The General Intent of God’s Law

The General Intent of God’s Law

The goal of God’s Law is to train us for love.

“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:4

Our day has witnessed a diluting of the word, “love,” like no generation before us. It is not uncommon to express one’s enthusiasm for everything from one’s spouse and children to his church, favorite food, or the latest film or pop tune by using this word. “Love” has thus come to identify a generally favorable disposition toward a great many things. In the process, the real meaning of love, embodied by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is lost to our sensibilities.

The goal of God’s Law is to train us for love, in the first instance, love for God. Jesus explained that all the Law and the Prophets—those Old Testament exponents and advocates of God’s Law—was fulfilled in the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The general intent of God’s Law, therefore, is to define and enforce the terms of love.

“What the world needs now/is love, sweet love” sang the pop star Dionne Warwick in a previous generation. The Beatles chimed in their assent: “All you need is love!” In every age the prophets and sirens of pop culture have insisted that love is the key to human happiness. “Why can’t we all just love one another?” has been the cri de coeur in every age. It remains so today.

This should give us hope that the Law of God, which is designed to teach and lead us into the ways of love, can once again provide a meaningful standard for human conduct. But we must begin where we can, among those who understand the Law’s intent and who will, by their own submission to the rule of God’s Law, be able to demonstrate its power for love, so perfectly embodied in Jesus Christ.

To submit to the rule of God’s Law is to submit to the counsels of love. How can we object to this?

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.