them.
Gill reads the verse in both directions: love grieves over its own sins and over the sins of others, including the failings of fellow believers, which cut a gracious soul to the heart. On the positive side, he ties 'rejoiceth in the truth' directly to the Gospel — a loving person can do nothing against it but only for it, will buy it at any price and sell it on no account, and rejoices whenever he sees others walking in it.
JFB renders the second clause 'rejoiceth with the truth' — love sympathizes with truth in its very triumphs, taking the side of the Gospel rather than tolerating the compromises that a false charity makes. They note that truth and unrighteousness are set in sharp contrast here (as in Romans 2:8), and warn that any charity that glosses over iniquity to keep the peace is precisely what Paul condemns.
The word behind it
'Unrighteousness' or 'injustice' — but as Clarke notes, the word can equally cover falsehood and dishonest dealing. Strong's and Thayer's both confirm the range: legal injustice, moral wrong, and deceit. This matters because the verse isn't only about obvious evil; it also rules out taking pleasure in deception or in outcomes that are unjust even when they happen to benefit you. Love is hostile to the whole family of wrong, not just its most visible members.
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