Unlimited: Fulfilling the Law
Sep 8, 2023 494
for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law (Romans 13:8b).
The first believers in Jesus were actively engaged in the great spiritual war that has existed since the beginning between performance-based salvation and salvation as God’s free gift of grace. Within the earliest Christian churches, the battle was between those believers who taught a Jewish-style salvation: that God accepted you based on your fulfilment of the law; and those who centred his salvation entirely on the person of Jesus Christ and his free gift of eternal life.
If you love others, you have fulfilled the law.
It isn’t that the law has somehow been abolished. Instead, the apostle Paul sided entirely with Jesus in teaching that if you love others, you have fulfilled the law. When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment in the law, he replied,
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’… And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matt. 22:37–40.)
Observance of the law is never the reason nor the means by which we are made right with God. That is the sacrificial death of Christ, applied to our lives through faith. Our obedience to God is simply the result of having been justified through faith (Rom. 3:24–25.)
Spiritual Application
As you start your day, meditate on the reality that your salvation is not dependent on your performance, but rather on Christ’s unfailing love for you. Accept that love into your life, and purpose to love others as you are loved.
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