If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
The royal law is the command to love one's neighbor as oneself, which is the sum of the Ten Commandments, and to fulfill it by perfect obedience is to do well and to do right. It remains fully authoritative after Christ's death and stands as God's enduring and binding moral standard of righteousness for all in heaven and on earth. It is the law of liberty that governs the converted mind, where the Holy Spirit expels sin and frees people from Satan's slavery, sin's mastery, and their own passions and inclinations. It is a divine mirror of God's character by which to examine life and character, binding hearts together in one great web of humanity. Keeping it means showing impartial love with no respect of persons for wealth, rank, learning, caste, or color, treating the poor and the Black person with the same respect, courtesy, and compassion as the rich and the white.
Words and Meaning
The royal law is the scriptural command to love one's neighbor as oneself, and to fulfill it is to do well and to do right. It is identified by that love command, and keeping it is doing well rather than showing favoritism, which is sin and transgression of the law. This keeping belongs to God's moral standard still binding on those who believe in Jesus, to be examined as in a mirror and practiced in daily life, and it belongs to the sacred work of proclaiming truth rather than to religion dependent on emotional excitement.
The royal law is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, also called the royal law of liberty. It is God's holy law set before the sinner whose requirements must be met, requiring love to God and to neighbor as true righteousness. It is the expressed character of the only true God, more comprehensive than any civil law for earthly kingdoms.
To fulfil means to keep or perform, to obey perfectly. Christ lived by this law of God, and His humble unrecognized work as a carpenter without high titles showed it honored in ordinary labor as well as in public acts such as miracles. The law had been degraded by priests and rabbis with human traditions and outward ceremony, and Christ lifted it up, stripping away human opinions and leading minds beneath the typical sacrificial offerings to the essential things they symbolized.
Enduring Authority
The command to love one's neighbor as oneself is the royal law, the Decalogue, the perfect law of liberty, and James set it forth after the death of Christ, proving it was still in force and was not abolished by that death. Prophets and apostles honored that holy law as good and enduring, not as a grievous yoke opposed to gospel liberty. It remains God's moral standard binding on those who believe in Jesus, more comprehensive than any civil law for earthly kingdoms, and forever binding in its least as well as its greatest enactments on inhabitants of both heaven and earth.
It is the only standard of righteousness, a mirror that measures life and character and a detector that gives knowledge of sin by showing sin in its light. The law itself does not save, for only practical faith in Jesus as the sin-pardoning Saviour saves, and only His blood cleanses from every spot and stain of sin. His love, shown in humbling Himself to die on the cross, draws sinners to Him when they are sin-sick and in need of a physician.
Showing favoritism instead of neighbor-love is sin and makes a person a transgressor of the law. Sin and iniquity separate the soul from God. Those who show no mercy in breaking this law will have judgment without mercy, and though punishment is delayed it will surely come upon the wicked, while it will be well with those who fear God.
Mirror of Character
The royal law is a divine mirror that reflects God's character and measures life and character. Those who would fulfill it to do well must look into that mirror to see what manner of persons they are, examine themselves by it, and not forget what they see, but read the Word to purpose, act out its instruction, reform without delay, and do the needed work for self. Its principles of truth and love are meant to bind people heart to heart and together with one another in love. God designed men to help one another and to pity and sympathize with and love one another, always regarding themselves as part of the great web of humanity.
It is the infinite standard presented so that there can be no mistake about the kind of people who belong to His kingdom, revealing God's character and showing that those obedient to all His commandments are accepted as members of His royal family. It is the great standard of character to which all must conform. To refuse to conform to that standard, and instead to erect a standard to suit self and then compel all to conform to it because Rome wills it, is transgression of the royal law, banishing mercy and producing horrible tragedies of persecution, which is work appointed by Satan, the same spirit that crucified Christ and slew the apostles and that moved Nero against the faithful in his day.
Liberty in Christ
The royal law is the law of liberty, the new law that governs the mind when a person surrenders to Christ, is converted, and receives Christ within. The Holy Spirit brings the mind under this law by convincing of sin and, with the person's consent, expelling sin from the heart and soul. Under Christ's control the mind comes under this law, which proclaims liberty to captives. Union with Him makes people free, and submission to His will restores them to perfect manhood and complete human character. Willing obedience frees them from sin's mastery, from passions and impulses and their own inclinations, so its rule does not enslave.
Being brought under this law frees the mind from Satan's teachings and slavery. Through the agency of the Spirit the government of Satan is to be subdued. Christ at the cost of infinite sacrifice and suffering provided every essential to success in the Christian warfare, and the Holy Spirit brings power that enables a person to overcome. Sin enslaves the soul and triumphs when its liberty is extinguished, but through Christ's merits the Spirit lifts the mind and enables people to put sin away.
Impartial Neighbor Love
Keeping the law means treating people with love and without partiality, showing no respect of persons for wealth, rank, learning, or social standing. Every soul is precious, and refusing the companionship of believers because they are humble or lowly brings divine rebuke. It forbids favoring the rich or select few with good places and favors while despising, slighting, or neglecting the poor, assigning them to hard places with grieved and wounded spirits.
It requires treating poor people with as much interest, attention, courtesy, sympathy, and compassion as rich people, and honoring the rich while slighting or neglecting the poor is a crime before God that displeases Him. Rank, wealth, position, talent, and education do not determine a person's worth before God or the outcome of final judgment. Men were designed to help one another, to pity and sympathize with and love one another as part of the great web of humanity, for there is no caste with God, and a rich man is counted of no more value for riches, position, talent, or education unless these are brought as tribute laid at His feet in full surrender for cooperation with divine agencies to become a vessel unto honor, while human worth and judgment depend on character, integrity, purity, and love for Christ.
Christ's religion does not exalt one person by degrading another or make its followers harsh toward people for whom Christ died, ruling out caste, favoritism, and unkind judgment. Neglecting the poor may mean neglecting Christ in His people. Every worker is to be treated as bought by Christ's blood, and the temptations that come to those unjustly treated through partiality are charged to those who dealt partially with them.
Equality Across Race
The law of neighbor love recognizes no caste or color, ignoring rank, wealth, and worldly honor. God estimates men as men and values people as people, with character alone deciding worth with Him. A rich man counts for no more because of riches, position, talent, or education, which weigh with God only when brought as tribute laid at His feet in full surrender to cooperate with divine agencies as a vessel unto honor. Fulfilling the law means recognizing the Spirit of Christ in whomever it is revealed and treating others with equal respect wherever it is seen.
That equal respect requires treating the Black person just as respectfully as the white person. It forbids working from the world's standpoint of prejudice against color and requires working from the Bible standpoint, knowing how to treat those less favored. There is to be no shame in speaking with an honest Black man in any place, in shaking him by the hand even though it is black, or in speaking with and greeting a Black person. Whoever lives in the atmosphere in which Christ lives is taught of God to put His estimate on men.
Colored people belong to Christ just as much and are to be treated as Christ's own, so they must not be excluded from places of worship and should hold church membership alongside white believers. Keeping the law calls for efforts to undo the wrong done to them and to labor for their salvation and enlightenment. White Christians are to elevate character among them by precept and example, exemplifying the spirit of Christ and teaching how Christians should live, helping them up and preparing them through education for clean, pure souls, and restoring as far as possible what was lost through years of privation and slavery. This duty to correct the wrong does not make the love command a reason to teach or practice intermarriage.
Showing contempt for a brother because of his color violates that love and is an offense against Christ, for God loves people without distinction of color. Treating with contempt one who has a colored skin given by God reproaches God, since color cannot be changed, and prejudice against color shows ignorance of God's mind and His work. The law therefore forbids keeping Black minds in a species of slavery because they have Black skin, despising the workmanship of God, and depressing and trampling down those who should be helped. Converted colored men and women who love God and try to do His will are His property of as much value in His sight as white people however educated and talented, to be met with gratitude offerings to God.
Such impartial love rules out caste systems, racial prejudice, oppression of the poor, and neglect of the unfortunate as unchristian. The church is charged with opposing them by acting nobly and courageously in God's sight against prevailing customs. It is to hold that all men, white and black, are free and equal in one brotherhood.
Daily Life and Service
The royal law belongs to God's great remedy for diseases of body and soul and to His health reform prescription, giving practical principles to be brought into daily life and heeded day by day in the daily course of action. Followed with Christ's grace in large measure it brings prosperity, brings heaven near, makes the place of work a place where angels delight to come, builds character, brings happiness of spirit and sight of God's salvation, opens the heart to principles of righteousness, and makes a tower of strength. Taking heed to it leads to triumph at last with the overcomers.
It must be practiced in daily life by reading the Word to purpose, acting out its instruction, reforming without delay, and doing the needed work for self. True religion fulfills it by living in unity with brethren, putting away everything that hinders coming together, confessing sins, and making right every wrong between brethren without delay. This neighbor-love is part of the sacred work of proclaiming the truth, not a religion dependent on emotional excitement.
The law tests whether words and conduct are truly Christian, for loving one's neighbor is incompatible with writing without self-control or showing an unsoftened, harsh spirit. A letter that fails this test is not pure. It condemns acting as critics of brethren, increasing discouragement, and hindering instead of helping the appointed work in the South at Nashville. Working to keep away means that ought to go there and circulating reports that turn means into other channels is robbery in God's sight and He will judge it, He is displeased with such work, and if unwilling to show wisdom and help one should have nothing to do with the Southern work rather than making it harder.
Keeping the royal law means manifesting Christ's self-sacrificing spirit heartily and not by halves in every branch of work, seeking no self-aggrandizement. It refuses to live in luxury and self-indulgence while suffering ones are around, and refuses by practice to sanction any oppression or injustice to the least child of humanity. It requires relinquishing selfish delights, unholy passions, and love of applause, being willing to be humble and unknown and even to sacrifice life for Christ. A neighbor is anyone who needs help, including enemies, for the command tears away national prejudice and embraces the whole human race, requiring love without distinction of race, condition, poverty, wealth, or position. This is shown by loving enemies, blessing those who curse, doing good to those who hate, and praying for persecutors, to be children of the Father who sends sun and rain on evil and good, just and unjust, and to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. The divine precepts are not arbitrary requirements, for in doing them there is life, and in obeying them people assimilate to the divine character, while substituting human ideas and standards misrepresents the Father and Jesus Christ and falls short of Christlikeness, and the kingdom is not for the rich only but entrance requires Christlikeness of character.
The royal law is the command to love one's neighbor as oneself, which is the sum of the Ten Commandments, and to fulfill it by perfect obedience is to do well and to do right. It remains fully authoritative after Christ's death and stands as God's enduring and binding moral standard of righteousness for all in heaven and on earth. It is the law of liberty that governs the converted mind, where the Holy Spirit expels sin and frees people from Satan's slavery, sin's mastery, and their own passions and inclinations. It is a divine mirror of God's character by which to examine life and character, binding hearts together in one great web of humanity. Keeping it means showing impartial love with no respect of persons for wealth, rank, learning, caste, or color, treating the poor and the Black person with the same respect, courtesy, and compassion as the rich and the white.
Words and Meaning
The royal law is the scriptural command to love one's neighbor as oneself, and to fulfill it is to do well and to do right. It is identified by that love command, and keeping it is doing well rather than showing favoritism, which is sin and transgression of the law. This keeping belongs to God's moral standard still binding on those who believe in Jesus, to be examined as in a mirror and practiced in daily life, and it belongs to the sacred work of proclaiming truth rather than to religion dependent on emotional excitement.
The royal law is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, also called the royal law of liberty. It is God's holy law set before the sinner whose requirements must be met, requiring love to God and to neighbor as true righteousness. It is the expressed character of the only true God, more comprehensive than any civil law for earthly kingdoms.
To fulfil means to keep or perform, to obey perfectly. Christ lived by this law of God, and His humble unrecognized work as a carpenter without high titles showed it honored in ordinary labor as well as in public acts such as miracles. The law had been degraded by priests and rabbis with human traditions and outward ceremony, and Christ lifted it up, stripping away human opinions and leading minds beneath the typical sacrificial offerings to the essential things they symbolized.
Enduring Authority
The command to love one's neighbor as oneself is the royal law, the Decalogue, the perfect law of liberty, and James set it forth after the death of Christ, proving it was still in force and was not abolished by that death. Prophets and apostles honored that holy law as good and enduring, not as a grievous yoke opposed to gospel liberty. It remains God's moral standard binding on those who believe in Jesus, more comprehensive than any civil law for earthly kingdoms, and forever binding in its least as well as its greatest enactments on inhabitants of both heaven and earth.
It is the only standard of righteousness, a mirror that measures life and character and a detector that gives knowledge of sin by showing sin in its light. The law itself does not save, for only practical faith in Jesus as the sin-pardoning Saviour saves, and only His blood cleanses from every spot and stain of sin. His love, shown in humbling Himself to die on the cross, draws sinners to Him when they are sin-sick and in need of a physician.
Showing favoritism instead of neighbor-love is sin and makes a person a transgressor of the law. Sin and iniquity separate the soul from God. Those who show no mercy in breaking this law will have judgment without mercy, and though punishment is delayed it will surely come upon the wicked, while it will be well with those who fear God.
Mirror of Character
The royal law is a divine mirror that reflects God's character and measures life and character. Those who would fulfill it to do well must look into that mirror to see what manner of persons they are, examine themselves by it, and not forget what they see, but read the Word to purpose, act out its instruction, reform without delay, and do the needed work for self. Its principles of truth and love are meant to bind people heart to heart and together with one another in love. God designed men to help one another and to pity and sympathize with and love one another, always regarding themselves as part of the great web of humanity.
It is the infinite standard presented so that there can be no mistake about the kind of people who belong to His kingdom, revealing God's character and showing that those obedient to all His commandments are accepted as members of His royal family. It is the great standard of character to which all must conform. To refuse to conform to that standard, and instead to erect a standard to suit self and then compel all to conform to it because Rome wills it, is transgression of the royal law, banishing mercy and producing horrible tragedies of persecution, which is work appointed by Satan, the same spirit that crucified Christ and slew the apostles and that moved Nero against the faithful in his day.
Liberty in Christ
The royal law is the law of liberty, the new law that governs the mind when a person surrenders to Christ, is converted, and receives Christ within. The Holy Spirit brings the mind under this law by convincing of sin and, with the person's consent, expelling sin from the heart and soul. Under Christ's control the mind comes under this law, which proclaims liberty to captives. Union with Him makes people free, and submission to His will restores them to perfect manhood and complete human character. Willing obedience frees them from sin's mastery, from passions and impulses and their own inclinations, so its rule does not enslave.
Being brought under this law frees the mind from Satan's teachings and slavery. Through the agency of the Spirit the government of Satan is to be subdued. Christ at the cost of infinite sacrifice and suffering provided every essential to success in the Christian warfare, and the Holy Spirit brings power that enables a person to overcome. Sin enslaves the soul and triumphs when its liberty is extinguished, but through Christ's merits the Spirit lifts the mind and enables people to put sin away.
Impartial Neighbor Love
Keeping the law means treating people with love and without partiality, showing no respect of persons for wealth, rank, learning, or social standing. Every soul is precious, and refusing the companionship of believers because they are humble or lowly brings divine rebuke. It forbids favoring the rich or select few with good places and favors while despising, slighting, or neglecting the poor, assigning them to hard places with grieved and wounded spirits.
It requires treating poor people with as much interest, attention, courtesy, sympathy, and compassion as rich people, and honoring the rich while slighting or neglecting the poor is a crime before God that displeases Him. Rank, wealth, position, talent, and education do not determine a person's worth before God or the outcome of final judgment. Men were designed to help one another, to pity and sympathize with and love one another as part of the great web of humanity, for there is no caste with God, and a rich man is counted of no more value for riches, position, talent, or education unless these are brought as tribute laid at His feet in full surrender for cooperation with divine agencies to become a vessel unto honor, while human worth and judgment depend on character, integrity, purity, and love for Christ.
Christ's religion does not exalt one person by degrading another or make its followers harsh toward people for whom Christ died, ruling out caste, favoritism, and unkind judgment. Neglecting the poor may mean neglecting Christ in His people. Every worker is to be treated as bought by Christ's blood, and the temptations that come to those unjustly treated through partiality are charged to those who dealt partially with them.
Equality Across Race
The law of neighbor love recognizes no caste or color, ignoring rank, wealth, and worldly honor. God estimates men as men and values people as people, with character alone deciding worth with Him. A rich man counts for no more because of riches, position, talent, or education, which weigh with God only when brought as tribute laid at His feet in full surrender to cooperate with divine agencies as a vessel unto honor. Fulfilling the law means recognizing the Spirit of Christ in whomever it is revealed and treating others with equal respect wherever it is seen.
That equal respect requires treating the Black person just as respectfully as the white person. It forbids working from the world's standpoint of prejudice against color and requires working from the Bible standpoint, knowing how to treat those less favored. There is to be no shame in speaking with an honest Black man in any place, in shaking him by the hand even though it is black, or in speaking with and greeting a Black person. Whoever lives in the atmosphere in which Christ lives is taught of God to put His estimate on men.
Colored people belong to Christ just as much and are to be treated as Christ's own, so they must not be excluded from places of worship and should hold church membership alongside white believers. Keeping the law calls for efforts to undo the wrong done to them and to labor for their salvation and enlightenment. White Christians are to elevate character among them by precept and example, exemplifying the spirit of Christ and teaching how Christians should live, helping them up and preparing them through education for clean, pure souls, and restoring as far as possible what was lost through years of privation and slavery. This duty to correct the wrong does not make the love command a reason to teach or practice intermarriage.
Showing contempt for a brother because of his color violates that love and is an offense against Christ, for God loves people without distinction of color. Treating with contempt one who has a colored skin given by God reproaches God, since color cannot be changed, and prejudice against color shows ignorance of God's mind and His work. The law therefore forbids keeping Black minds in a species of slavery because they have Black skin, despising the workmanship of God, and depressing and trampling down those who should be helped. Converted colored men and women who love God and try to do His will are His property of as much value in His sight as white people however educated and talented, to be met with gratitude offerings to God.
Such impartial love rules out caste systems, racial prejudice, oppression of the poor, and neglect of the unfortunate as unchristian. The church is charged with opposing them by acting nobly and courageously in God's sight against prevailing customs. It is to hold that all men, white and black, are free and equal in one brotherhood.
Daily Life and Service
The royal law belongs to God's great remedy for diseases of body and soul and to His health reform prescription, giving practical principles to be brought into daily life and heeded day by day in the daily course of action. Followed with Christ's grace in large measure it brings prosperity, brings heaven near, makes the place of work a place where angels delight to come, builds character, brings happiness of spirit and sight of God's salvation, opens the heart to principles of righteousness, and makes a tower of strength. Taking heed to it leads to triumph at last with the overcomers.
It must be practiced in daily life by reading the Word to purpose, acting out its instruction, reforming without delay, and doing the needed work for self. True religion fulfills it by living in unity with brethren, putting away everything that hinders coming together, confessing sins, and making right every wrong between brethren without delay. This neighbor-love is part of the sacred work of proclaiming the truth, not a religion dependent on emotional excitement.
The law tests whether words and conduct are truly Christian, for loving one's neighbor is incompatible with writing without self-control or showing an unsoftened, harsh spirit. A letter that fails this test is not pure. It condemns acting as critics of brethren, increasing discouragement, and hindering instead of helping the appointed work in the South at Nashville. Working to keep away means that ought to go there and circulating reports that turn means into other channels is robbery in God's sight and He will judge it, He is displeased with such work, and if unwilling to show wisdom and help one should have nothing to do with the Southern work rather than making it harder.
Keeping the royal law means manifesting Christ's self-sacrificing spirit heartily and not by halves in every branch of work, seeking no self-aggrandizement. It refuses to live in luxury and self-indulgence while suffering ones are around, and refuses by practice to sanction any oppression or injustice to the least child of humanity. It requires relinquishing selfish delights, unholy passions, and love of applause, being willing to be humble and unknown and even to sacrifice life for Christ. A neighbor is anyone who needs help, including enemies, for the command tears away national prejudice and embraces the whole human race, requiring love without distinction of race, condition, poverty, wealth, or position. This is shown by loving enemies, blessing those who curse, doing good to those who hate, and praying for persecutors, to be children of the Father who sends sun and rain on evil and good, just and unjust, and to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. The divine precepts are not arbitrary requirements, for in doing them there is life, and in obeying them people assimilate to the divine character, while substituting human ideas and standards misrepresents the Father and Jesus Christ and falls short of Christlikeness, and the kingdom is not for the rich only but entrance requires Christlikeness of character.