A person can keep the law without loving. The Bible instructs believers to examine themselves, but does it tell us to what extent or how often we should question our salvation? The aim of the law will be fulfilled more and more in your life. In him, we are perfect with his perfection and in him we are pardoned by his blood. Question: "What does it mean that Jesus fulfilled the law, but did not abolish it?" Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary Romans 13:10, KJV: 'Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.' The law of Christ is not a new list of behaviors without but a new Treasure and Master within. Apart from Christ, we were so sinful, so wicked, so rebellious that Scripture called us children of disobedience. Mine is imperfect. We don’t look alike and we share no DNA, but he will be forever my son and I his father. There are two primary ways of being in a covenant with another person: through adoption and through marriage. How can the law that is NOT void be ended that we also have to establish and be doers of? Denying the image of God in all humans reduces people to things and creates a straight line to abuse, because at the root of abuse is the de-personing of a person. Instead, love is acting or not acting a certain way toward another person. 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. In such a covenant, or treaty, a greater party (God, in this case) created a relationship with a lesser party (the people of Israel) that made them related to each other as if by blood, even though they had no relationship to each other before then. Second, in the broader sense of the whole Pentateuch or the whole Old Testament, we may think of the law not merely as making demands, but as also providing a way for sinners to be justified by faith apart from works, and to please him by walking in love (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6). First, in the narrow sense one may think of the law as commanding perfect obedience which, if we could perform it by faith, would be our righteousness and our justification. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:8-10) Love is an incredible thing. "What is the law?" James 1:25: “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”. Where there is love, especially and really only Godâs love, there will be, can be and is joy. 19Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teache⦠Wherever you look in Scripture, look to Jesus. As we talk about the Law and how Jesus fulfills itâs crucial to understand how it relates to us as Christians today. ), “In the Image of God He Made Them”: How Genesis 1:27 Challenges Sexual Abuse and Misogyny in the Church. Third, my imperfect love is the fruit of my faith in Jesus who is my justifying perfection before God. Benjamin Marx. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. This covenant God established is modeled on a type of covenant in that time and culture called the suzerain-vassal covenant. Love, then, is not about an emotional disposition; it is about acting in a certain way toward others—a way that is consistent with the commandments laid out in the Law. And then he focuses specifically on our walking, that is, our living, as the way the fulfillment will happen: “that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk . so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”, Philippians 1:11: “Having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”. If we donât do everything we do with love, our actions have no meaning. That is, we will be in covenant with each other. (10) Fulfilling of the law. In the modern West we are accustomed to contracts, not covenants. Love, then, is not about an emotional disposition; it is about acting in a certain way toward othersâa way that is consistent with the commandments laid out in the Law. Romans 8:3: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Today we will examine what it means that love is the fulfillment of the law. Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. In the end, the law is fulfilled in me imperfectly because it was fulfilled in him perfectly. For love is the great healer, and you can be great healers when you have great love. Philippians 3:8–9: “More than that, I count all things to be loss . They have no healing properties. Love, then, fulfills the covenant obligations that God has given his children, or as Paul and Jesus said it, “the Law.”. This love is not based on emotions, but an act of the will. According to "the love chapter," agape "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. âTo fulfillâ is not to dissolve the authority and application of the old covenant revelation; rather, âto fulfillâ means to fill up the Lawâs intent and show the goal to which it leads. But that’s not the point here. Make it your aim in all your use of the Scriptures to see and savor more of Christ. His was perfect. It is self-sacrificing, deliberate, active love. He is saying that love fulfills the law. We realize that the law is part of Godâs word meant for our good. Love does not hurt the person you love ("tough love" is horseshit). Just before that he gives a few examples from the book of Exodus: don’t steal, don’t murder, and “whatever other command there may be.” Jesus said something similar when he was asked what the greatest commandment was: “‘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. In the Old Testament book of Exodus, God established a covenant relationship with Israel. Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law - Towards an Understanding of Pauls Use of Torah for His Paraklesis: A Study on Romans 13:8-10. Love Fulfills the Law - Love Fulfills the Law Verse - Love Fulfills the Law Truth - Love fulfills the Law study on Love fulfills the Law quote, Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law meaning, Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law explained, Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law summary, Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law message and how the Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law message affects your Christian walk. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. The God who keeps watch over the nations, this God still speaks today. Russ is an author, editor, teacher, lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew at Ohio Theological Institute. Love that fulfills the law is agape love. For example, when my foster son becomes my adopted son, he will have the exact same inheritance rights as his brothers, and I will be fully responsible for him in the exact same way as I am responsible for my biological sons. And therefore it is the new direction that the law was aiming at and what the new covenant promised. Three times in this text Paul says, more or less, that loving your neighbor as you love yourself fulfills the law. 13:7-8). How does all of this talk of suzerains and adoptions and covenants help us understand what Paul and Jesus mean when they talk about love fulfilling the law (whether love for God or love for others)? All of our resources exist to guide you toward everlasting joy in Jesus Christ. Second, my imperfect love is the first fruits of a final perfection that Christ will complete in me at his appearing. We look to the Spirit of Christ for transformation so that love flows by power from within, not pressure from without. When Jesus was baptized, he went under the water for us — so that he might represent us, and so that we might be with him forever. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Fulfilling the law as per Matthew 5:17 does not mean to abolish. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Contracts, though, are different from covenants, because covenants create bonds of relationship between people that are treated the same as kinship bonds, or blood times. . For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself. In this way the Spirit of Christ will be at work to transform you into his image. and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.”. Philippians 1:6: “For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”, Hebrews 12:22–23: “But you have come to Mount Zion . On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’”, Romans 3:24–25: “Being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. For this, ‘you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”, Galatians 5:13–18: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed.”, Romans 5:19: “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”. Very simple, really. Galatians 3:21–25: “If a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. We’re on a mission to change that. . Who will set me free from the body of this death? Verse 4 says the aim is “that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.” It does not say that the law is to be fulfilled for us. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." [1] For a really good discussion of this, see Sandra Richter, The Epic of Eden (Downers Grove, IL: 2008). The question today is very practical and tremendously important. But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.”, Romans 5:19: “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.”. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 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