Law and Love

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10)

Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (Matthew 5:17-18 NKJV)

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:11-12)

I have been stirred inside recently as I have been wondering how to relate properly to some who feel very agitated about any talk of the law. They are very excited and insistent about the importance of grace and love and mercy, but anytime any mention of the law is made they become very reluctant to listen and feel quite threatened as if thinking about the law will steal away the joy they need from embracing God's mercy and love for them.

As I meditated on my current passage of study this morning I noticed something very significant, a pattern that has great importance to both the study of the law and of love. I am seeing that the two are really inseparable and to think that we can just live on love and grace and mercy without any reference to the law is like trying to learn to fly without ever taking gravity into account. Gravity is a very powerful and dangerous principle that cannot be ignored except at the peril of your very life. But when respected and appreciated for what it is and related to properly, gravity is something that becomes an ever-present element of pretty much everything we do, an assumption built into most of our day to day decisions and activities.

Just so, the Law of God is really something of a raw description of what we otherwise know as love. Yes, it has been given very dark connotations by the enemy of the law, the great accuser of both God and the brethren and and the law's archenemy Satan. But Satan is also the greatest enemy of love as well. He has come up with many very convincing counterfeits to love and many of them look very appealing and often make us feel extremely good inside for awhile. But nothing can replace the genuine, selfless love that can only be had by a connection with the only source of love, God Himself.

What can be seen in these verses when properly understood and not resisted, is the fact that the law and love are amazingly the very same thing. In the above reference, Jesus very plainly declared that He had no intention whatsoever of reducing the power or importance of the law but came to fulfill it. In reality He came to amplify the law, not reduce or displace it with some new thing called love. Yes, He did come to displace our very distorted ideas about the law, but those mistaken beliefs are not really the law but false ideas about the law implanted by the great deceiver.

There has been a lot of argument, especially by those desiring to set aside the importance of God's law, over what this word fulfill really means in this statement by Jesus. They try to claim that the law was done away with at the cross and that we no longer are under obligation to keep the law because Jesus kept it on our behalf. They teach that somehow because of Jesus fulfillment of the requirements of the law that God now excuses everyone who believes in Jesus from the need to obey the law perfectly, for they believe that Jesus is their substitute “obeyer”. But that kind of logic is simply fallacy and wishful thinking and cunningly deceptive doctrine that plays into the cravings of the flesh. This kind of theology is based firmly on a subtle desire to have the advantages of being right with God while at the same time making provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts (Romans 13:14).

As seen very plainly above in verses 8 and 10 as well as other places throughout the Bible, love itself is the fulfillment of the law. So instead of fighting against the law and having my heart full of resistance (a potentially fatal mistake), I need to see that love itself is the only answer or means by which the law can be satisfied and I can become aligned with the principles of creation called law. For it is only as I am perfectly aligned with the true principles that describe reality will I ever be safe to be exposed to the powerful, glorious but dangerous atmosphere of God's heart that is filled with more passion and love than I can ever imagine.

So how did Jesus fulfill the law? Jesus was the perfect demonstration of the genuine love that the Godhead has for human beings and He demonstrated it in the way He treated everyone in His life here on earth. He also demonstrated in His death the natural consequences of what will inevitably happen to those who reject God's ways of love. Cut off from the Source of all life and love there is nothing left but suffering and death – the eternal kind of death. This eternal is not time-oriented but is psychological in nature.

I am coming to believe more and more firmly that the main reason Jesus came to this earth was to change our mind about how God feels about us, not to execute some legal maneuver to create a loophole so that sinners can get into paradise by saying a few “magic” words about their faith in Jesus. For it is not God's mind that need changing in the slightest – God is not the problem and is not mad at us. It is humanity that has the distorted, deceived notions about God and is angry at Him.

So when Jesus talked about fulfilling the law, when I connect these verses in Romans 13 with what Jesus said I see that He indeed fulfilled the law by demonstrating perfect love. But the law still needs to be fulfilled in everyone, not just one human being. And that is the whole purpose of salvation, to provide a way for everyone who is willing to be re-created and re-inspired by the breath of God so that they can become once again perfect reflectors of true love which is the perfect fulfillment of the law.

Far from avoiding talk or meditation on the law, those who believe they should champion love and mercy and grace should be embracing the law. (See Psalms 119) Not of course, in a legalistic way, for that itself is due to the lack of love as the motivation for obedience. But we should be more aware of the incredible integration between the law and the perfect love that God has in His heart for all of His creation. Just because we are not yet fully like God and thus not perfectly transformed into the ultimate description given by the law does not mean we should avoid studying that perfect pattern and description of the One who is perfect love. Since the law and love both emanate from the heart of the same Source and describe the same Being, we should be very wary of trying to avoid one while thinking we are embracing the other. That is really trying to be schizophrenic.

Most people believe that Jesus was a wonderful example of love; very few people would deny that, even those of other religions. It is also true that Jesus was the perfect example of obedience to the law; most Christians base their hope of salvation on that doctrine. But if we try to claim, as many Christians propose, that Jesus' obedience to the law exempts us from the need to also obey perfectly, then the same argument would have to apply that because Jesus was our perfect example of love then we no longer need to love.

The real problem lies in the fact that we cannot do either one of these things of ourselves. I cannot perfectly love because I am not focused enough on the real Source of love and I have no love within me without that connection. And because I do not love enough I also, to the same degree, fail to obey the law properly – I do not fulfill it. For as Paul states unequivocally here, love itself is the fulfilling of the law. But love must come first or true obedience can never materialize.

So based on the fact that all of us are nothing more than mirrors, and any love or light that is seen in us is only that which we have received from God, I need to spend my time and concentration on knowing God much better and seeking His face as He has invited me to do. And the closer I get to the perfect Source of light and love the more my life will resonate with that same love toward others and back to God. Then, as a natural consequence of living that kind of life with that kind of focus, natural obedience will just flow out of me without me even realizing it. And in so doing the law will be fulfilled through me by the indwelling Christ living in my heart.

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