To Keep the Law Is to Love – The Law of God: Questions and Answers

To Keep the Law Is to Love
The Law of God: Questions and Answers

The Law of God shows the way to love.

Question: What did Jesus teach about the Law of God?

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:36-39

The Apostle James, the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, described the Law of God as the “law of liberty” (James 2:12). He said, echoing our Lord Jesus, that those who believe in Jesus should live like people who understood that a day of judgment is coming when all people will be judged by this Law. Indeed, even now a kind of “judgment” lingers over those who believe, such that, whenever we stray from this good path of righteousness, blazed by our Savior, our loving Father will chasten and discipline us until we return to it (Heb. 12:3-11).

And this is as it should be. For, as Jesus taught, the Law of God liberates us from small-mindedness, self-centeredness, and sin, so that we might love God and our neighbors as the Lord intends.

The Law of God restrains our natural, sinful tendency toward inordinate self-love—love for what we want without regard for the holiness of God or the cares and concerns of our neighbors. At the same time, the Law prescribes the ways for entering into God’s love so that we love Him and our neighbors as we should.

Who can object to this? And would we dare say to Jesus, “I’m all for love, but I can love without having to learn or submit to God’s Law”? That, it seems to me, would be foolish.

The Spirit of God within us is striving daily to teach us that the only way to be liberated from the deadly power of self-love is through obedience to the Law of God and all His Word. Not the Word of God excepting the Law, but the Law and all His Word. This is what Jesus taught.

Got a question about the Law of God? Write to T. M. at tmmoore@ailbe.org, and your answer might appear in this series of In the Gates columns.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and study the question for yourself.

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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.