p. 86 | The Law of Christ-What Is It?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 29, 1871

The Law of Christ—What Is It?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

THE phrase, “law of Christ,” occurs but once in the Bible. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Gal. 6:2. Those who claim that the law of God is abolished, undertake to make great capital out of this, and have a great deal to say about the law of Christ, asserting that it includes all the law there is in the New Testament, by which Christians are to be governed. It is well for us, then, to inquire what this law of Christ is. Turning back to John 13:34, we find when this law was given, and how much it includes, and just what it is. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” This is expressly declared to be a new commandment, and it is, indeed the enunciation of a new principle of action not previously taught. Before this they were required to love their neighbors as themselves. Lev. 19:18. But now Christ says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” How did Christ love them? He loved them better than himself, for he laid down his life for them. Now, says Christ, from this time forward do you go forth and love one another like that. This we understand to be the new law of Christ. It does not indeed supersede the old law; but it is a higher motive of action by which we are to be governed. This commandment Christ repeats again in John 15:12, 17: “This is my commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you. These things I command you, That ye love one another.” That this is what Paul calls the law of Christ in Gal. 6:2, is manifest by the application he makes of it. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ;” that is, by bearing the burdens of our brethren we shall fulfill this law of Christ. By this we show that we do love our brethren as Christ loved us. John, in his epistle, makes frequent reference to this commandment of Christ. “For this is the message [margin, commandment] that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:11. In verse 16, he explains this scripture thus: “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That is just what Christ did. Again in verse 23, he says, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. In chapter 4:21, he refers to it again thus: “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” These quotations are sufficient to show what the new law of Christ is. It is this, and nothing more.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Leon, Iowa, Aug. 7.