Monday, February 19, 2018

The Centrality of Love



Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Ending up this short study though Romans on the doctrine of justification, we find that, ultimately, Almighty God requires from his people that they love Him above all else and love their neighbors as they love themselves. In fact, love is so vital that of the chief Christian virtues – faith, hope, and love – only love will never pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

So, in order to please the Lord and thank Him for our salvation, we need to love Him and love others. Sounds simple, right? And in one sense, it can be very simple. It is easy for us to complicate things, to come up with rules and checklist that turn the Christian life into a process of checking off our do’s and don’ts. Yet, we must say more than that our duty is love. For, to say that what we need to do is love does not tell us what love is. The problem is that the definition of love is not self-evident.

Romans 13:8-10  Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

In our fallen condition, we cannot figure out what love is with our help. Thankfully, the Lord has given us this help in the form of His moral law. The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” sums up all of the specific regulations found in God’s law. True love has a precise content – God tells us what it is in His law. God intended nothing else by all his commandments than to teach us the duty of love. When we speak of the use of the law as a guide to the Christian life, we are not replacing love with the law. Instead, to seek guidance for what pleases God in the law is to seek what it means to love Him and our neighbor.  Love and the law go hand in hand. Authentic faith bears fruit in a deep love for God’s revelation.

Blessed in Christ.

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