LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW
Today’s Text: Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:10)Today’s Thoughts: If we love others we will not do them any harm. Therefore, if we love God and others we will not break the Ten Commandments. God wants us to love Him and our fellow man. Everyone wants to be loved. No one wants to be mistreated. God wants what’s best for all of us. This is why He wants us to love.
Today’s Testimony: Have you ever heard people say that we don’t have to keep the Ten Commandments anymore because God gave us a new commandment to love? Today I’m going to share the texts that the Lord gave me to explain this theory.
First of all let’s share the text from which some get this false idea, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). Now this new commandment for one only speaks about loving others. Do you believe that it is essential for us to love God too? If your answer was yes, we’ve already hit a problem with the “new commandment” theory. In the very next chapter of the Bible Christ says these words, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). This means that even if we are only required to love, in loving God we will keep His Commandments.
When we started this series I mentioned that the Commandments can be divided into love for God and love for our fellow man. You may go and look at the Ten Commandments again to double check (Exodus 20:1-17). Here are the texts that bring us to this conclusion: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mat 22:36-40). So this means that the Commandments can be summed up in “love”. Read Romans 13:8-10, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” There is no clearer text to explain the simple truth that the new commandment to love was just a more simple way of stating the ten. Think about it… even if Christ did mean that we only have to love now, by default we would have to keep all ten Commandments. We cannot kill and yet claim to love. We cannot dishonour others and yet claim to love. We cannot spend as little time as possible with the Lord and claim to love Him.
But beyond the fact of “love” being a more simple way to state the Ten Commandments, look at it this way. When Christ came the people were “keeping” the Ten Commandments, but most of them were doing it because they had to keep them and thus were doing so with long faces. Think about it this way – you are so angry with someone that you feel you could kill, but you refrain because the Commandment says you mustn’t kill. Yet you still harbour that anger in your heart. For one, that’s why Christ told them that if they “hate” they are breaking that Commandment anyway (Matthew 5:21, 22). But I believe the reason Christ gave us the “new commandment” wasn’t because He was changing anything. We had missed the point – we were “keeping” the Commandments but with hate in our hearts. Christ intended to open our eyes. If we truly focus on loving God and others we will naturally want to keep all ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were never nailed to the cross, nor were they replaced. We had just fallen asleep and needed to be reminded of the reason that God gave the Ten Commandments in the first place. He wants His people to be happy. The Commandments were given for our benefit and the new commandment was given as a reminder. Let’s remember these Commandments given in love.
Today’s Task: Love God and love your fellow man. I invite you to make the commitment to keep all ten Commandments. God gave them for our benefit. Taste the joy of living the life God intended for us to live.
Today’s Thanks: O Lord I praise You that You gave us the Ten Commandments. I praise You that You reminded us that we cannot truly keep Your Commandments if we are doing so with hate. Lord please help us to love You more and to love others more too. Please help us to keep Your Commandments. You gave them for our benefit and we want the blessings that come from keeping them. I thank You that You love us so much. Amen.
