God's Love And His Law...themes first John pt 6

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.( I John 5:2-3)

The Apostle John wrote an epistle to restore the faith of those who had been ravaged by the distorted spirituality of the gnostics. As part of the cure, he declared three statements about the nature of the only true God; God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all, God is Love, and finally, Jesus Christ has come (and remains) in the flesh.

The nature of God’s love is vastly misunderstood in this day of humanism. An example of this misunderstanding is the popular perception that God’s love is antithetical to God’s law. In fact in the teaching of the myth of God’s “unconditional love”*, God’s love is often perceived as liberating people into a form of lawlessness. Law and Love are considered to be mutually exclusive terms in modern evangelicalism.

But the Bible makes no such distinction. In scripture, love and law are not opposites, rather they are compliments. Consider these words of Jesus himself,

He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.(John 14:21)

God is love… Holy Love. The revelation of his love in the gospel, humbles us and brings us back into right relationship with God, and with each other. Consequently we are “born again” into a different relationship with God’s law. We once hated the Law because We hated God, the lawgiver. The commandments, in fact, the authority of anyone to command anything of me, was an intolerable burden for we who were rebels.

Now that we have been saved, we love God, his authority and his Law word. “His commandments are no longer grievous” to us, for those who have received eternal life, consent to the Law of God, that it is good. In fact the true “New Covenant” is the inscription of the Law of God upon the heart of the believer.

This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”(Jeremiah 31:33)

Lawlessness is not the love of God. Lawlessness is iniquity… God hates lawlessness. There is no gap between God’s Love and God’s Law because only by love is it even possible to keep the law, our problem has always been that we don’t love God, nor our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.

The Law to us is the instruction of Love. How should I “love the Lord my God with all of my heart, soul mind, and strength”?

The first table of the ten commandments is the primal teaching on how God wants to be loved by man. He would have all of our devotion, (First commandment) , He wants us to Love Him as He has revealed himself , not as we would like to imagine him to be,(Second commandment). He wants us to fear Him(Third commandment). He wants us to take time weekly to worship and remember him, (Fourth commandment).

The second table of the ten commandments is instruction of “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Love is the fulfilling of the law, for Loving one’s neighbor means honoring legitimate authority, loving his life, Marriage, property, good name and reputation, and being happy for what God has blessed him with.

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.(Romans 13: 8-10)

Much of the confusion over this issue is born out of teaching against legalism, and bondage to the Law of Moses. It is true that Christ has delivered us from the Law of Moses, but 9 out of the ten commandments are re-iterated in the New Testament, which is called “the Law of Christ”. Loving Christ means accepting his rule.

Furthermore, we no longer serve under a slavish Spirit of bondage, we now serve God under a principle of Sonship. We have already been redeemed, in joyful gratitude to the One who loved us first, we come under the “Law of Love”.

When Jesus said, "keep my commandments", He wasn't referring to the of Moses. We have died to the law. When the Jerusalem council considered the Law and Christianity, Acts 15, they brought forward four commands. Just four.

There are New Testament commandments. Amazing how many Christians think New Testament commands are inferior to the Law. They aren't. Here are a few:

1. "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, " Acts 17:30.

2. "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’" Matthew 28:18-20
This is referred to as a commandment in Romans 16:25, 26

3. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34.

4. "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife." 1 Cor 7:10,11

5. "How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. . . . . . . . . If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord." 1 Cor 14:26-37

6. "For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, . . . Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit." 1 Thess 4:2 8

7. "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." 2 Thess 3:6

8. "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread." 2 Thess 3:10 12

9."And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.". 1 John 3:23. Did you catch that? THIS is His commandment . . Yet it's rarely taught.

10. “Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.” 1 Cor 9:14

These (and a few more) are what the Great Commission commands us to teach.

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