The Law of Love

Scripture Readings: Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-37; Psalm 19.

Texts: Psalm 119:1-3 "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity; they walk in his ways."

1st John 5:3—"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous."

The last half of the second text should never be omitted, as it so often is. In the sermon on "God Is Love" we had for our text "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God Is Love." This shows us what God is and how we may know Him, but it states the fact negatively. The verse immediately preceding it states the same truth positively. "Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." Notice John does not say if you love God, you know God, but "if you love one another"! Elsewhere he has told us that he that professeth to love God and does not love his brother is a liar. The only genuine love for God, —the only love He cares for and accepts, —is manifested here in loving one another. And if we love God in this practical way we do know God and without such love, we cannot know Him.

Men seem slow to learn that love is the same thing in the heart of God that true love is in our own hearts, —the same warm, outreaching, longing, rejoicing, suffering thing, with Him as with us. And it is thus He loves and longs and seeks after the lost. Any a man, by the birth of his first child in the family learns more in a few days about the father love coming into his heart, than he knew of love previous to this experience. And Christ appeals to this very father love in us to help us to understand God. "Which of you, if his son ask for bread, would give him a stone; or if he asks a fish, would he give him a scorpion?"

If God is our loving Father, as Jesus taught, all his law and government is that of a loving Father for His children and is necessary to their happiness. Since love only can know love we want to know something of the nature of the government of God. The whole 119th Psalm is a poem on the law of God. In this text the word "Blessed" means happy, and the happiness is inherent in the obedience itself. The Law of God is not an arbitrary law, but it is the natural law of happiness and life. In infinite wisdom God foreknew the inevitable tendencies of all actions; and in infinite love He foretold them in His law. Spontaneous obedience to this law is happiness and life; disobedience is misery and death.

The whole Word of God, and the whole life of Christ is a study into the motives of God's actions and commands, and John, the beloved disciple gave the grand conclusion when he said "God Is Love". Besides we cannot know a person at all until we know the motives of their action. The action of a Mother, who, in emergency, holds her boy while a leg is amputated and the action of a Modoc Indian torturing his victim looks very much alike on the outside; but the motive shows one act to be heroic Mother love and the other to be savage vindictive hate.

So, we only know God when we see that whatever God does, love can act only with the motives of love. And it is so important to know God that Jesus said, "This is eternal life, to know Thee the only true God."

Seventh Day Baptists believe in the unchangeable and perpetual obligation of the Law of God. I am going to show you why it is unchanging. We are going to mine down until we strike a bed rock foundation for Truth, and for moral obligation that antinomianism can never touch. Every iota of the law rests in the unchanging and eternal love of God. We often hear the Law of God presented as commanding or requiring our love to Him and to our fellows; but almost never as expressing His love to us.

A Lawyer came to Christ, tempting Him, and asking which was the greatest commandment and Jesus answered "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself." And John expresses it that "Love is the fulfilling of the law” or filling full. Only one thing then, the Law commands, or requires, —practical love, that manifests itself in the works of love, which are righteousness. This is not an arbitrary command because love is not subject to arbitrary command but is itself a manifestation of love to win returning love.

Jesus quoted the above commandment to the Lawyer, which shows that He wants our supreme love because He loves us supremely. He has a right to it. When God spoke of Israel as backsliding children, asking them to turn and let Him heal them, it was the language of wounded, suffering love. "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" In the New Covenant the law is ten promises, and we can rest our souls forever on these; ten promises based on one principle and that principal LOVE. If we love Him, we will do all that He requires of us.

"Thou shalt have none other gods before me." If we love Him as He loves us, we will have none other, He will be supreme in our lives. And every one of the ten commandments are based on love, the fourth in the heart of the Decalogue, acknowledging Him as Creator, all are manifestations of God's love towards us and His desire for returning love from His children. "It is easier for Heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail". Why? Because divine love does not change. We have His assurance that His love is unchangeable and eternal.

George E. Fifield