Love is the Fulfillment of the Law
FIRST QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #13
MARCH 29, 2025
"LOVE IS THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW."
This quarter's lessons have been a wonderful opportunity to explore the character of God, the foundation of His government, and the Great Controversy themes. Foundational to these lessons is the love of God. “God is love” (1 John 4:16, NKJV). “His nature, His law, is love. It ever has been; it ever will be… Every manifestation of creative power is an expression of infinite love. The sovereignty of God involves fullness of blessing to all created beings… The history of the great conflict between good and evil, from the time it first began in heaven to the final overthrow of rebellion and the total eradication of sin, is also a demonstration of God’s unchanging love.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 33.
And while all of creation speaks of God’s love, the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus, to which the entire Old Testament points and to which the New Testament testifies, gives us the clearest representation and view of that love. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).
It is important that when we speak of love in the context of this lesson, we clearly recognize that we are speaking of the love of God and not mere human love. Consider these words penned by Jones:
“Now, therefore, the supreme idea in the love of God is this—It is a love which gives. Any love which does not give is not the love of God at all. It is only human. It is earthly, sensual, devilish. Common affection is not true love. The test of all genuine love is that it has in it the element of giving—yea, that its very essence is self-sacrificial giving.” — Alonzo T. Jones, Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald, April 16, 1901.
Fulfillment
The title of this week’s lesson “Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law” comes from Romans 13:10. Paul, from the context of the second greatest commandment (Leviticus 19:18), writes, “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” The word fulfillment in the original language could mean filling up. So, in other words, love fills up the keeping of the law.
Jesus says something similar about the law when He said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). The meaning again could be rendered to cram full. Thus, we can say that Jesus, being the express representation of the Father and His love (Hebrews 1:3), made the law full, restoring the true keeping of the law to its rightful place.
We know from Romans 7:12 that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good.” Therefore, we would not say that without love, the law is empty. This would not be true, for the law is a law of love, and the law itself cannot be empty of love. But we can say that law-keeping without love is empty, and also, law-keeping without Christ is empty.
Keeping the Law Without Love
A biblical example of law keeping without love is the Rich Young Ruler.
“And he answered and said to Him, ‘Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.’ Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.’ But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:20-22).
Another is the older brother in the parable of the Lost Son.
“So he answered and said to his father, 'Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’” (Luke 15:29-30).
And finally, many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day kept the law without love.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:23).
In Our Own Strength and With Our Own Resources
Keeping the law in our own strength and with our own resources merely out of duty or responsibility may appear successful on the outside, but it will always be empty law-keeping. The law will never be fulfilled or crammed full as it is meant to be without Christ and without love. Love must be the foundational motivation and resource from which we operate, without exception. This is basically what Paul was getting at when he wrote to the church in Corinth.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Ultimately, it is impossible to truly keep the law without love. It is equally impossible to have love and not truly keep the law. The law of God will always be the natural outflow of the heart that has the selfless love of God residing therein.
On Tables of Stone or Tables of our Hearts
In Exodus 20 the Lord spoke His law in the hearing of the people. He then wrote it on tables of stone. And while tables of stone do depict unchangeableness and permanence, the stone was also a depiction of the condition of Israel’s hearts. They were not prepared nor willing for the Lord to write the law on their hearts.
Before the law was given, the Lord, in Exodus 19, asked Moses to remind the people how He had delivered them from Egypt and brought them to Himself so they could be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. He simply asked them to hear His voice and cherish His covenant, that they may be a special treasure to Him above all people (Exodus 19:4-6). God wanted them to have faith in the Everlasting Covenant made with Abraham their forefather. He was asking them to believe in God and allow Him to fulfill His promises for them and in them. He had clearly demonstrated His willingness and ability to deliver them from any form of bondage or captivity through their rescue from Egypt. However, their response to God’s words was, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8, emphasis added). On this passage, E.J. Waggoner, writes this:
“A careful reading of Exodus 19:1-6, will show that there is no intimation that another covenant was then to be made. Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary. The Lord referred to His covenant,-the covenant long before given to Abraham,-and exhorted them to keep it, and told what would be the result of their keeping it. The covenant with Abraham was, as we have seen, a covenant of faith, and they could keep it simply by keeping the faith. God did not ask them to enter into another covenant with Him, but only to accept His covenant of peace, which he had long before given to the fathers.
“The proper response of the people therefore would have been, ‘Amen, even so, O Lord, let it be done unto us according to Thy will.' On the contrary they said, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do;’ and they repeated their promise, with additional emphasis, even after they had heard the law spoken. It was the same self-confidence that led their descendants to say to Christ, ‘What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?’ Think of mortal men presuming to be able to do God’s work! Christ answered, ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.’ Even so it was in the desert of Sinai, when the law was given and the covenant made.
“Their assuming the responsibility of working the works of God, showed lack of appreciation of His greatness and holiness. It is only when men are ignorant of God’s righteousness, that they go about to establish their own righteousness, and refuse to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. See Romans 10:3. Their promises were good for nothing, because they had not the power to fulfill them. The covenant, therefore, which was based on those promises was utterly worthless, so far as giving them life was concerned. All that they could get from that covenant was just what they could get from themselves, and that was death. To trust in it was to make a covenant with death, and to be in agreement with the grave. Their entering into that covenant was a virtual notification to the Lord that they could get along very well without Him; that they were able to fulfill any promise He could make.” — Ellet J. Waggoner, Present Truth United Kingdom, December 10, 1896, p. 789.
The golden calf incident that followed shortly after their promise was only one incident in a long string of historical events from Sinai to the stoning of Stephen, which only confirms that this covenant they made at Sinai would witness against them. It is a testament to what happens when humanity tries to fulfill God’s promises in their own strength, a witness that shows that our own efforts can never bring in everlasting righteousness. That only can come by faith in the promises of God, who is more than able to do all that He has said.
So His promise is this for God’s people then and now: “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19).
God would much rather write His law upon hearts of flesh than upon tables of stone. So our prayer should be like David’s: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalms 51:10). This alone can give hearts filled with the love of God—hearts and minds filled with the Holy Spirit that will bring the living Christ to abide in us. And where God’s love abides, the keeping of the commandments will indeed be filled full.
God says it this way: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26).
The End Time Church
"And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore, be zealous and repent.”’” (Revelation 3:14-19).
This is such a sad picture. We find ourselves in such a condition that makes Jesus so nauseated that He is about to puke. And Jesus has seen a lot of stuff. So for something to make Him so sick that He is about to vomit, it has to be up there at the top of the list of worst, or the very worst situation. But what I want you to notice is that one of the key ingredients to the remedy for this condition is gold tried in the fire, faith that works by love, the very faith and love of Jesus Himself, the kind of love that one would give of oneself for the sake of God or others despite the cost to ourselves, the kind of love that would fill up and make complete any law-keeping.
“The gold tried in the fire is faith that works by love. Only this can bring us into harmony with God. We may be active, we may do much work; but without love, such love as dwelt in the heart of Christ, we can never be numbered with the family of heaven.” — Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 158.
And if this is the remedy that Laodicea needs, it must mean we do not already possess it. But apparently, we think we do. This means we are another biblical example of loveless law-keepers until we believe His diagnosis and receive His remedy in full.
May we fully recognize how much God has given and the depth of His love for us all. As we grasp His love more fully, may we trust His diagnosis and believe that He has a remedy that far exceeds any notion of what we may think, and will infinitely exceed anything we could possibly make of ourselves. May the door of our hearts be unlocked and fully opened in order that the living Christ, through the indwelling of His Spirit, can live out His life and love in each one of us so that the law may be fulfilled.
And finally, I would like to end with a paraphrase of Paul’s prayer for his countrymen as a prayer for me and my church: “Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for His people is that we may be saved. For I bear us witness that we have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For we being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish our own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end (the uttermost pinnacle) of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:1-4, paraphrased and adapted).
May we believe and receive. Even so, come Lord Jesus.