“LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW.”
By Philip Giddings
The text at the head of this article is a favorite quotation of some who would make void the law. But the attempt is abortive. The text teaches the very thing they quote it to deny; for how could there be the fulfilling of the law if there were not the law to fulfill? How could you fulfill a decree unless there were a decree to fulfill? But if they had only remembered the previous verse, they would see the items of the law spoken of. The fulfilling of the law, in other words, is but the adding up, or the totalling, of the law. And to speak of the adding up, or totalling, of a sum without the items that aggregate that sum, is absurd. “Love is the fulfilling of the law,” illustrated, is simply this:— First Commandment..... 1
Second Commandment... 1
Third Commandment..... 1
Fourth Commandment... 1
4—Love to God.
Fifth Commandment..... 1
Sixth Commandment... 1
Seventh Commandment.. 1
Eighth Commandment... 1
Ninth Commandment..... 1
Tenth Commandment... 1
6—Love to man.
John 14:21-24; 15:10-12; 1 John 5:2, 3; Luke 10:25-28; Matt. 22:34-40. 10—Love (to God and man), the sum total, or the fulfilling, of the law. He loves God who keeps the first four; he loves man who keeps the second six. He fills the law full who keeps both. Nor can he keep the one without the other, for both tables, like the Man-Christ, are so connected, and the individual precepts in both so interrelated, that each commandment stands, or all fall together. 1 John 4:20, 21; 5:2; James 2:10, 11; Matt. 5:17-19. “Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Mark you, He requires of us whole, not part duty. To fulfill the law without the law makes me remember a story: An illiterate father once called his son to write a letter for him. Dictating, he gave the boy a word which the lad could not spell. “Father,” asked the son, “how do you spell that word?” “Spell, my boy?” “Don’t spell it; put it down so.” Can you have a whole without the component parts? “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Ah, yes; if it takes love to fulfill the law, then the law is not that hateful thing some would make it. It is loveful—it is full of love. In the one word “love” is comprehended all there is of God, for “God is love,” and “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” In all God’s universe, there is but one law, and that law, love. Read 1 John 4:7-21; 2:3-5. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the law of love; and the man after God’s own heart will exclaim, “O how love I thy law!” “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18. “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” 1 John 5:3. “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” 1 John 2:3, 4.