The Law of Love
This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.
(I Jn.5:2-4)
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
(Deut.7:9)
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
(Deut.10:12-13)
As we work through this birth we will touch again and again on the idea that the Law of God is a law of love. God gives the Law because of His love for His Church. The Law is for our good. The Lord speaks through the mighty prophet Isaiah to remind us that what He commands is what is best for us. ‘If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river’ (see Is.48:17-19). It is the expression of the character of the God who is love (I Jn.4:16). It is the expression of His love. It is literally satanic to think of the Law of God has something designed to impoverish us, limit us, restrict us, or abuse us (Gen.3:1-7). The Law is for our nurture, our protection, our good, and when we disregard it or disobey it, we not only impugn the Lord’s glory, we injure ourselves.
And the Law is the articulation of our love for God. We are so very familiar with Jesus’ immense summary of Law, bringing together two OT passages: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt.22:37-40). It is love for God and neighbour that gives takes us to the heart of our obedience to the Law. It is love for God and neighbour that gives the Law its shape and structure, content and coherence. Without love, the Law is at best an empty and hollow parody, at worst it is downright dangerous. Without the Law, love is powerless to find authentic expression.
Strange though it may sound to us, as fallen creatures we don’t know how to love in a way that reflects the heart of the living God. We don’t know how to love each other, and we don’t know how to love Him. And even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to without His having first loved us. We may find this disturbing, and difficult. We may feel confident that we do know what love is, and that it is simply untenable to suggest that those who aren’t Christians don’t know how to love. Yet this is the burden of passages such as I John 4:13-5:2. John’s contention is that we can only love our brothers and sisters in Christ as we are loved by God, and in turn love God and carry out His commands. The Law is what gives our love shape and integrity. The two commandments are divisible. You cannot love your neighbour without loving God. And you cannot love God with loving your neighbour.
We’ll have a chance to revisit this in the questions below, but we have to appreciate that much of what passes for love falls far short of God’s vision and character. It is not too much to say that before we have (been) encountered (by) the love of Christ we have never encountered love (I Jn.3:16). Pale reflections and faint echoes perhaps, but nothing more. And our protests to the contrary simply suggests that we have experienced too little of Christ’s love to be able to tell the difference!? Meditation on John’s Epistle leaves us little room for manoeuvre (see e.g. I Jn.4:7-8). The difference between the Church hand the world should be far greater than we generally conceive (I Jn.3:14-15).
What John teaches is simply another way of saying that we cannot obey the Law without first knowing God. Only in this primal encounter of the love of God in Christ are we able to obey His commands, and only by obeying His commands are we able to love Him (John 14:15-31, mirroring the dynamics of Christ’s love for His Father). To set up ‘love’ and Law’ as if they were in any sense incompatible, or even as if they were opposed to each other, is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Biblical Christianity. To disregard the Law is to disregard love. To disregard love is to disregard God.
Questions
Do the introductory notes faithfully reflect the teaching of the Bible? Is it untenable to say that only Christians, who have been loved by God in Christ, know how to love?
Why do you think we should keep some parts of the Law as Christians, but not others? Is this incoherent?
Does seeing God’s Law as a ‘Law of love’ change your view on keeping it? How would you define ‘love’?
Read Mark 12:28-34 & Rom.13:8-10
Why do you think the command to love God and neighbour in this way qualifies as the ‘most important’?
What do you think it means ‘love’ God and neighbour in the context of this ‘most important’ commandment?
Why is keeping the Law ‘more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices’ (Mk.12:33)? Does this verse have anything to say to us now that ‘burnt offerings and sacrifices’ are no longer part of the Church’s worship?
What is it about the teacher’s interaction that shows Jesus he is not far from the Kingdom of Heaven?
Why does Jesus leave him still outside (not far from) the Kingdom of Heaven (Mk.12:34)? What can we learn from Jesus’ example?
Why does Paul style the command to love one other as a ‘debt’? How should this affect how we see those in our Church? Is there a specific way I can demonstrate this love over the next few days?
How does Paul understand the Ten Commandments? How do you think he would respond to someone who said that Christians weren’t ‘under the Law’?
Catechism:
258. What is God’s Law? God’s Law (Hebrew, torah: “instruction”) is God’s direct pronouncement of his will, both for our good and for his glory. (Deut.30; Ps. 19:7–11; 119:89–104; Gal.3:15–24)
…
261. How did Jesus fulfill God’s Law? For our sake, Jesus fulfilled God’s Law by teaching it perfectly, submitting to it wholly, and dying as an atoning sacrifice for our disobedience. (Ps.119:49–72; Is.53:4–12; Matt.5:17–20; Rom.8:1–4; Heb.10:1–18)
262. How can you obey God’s Law? As I trust in Jesus’ fulfilment of the Law for me and live in the power of the Holy Spirit, God grants me grace to love and obey his Law. (2 Kings 18:1–8; Prov.3:1–12; Jn.15:3–11; Rom.6:15–23; 1 Jn.5:2–5)
263. Why are you not able to do this perfectly? Sin has corrupted human nature, inclining me to resist God, to ignore his will, and to care more for myself than for my neighbours. However, God has begun and will continue his transforming work in me, and will fully conform me to Christ at the end of the age. (Ps.14; Jer.17:1–13; Rom.3:9–23; 7:21–25; Phil.1:3–11)
264. How should you understand the Ten Commandments? I should understand them as God’s righteous rules for life in his kingdom: basic standards for loving God and my neighbour. In upholding them, I bear witness with the Church to God’s righteousness and his will for a just society. (Deut.4:1–8; Ps.119:137–44, 160; Matt.5:17–48; Rom.7:7–12; 13:8–10)
265. How do the Ten Commandments help you to resist evil? They teach me that God judges the corrupt affections of this fallen world, the cruel strategies of the devil, and the sinful desires of my own heart; and they teach me to renounce them. (Deut.8; Ps.19:7–14; Jn.16:7–15; Rom.2:1–16)
266. How do the Ten Commandments help you to grow in likeness to Christ? They reveal my sin in the light of God’s righteousness, guide me to Christ, and teach me what is pleasing to God. (Deut.4:32–40; Ps.19; 119:127–35, 169–76; Gal.3:19–26; James 1:21–25; 2:8–13)
267. How should you keep the Ten Commandments? Because they both contain God’s prohibitions against evil and direct me toward his good will, I should both repent when I disobey them and seek by his grace to live according to them. (Ps.25:11–18; Rom.6; Col.3:5–17)
