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The law of love

In heaven, doing what God wants will be second nature. Till then, reflection on God’s law is an indispensable part of discerning what it means in practice to love God and to love our neighbour.

By: David McIlroy, Cambridge Papers
Posted:
Friday, 25 July 2008, 21:39 (MYT)
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Both the Torah and Jesus’ teaching are built around the love of God and the love of one’s neighbour. These are the most important elements of the moral order, and this underlying moral order is the same in the Old Testament as in the New Testament. The personal character of our God has not changed and, despite different cultures and social conditions, the fundamental nature of human beings has not changed either. However, Christians live after the establishment of the new covenant, by which we have a relationship with God based on Christ’s obedience and sacrifice in our place. We are God’s people not because we obey the rituals given by Moses but because we have a relationship with Christ.

The two Great Commandments do not make all other moral principles redundant. Instead, they sum up the rest of the Torah (Romans 13:9). Attention to what God has revealed about what pleases him is a key part of learning what it means to love God and to love our neighbour. Jesus’ example and the priority of love rule out blind copying of the Torah as an option for Christians. What we are called to is the more difficult, creative task of understanding the moral principles to be found throughout the whole Bible, reflecting on those principles in the light of Christ and with the help of the Spirit and the community of the Church, in order to make wise decisions as to how to apply those principles in our lives today.[22] This is God’s law for us, or we might say, the law of Christ.

Paul grounds his instructions for Christian living on his teaching about Christian identity. Christians need to learn to live in ways which accord with their new identity as Sons of God and as temples of the Holy Spirit.

Paul knew that Christians were not under the Torah (Romans 6:15) but instead under Christ’s law (1 Corinthians 9:21). That did not mean the Torah was irrelevant when deciding how to live. Paul cites Deuteronomy 32:35 in Romans 12:19 when talking about vengeance. He quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’ when writing about pay and conditions for Christian workers,[23] taking a principle from the Torah and applying it creatively to a new context. When Paul is writing to the Corinthians about the effects of sleeping with prostitutes, he brings together reasons related to their relationship with God through Christ and in the Spirit[24] along with Genesis 2:24, quoting from the Torah.[25]

The example of the Sabbath

How might I follow God’s law, reflecting on both NT and OT ethics when deciding what to do? As Calvin recognised, the Sabbath is not just about the worship of God. It is also about rest and about community.[26] In the Old Testament, foreigners, servants and animals are all to be given one day of rest from work each week. In Deuteronomy 5:14 it is explicitly stated that the Sabbath must be observed by all ‘so that your servants may rest, as you do’. It is not just about each person having one day of rest in seven; it is about having a communal break from work and trade[27] so that people can enjoy and strengthen their relationships with one another.

By reflecting on the OT material, we can deepen our understanding of what Jesus meant when he said ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’[28] Recognising love as the motivating reason behind the Sabbath command enables us to understand its rationale, and why it might be of continuing relevance to our lives.

Copyright: Jubilee Centre www.jubilee-centre.org.

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