Objection:
The only command we need to keep now is Christ’s new commandment to love one another, for He declared that we should keep His commandments even as He had kept His Father’s commandments. And does not the Bible say that love is the fulfilling of the law?
Answer:
Christ indeed said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” (John 13:34). Would the objector want to reason from this that all other commandments are abolished? The text does not allow such a conclusion. Christ did not say that we should keep His commandments in place of His Father’s commandments. It would be rebellion for the Son to free us from the Father’s laws and set up new ones in their place. Christ’s purpose was not to destroy the great moral teachings and laws given in former centuries. In His sermon on the mount, He declared. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18).
And when we read further in that wonderful sermon, we find Christ telling His hearers that they were viewing various commands of the Ten Commandments in too narrow a sense. Instead of abolishing or even restricting His Father’s commandments, Christ magnified them. (See Isaiah 42:21).
Thus in His commandment to the disciples concerning love, Christ wanted them to view love in a more magnified, more holy sense than formerly. He wanted them to love one another, not as the world interprets love, selfishly or sentimentally. By His life, Christ had set before them an example of true, unselfish love, such love as had never before been witnessed on the earth. In this sense, His commandment might be described as “new.” It charged them, not simply “that ye love one another,” but “that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” John 15:12. Strictly speaking, we have here simply one more evidence of how Christ magnified His Father’s laws.
But what of the statement that love is the fulfilling of the law? The objector often expands this by saying that Christ declared that all we are to do is to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. Let us read what the Bible says precisely on this matter.
“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40).
Christ was here setting forth no new doctrine. On the contrary, He was answering the specific question, “Which is the great commandment in the law?” His answer is almost an exact quotation from the Old Testament. (See Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). In other words, the two great commandments to love God and our neighbor as ourselves definitely belong to Old Testament times. Now then, if these two commandments take the place of the Ten Commandments, why were the Ten Commandments ever given? But the very Israelites who listened to the appeal to love God and their neighbor also listened to the clear-cut command to obey the ten precepts of the Ten Commandments.
No, these two commandments on love do not take the place of any other law. Instead, Christ declared that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” How wrong, then, to make these two commandments hang by themselves and cut off everything else. That is contrary to the teaching of Christ.
According to the Bible, you cannot separate love from the law. “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.” (1 John 5:2-3). Thus reads the Good Book. If we truly love our fellow man, we will not steal his goods or lie about him or kill him. Indeed, we will not do anything prohibited by God’s commandments. And if we truly love God, we will not bow down to false gods, take God’s name in vain, or use His holy Sabbath day for our own purposes. In other words, if we love God and our fellow men, we will not willfully break any of the Ten Commandments. Thus love is the fulfilling of the law. Instead of love being a substitute for the law, it is the one power that brings forth true obedience to God’s commandments. The Bible warns against those who say they know and love God but refuse to keep His commandments. (See 1 John 2:4.) Such love is counterfeit.
