Title: Love that Fulfills the Law
Romans 95
love that fulfills the law
Romans 13:8-10
1. The debt of love we owe
When Paul speaks of a debt of love here, he is saying that the person who owes the debt of love must pay it. In this way, in the position of being in debt, I want you to know me as a debtor who has to pay love, that is, a debtor of love, just as I have to pay that debt. So what does this mean?
(1) It means that we all have a debt of love that we must repay to others. This debt of love is the debt of the gospel to God. This debt is listed as ten thousand talents, but this debt is a huge amount that a person cannot earn even if he works hard all his life. The master, who forgave a debt of ten thousand talents for having a servant who had been forgiven of this debt be imprisoned because of the very small debt of a Dongguan who owed him, said, “In anger, I set him on fire to the prisoners so that I might pay all the debt.” It is telling us (Matthew 18:24-35). Paul calls this debt the debt of the gospel and confesses, "I am indebted to both Greeks and barbarians, both the wise and the foolish" (Romans 1:14). The ten thousand talents God gave us is the love that He sent His only begotten Son. While we were still in the position of enemies against God, God sent His Son to be crucified as a propitiation sacrifice. God says, “Give this love to your neighbor,” which he has given to us.
(2) The debt of love is a debt that must first be repaid to a neighbor through the gospel. Sharing the love of God who sent his only begotten Son to our neighbors is the way to pay off this debt. In order to pay off this debt, Paul did not regard his life as precious in the slightest, and fulfilled the debtor's mission. Paul said that he had nothing to boast about because preaching the gospel was to pay off the debt of God's love. If you do not pay the debt, you must bear the responsibility. If you do not pay the debt of the gospel, you must take that responsibility before God.
(3) Next, the debt of love must be repaid with forgiveness. The parable of the servant who owed ten thousand talents, mentioned earlier, is a warning to Christians who have been forgiven for their many sins but cannot forgive the little sins of their brothers. It tells us that the sins forgiven by God are reflexively paid for by forgiving our brother's sins. There is no limit to the forgiveness of this sin. “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother if he sins against me? Haori up to seven times? Jesus said, "I tell you not to do it seven times, but seventy times seven times" (Matthew 18:21, 22). When Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” it means that we must repay the love the Lord has shown us.
(4) The next thing you do to help a poor neighbor is to pay off this debt. He said, “To have mercy on the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay them for their good deeds” (Proverbs 19:11). Love must be accompanied by action and truth. “Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:17). In Matthew 25, we see the final judgment of the sheep from the goats. This is what the Lord is saying to the flock that will possess the kingdom of heaven. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to see me” (Matthew 25:34). -36).
They were astonished at these words, when did we do such a thing to the Lord? When asked, the Lord's answer was: “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” God's serious question is, how can a person who cannot love his brother whom he sees love love God whom he cannot see? Our God weighs the depth and truth of our love for the Lord based on this principle.
2. Love fulfills the law.
The Bible says that love is the fulfillment of the law. “He who loves others has fulfilled the law” “Love is the fulfillment of the law” is true. In response to the question of the lawyer who tried to test him, Jesus once spoke of “the law and the prophets” like this. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” These two commandments are the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40).
(1) The law is the duty that human beings ought to perform. It says, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. However, all the commandments of this law are nothing more than the love that human beings should have. Love is able to overcome these legal commandments and, on the contrary, provides a higher level of goodness to our neighbors. All these legal commandments are for the purpose of telling you to love your neighbor. Because love does not come from words, but from the heart, the righteousness that the Pharisees sought through the law was condemned by the Lord as superficial.
(2) It is said that a man does no evil to his neighbor. Paul gives a proper definition of love. “Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous, love does not boast, is not arrogant, is not rude, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, rejoices in the truth, bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). Such love cannot do evil to a neighbor. Truly, this kind of love is the fulfillment of the law.
Conclusion: Jesus is the one who fulfilled the law through his love. Our Lord came through the love of God, and He perfected that love on the cross. In this way, God saw us as precious and loved us with fervent love to make us His children. With what kind of love do we love God? We must live a beautiful life of love to pay off this debt of love. A life like this will give us joy and joy.