Jesus & The Law

The regenerate and unregenerate person both have a hard time understanding how Law and love go hand-in-hand.  At times, Christians want to make up their own model of what the everyday Christian looks like.  They come up with ideas, slogans, and programs, sometimes even misrepresenting Scripture in order to get their own point across. People in and out of Christianity want to interpret their own way of living, based on what they think Jesus would have done.  What they totally forget at times is that Jesus – in every way – lived out the Law – the moral, civil, and ceremonial Law. Christ, because of His love for His Father, enjoyed living out the Law of God for two reasons:

1.  Christ’s Love for His Father – John 17

2.  Christ’s Love for His people/to have victory over sin – Hebrews 2:14-18

Christ knew that the Law itself represented the very character of who He was and who His Father was; therefore, breaking that Law was impossible for Him. However, temptation to do so was very real and was one way that Christ showed His love for the Father – that is, by fulfilling and obeying the Law in its entirety.

It is seen many times throughout Scripture how examples of God’s Love interweave with His Law.  When one looks at Christ’s example of obedience and love for the Law, we can truly live accordingly also. The Apostle Paul expressed this best in Romans 11: 8-10:

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Paul addresses the Romans so that they would see that love and Law go hand-in-hand.  The believer cannot love like Christ without living according to the Law; likewise, the believer cannot live according to the Law with out loving like Christ.  When one truly understands that the Law of God flows from His love for His people, to humble them and see how beautiful Christ is, then one can truly value and come to the understanding of how love and Law cannot be separated. J. Douma states the personal effect this has on the individual, when he states:

“Apart from Christ, the law condemns us; but in the hands of Christ, the law remains the charter of our liberty. It functions this way as the foundation for knowing our misery (it drives us to Christ) and as the rule for gratitude (it teaches us the form of Christian living.)”^[1]

^[1] Douma, The Ten Commandments, p. 10-11.