All right, we're gonna talk about
love and fulfilling the law. And this is a subject, you know,
anytime we talk about love, I realize that it's like most scriptural
subjects. There's a lot of misunderstanding. There's a lot of error, even
heresy that revolve around these things as we study them in scripture. But look at verse eight, he starts
out, he says, oh, no man anything but to love one another, for
he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Now in the context,
some people, they look at a scripture like that, oh, no man anything.
They say, well, that's a scriptural prohibition upon borrowing money,
and it's not. We all have to borrow money at
some point in time, even for the necessities of life, like
for a house. There's not many people who could
buy a house, ride out, or buy even a car. So it's not forbidden
for us to borrow money. We ought to be responsible. We
ought to make sure we pay back what we borrow. But that's not
what he's talking about. In the context, when he talked
about, look at verse seven again, render therefore to all their
dues. He's talking about civil magistrate,
civil government, all of that. And what he's saying is give
unto those who are in authority the respect and the honor of
the office that they hold because it is God who put them there.
And we're to use all physical and lawful means to abide by
that. If they're a poor civil magistrate
or ruler or judge or what, we can use lawful means to remove
them from office. We can vote, for example, or
we can petition, but we can't take up arms. We have no scriptural
mandate in the Bible to disobey the laws of the land except when
those laws go exactly opposite of what God's law is. And we
use the example in Acts chapter 5 where the Pharisees had basically told
Peter and James and John that we forbid you to preach the gospel,
to preach your message in Jerusalem. And Peter said, when they were
brought up on charges, they went ahead and preached, they disobeyed
that law because it's a bad law, it's an ungodly law. And they
said, well, who are we gonna obey, God or men? We're gonna
obey God. So anytime, even in our day,
when Congress or anybody passes a law that is opposed to God's
rule, God's clear, revealed law, we're not to obey that. But we
are to be law-abiding citizens. We're to be responsible in all
of that. And in the context, what he's talking about here
is when he says, oh no man, anything, is let's not steal or go against
that honor and respect that's due to that office, that puts
us in a stage of debt. In other words, we're keeping
the law of the land. That's what he's saying. But
he adds here in verse eight, but to love one another. And
that puts us in another realm of thinking. Because I believe
what he's talking about here is Christian love. love one another. Now, and whenever we talk about
love, we talk about love to God, we talk about love to our brethren,
and we talk about love to our neighbor. We have to make these
distinctions because a lot of people, when they speak of love,
they have a low standard of what love really is. For example,
we're gonna see here that Paul invokes the second table of the
law, the Ten Commandments. Look at verse eight again. Oh
no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another
hath fulfilled the law. Now that means if I love you,
then I keep the law perfectly. Well, do I love you perfectly?
Now you see what I'm saying? And there's a lot of people who
think they do. You know, they say, we just love everybody.
Well, we better step back and take some inventory here on the
reality of the situation. The perfection of love that equals
the righteousness of the law can only be found in Christ. Is that right? Now, are we to
love everybody? We are. The scripture says it. Love your neighbor as yourself,
and Christ was clear on this issue. The Pharisees would say,
well, who is my neighbor? Now, this guy that I like, and
we get along, and we root for the same ball team, he's my neighbor,
but now that guy over there that I hate, my enemy, he's not my
neighbor. No, you can't do that. You don't have the privilege
of picking and choosing your neighbor. And Christ said, love
your enemies. Didn't he say that in Matthew
chapter five? So he made it clear that every
human being in this world is my neighbor. And then you see
passages of scripture, like when he says, pray for them that despitefully
use you, that would do you harm, all of that. I heard a preacher
say, if I'm praying for them, I'm loving them. Well, in a sense
we are, but does that mean we're still coming up to snuff as to
the perfection of the law? Am I fulfilling the law perfectly
when I love you and love my, and the answer is no, my love
still falls short of the standard of perfection. Again, that can
only be found in Christ. And so he said, look at verse
nine, he says, for this thou shalt not commit adultery, thou
shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false
witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment,
it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, the Pharisees had a system
That may, for example, he says, thou shalt not commit adultery.
Well, if I don't commit adultery with my neighbor's wife, then
I'm loving them perfectly, and that's not, and Christ showed,
now wait a minute now, hang on to this one. The Bible says,
thou shalt not commit adultery, but it also says, God says, thou
shalt not lust after thy neighbor's wife or thy neighbor's husband,
all of that. So that puts it in perspective.
The standard of the perfection of love, again, can only be found
in Christ. But when we talk about sinners
saved by grace, we have to understand something about this issue of
debt. Now, go back to verse eight. Owe no man anything. And what
I've got in your lesson here is something that I think is
very important for us to understand. about our indebtedness, okay? For example, we are indebted
to God to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Isn't that right? I owe God all
the love that I can muster. I owe him perfect love. And I
owe you as my brothers and sisters in Christ, love one another. and I owe love to my neighbor.
So it sounds like, well, we're in a lot of debt here now, doesn't
it? Well, we need to make a distinction here in several ways. First of all, let's talk about
this debt. Let's talk about a debt we do not owe, and then let's
talk about a debt we do owe. Well, number one in your lesson,
we owe no legal debt to God's law. You understand that? No legal debt. We're saved by
grace. Our responsibility to keep the
law legally or our responsibility of any condemnation from the
law legally is totally 100% gone. Why? Because Christ as our surety,
that means he had our sins charged to his account, As our substitute,
which means he took our place under the law, made under the
law, and as our redeemer, he paid our debt in full. Over, and I didn't put this in
your lesson, but over, and I'll just read it to you, it's in
Hebrews chapter two. And this has always been very
interesting to me if people would understand this. In verse 17.
of Hebrews chapter two, it says, wherefore in all things it behooved
him. That means he was under obligation.
Christ was. And that word behooved is the
scriptural word for debt. Behold, where in all things he
was indebted. Christ was indebted. Not for
his own sins, but for our sins, imputed, charged, accounted to
him. And that's what the scripture
means when it says he was made sin. That means our sin debt
was charged to his account. And you have a beautiful illustration
of that in the book of Philemon. Remember when Paul talking about
Onesimus, the slave who had done his master, Philemon, wrong? And he'd gone to Paul, the Lord
took him to Paul, and Paul preached the gospel to him, and the Lord
saved him. And he sent him back to Philemon,
because that was the right thing to do. He owed Philemon some
money. And you know what Paul said? He said, if he owes you,
he said, receive him as a brother. And he said, if he owes you anything,
put it on my account, I'll repay it. That's essentially what happened
in the everlasting covenant of grace when Christ became our
surety. If they've done any wrong, put
it, well, we have done wrong, he knew that. And he said, put
it on my account, I'll repay it. So Christ, in his obedience
unto death, He paid our sin debt in full to the law of God, to
the justice of God, and he gave us a righteousness that's imputed,
charged to us, that equals the demands of God's law and justice.
And that's why David said, blessed is the man unto whom the Lord
imputeth not iniquity and whose spirit there's no guile. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works.
And when Paul writes back in Romans chapter six and verse
14, that he says, sin shall have no dominion over you. Sin has
no dominion over me. Now does it mean I don't sin
any longer? No. It means sin cannot be charged
to my account. Who shall anything to the charge
of God's elect? Sin cannot be the ground of my
condemnation. There's therefore now no condemnation
in Christ. He says, for you're not under
law, the law cannot condemn you. You're under grace. Grace reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
So that's the first thing we've gotta get settled in our minds.
We do not owe any legal debt to God. That's been fully paid. By one offering he hath perfected
for ever them that are sanctified. But secondly, we do owe an eternal
debt of love to our God and Father who saves and preserves us by
his grace in Christ. That's not a legal debt. That's
a debt of love. Shouldn't we love the God who
saved us by his grace? Well, of course we should. There's
no question about that. Shouldn't we give thanks to him?
Yes. Shouldn't we honor him and worship
him and obey him and follow him? Yes. Why? Because he's made us
willing, loving bond slaves of Christ. And we owe him a debt
of love, but let me tell you something about that debt, it'll
never be paid. We will spend eternity worshiping,
serving, loving, honoring, praising God. Now that's the debt we do
know, we do owe. When Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
13, 13 about faith and hope and charity, love, he said, love
will last forever. And then thirdly, we owe an eternal
debt of love to our brethren in Christ. We owe a debt of love
to one another, and that'll never be paid. We'll spend eternity
loving one another in the Lord. But now, here's the distinction
that has to be made. And well, let me say this first.
We also owe a debt of love to our neighbor, even our enemies.
But there's a distinction that needs to be made between the
love of brethren, which is a special, godly love, and the love that
we have for our neighbor, even our worst enemies, even unbelievers.
We have to make that distinction. And one of the distinctions we
have to make here is this. The love that we have for God
and the love that we have for one another in the truth is a
love that no man by nature has. The kind of love that we owe
God and the kind of love that we owe one another in the faith
is different from the kind of love that we owe our neighbor,
even our worst enemies, even unbelievers. Now, how's it different?
Well, think about it this way. Turn over to 2 John. Now, think about it this way. John has three epistles here.
You look at 2 John to start off with. Now, 1 John is a book that
shows us the nature and the issues of our fellowship. We have fellowship
one with another, okay? And that's a godly love that
comes by the spirit when he brings us to faith in Christ and true
repentance. That's a love we don't have by
nature. See, it's not the general love that, for example, a man
has for his wife, which is erotic love, which is other types of
love. It's not like the general love
that a woman has for her husband, or that a mom and dad has for
their children, or that a man has for his country. I love this
country. But it's not the kind of godly
love, see? There's a love of brotherhood.
We're all human beings, we're all in the same boat, we're all
sinners. We don't have any reason in God's
realm of things, in his law, to say, well, I hate you, and
I hate you, and love you, and love you. But this love that
John speaks of in 1 John is a love that's only between brothers
and sisters in Christ. And he says, look at 2 John,
and look at verse nine. Now listen to this. He says,
whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ
hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. And he says in verse
10, if there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine,
receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. Now,
I believe what he's talking about here is the church, the house of God, the family
of God. In other words, if they come
with another gospel, a false gospel, we can't receive them
into our fellowship. He says in verse 11, for he that
biddeth him God's speed is a partaker, and that word partaker is the
Greek word for fellowship, a partnership of his evil deeds. Now, we don't
have fellowship with those who are not in Christ as revealed
by their doctrine. Here comes a fella, and he says,
well, I don't believe what you all preach, and I believe that
we're saved by works. Well, he's not a member of our
family. And you could use this as an illustration. Think about
your own earthly family. You have a wife, you have a husband,
you have sons, you have daughters, and you know other people outside,
but they're not part of your immediate family, and you don't
receive them as such. You don't treat others like you
treat your children. You know, if you've built up
a lot of funds and when you leave your, in your will, you bequeath
your goods to your children, not to everybody else. Because
they're your children. And that's kind of the thing
we're talking about here. In the household of faith, we have
a bond of union, of love, that unbelievers cannot share in.
It's love in the truth. And over in 3 John, and we won't
turn there, you remember over in 3 John, there was a man in
the church named Diotrephes who would not receive brethren, and
John admonishes him for that. In other words, if they are brethren,
you receive them in love. So what I'm saying is the love
that we have for God comes from the revelation of grace. by our salvation by grace, which
connects us to God as our heavenly father, where we cry, Abba, Father. We have a special relationship
with God. He's our father, we're his children. He saved us by His grace and
that love bond, you see, that's that love that brethren have,
that the children of God have for the Father. And His love
for us, herein is love. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Now outside of Christ, there's
no love from God to sinners. It's only hatred. I know people
don't like to hear that. I had a man tell me one time,
he said, I don't even like to think about a God who hates.
And I said, well, you don't like to think about the God of the
Bible. And whatever God you're thinking about, he's an idol.
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. And that's not a sinful
hate. God's not a sinner. And his hatred
is his righteous indignation, his rejection. His justice falling
down upon a sinner because there's no salvation for that sinner.
There's no mediator, there's no blood, there's no righteousness
there. And so whenever the Holy Spirit,
as Romans chapter five and verse five says, sheds that love abroad
in our hearts, now how does He do that? He shows us our sinfulness,
our deservedness of damnation based upon our best efforts,
And he drives us to Christ for salvation and shows us the love
of God in Christ. And how that love is based upon
God's justice satisfied in Christ. And that's how he draws us with
cords of love. That's the goodness of God that
leads us to repentance. And we see that love, we see
his mercy, we see his grace expressed through Christ, the God-man,
our Savior. And any notion of God loving
me outside of Christ is an abomination to God. But that's how he does
it. He draws us to himself, to where
we cry, Abba, Father. One preacher said that's the
equivalent of saying, Papa, Papa. Something like that. Now I know
that unbelievers will say God is our Father, but they're just
fooling themselves. And so there's that divine love
that we did not have before conversion. Before conversion, what were
we? What's the Bible say we were? We're enemies of God, alienated
from God. But then when the Holy Spirit
draws us to God through Christ, based on His blood and righteousness
alone, That's when that love is shed abroad in our hearts,
our minds, our affections, our wills, our inner man. And then
we see God is my savior. I'm on his side, he's on my side. Who shall lay anything to my
charge? I don't owe a legal debt. But
boy, I owe him all the love. Now, that's what brings us together
in Christian love. And that Christian love is our
bond of union that keeps us together in Christ. And it's our bond
of union that cannot be broken, even though we may fall out with
one another over different issues, and that's wrong now. Even though
we may not like each other specifically in certain areas, and again,
that's wrong, but it will keep us together in the truth. You
may get mad at me, but I guarantee you, you won't go sit under a
false gospel because you're mad at me. And that's what I'm saying. The
bond of union in the truth, that's the love of brethren. And it
causes us to help one another when in need. Even to give a
thirsty brother or sister a drink of water, even to the point,
1 John chapter three says, of dying for each other. That's
the greatest act of love. No greater love than that. but
it keeps us together in the gospel, in the truth. Now, our love for
our fellow man is not a fellowship that brings us together because
we're not together in the truth. We can pray for our enemies,
but we can't have fellowship with them in their lives. You
see what I'm saying? If that's what you think love
is, you don't know the love of God. And there are people who
will, if we don't speak peace, we talk about that. Speaking
peace where there is no peace. Jeremiah had a lot to say. I
think he invoked that phrase in two passages in Jeremiah six
and Jeremiah eight. He talked about false preachers
who were giving false comfort to the people in Jerusalem and
Judah when they didn't know God. When they believed in a false
God. Worshiping idols and Jeremiah would tell him the truth, and
they said he's a burden you remember the burden of the word Jeremiah
would come in he's gonna give his message, and they'd say here
comes the burden of the Lord It's kind of like people day.
You don't have anything good to say about us But then there
there was like a hundred or more false preachers who'd say you're
okay, you're fine you're in you're in right with God and Now what
we're saying is we can pray for them. We pray that God save them.
God save them. God turn them from their idol
and turn them to Christ. And if they're in need, if they
need some clothes or need some water or need some food, we can
help them. That's acts of love. But we can't have fellowship
with them. We can't receive them into the house and the family
of God. You see what I'm saying? Yes,
we can love them, love your enemies, but we can't have fellowship
with them. We may like them. You know, I always hear people
say, you know, when they talk about somebody who believes in
a false gospel, and a lot of times they'll put an addition
onto it and say, but they're such a nice person. And you know,
that kind of irks me a little bit. And you know why? Well, I never said that everybody
believes a false gospel or just mean people with fangs and horns. Folks, there's a lot of nice
people out there. You know them. But sadly, you
can't speak peace to them if they don't know Christ. You understand
it? If your idea of love is comforting
them in their false refuge, you don't know the love of God. I can love them, I can say I
pray for them, I pray, even my greatest enemy, I know this about
my greatest enemy, that if God would ever bring them to Christ,
they'd be a good friend. You understand that? Now, look
at what he says here in Romans 13 again. He says, he that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law. And then he invokes the second
table of the Ten Commandments, because what does that involve?
Love to your brother. I believe, you know, it's the
same thing that Christ did to the rich young man in Matthew
19. You know, it's easy for people
to talk about, oh, I love God, I love the Lord. Well, you want
to put that to the test? How do you love your neighbor?
How do you love your brother? Because that's kind of like the
gauge that shows how much you really love God. And then he
says, all of that is summarized in the commandment, verse nine,
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now he'd said love
is the fulfilling of the law. Look at verse 10, love worketh
no ill to his neighbor. Have you ever wished ill upon
anyone? Do you now ever wish ill upon
anyone? Well, I got news for you. If
you have, you better get on your knees and thank God that salvation's
by grace and not by your works. He says, therefore, love is the
fulfilling of the law. Now, I believe what Paul is saying
here is this, that he's making the point that it's no use talking
about keeping the law. if we harbor any ill will towards
anybody. And he's showing that this, look,
the law is summarized. Love God with all your heart,
soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.
And that's certainly a law that convicts every one of us and
shows us that we are not yet. as old Newton said, what we should
be or what we're gonna be. We're still sinners in need of
God's grace. However, the kind of love that
we should strive for, not in order to be saved, not in order
to pay the debt of the law, because we don't owe a debt to the law.
Well, we're dead of love to God. So the kind of love that we should
strive for is that perfection of love that can only be found
in Christ. And it's equivalent to saying
that we ought to follow him and be like Christ. We ought to have
a desire to be like Christ. Now, no, we're not there yet. The only righteousness that I
can claim right now is the imputed righteousness of Christ. But
when I consider love and all of these things about obedience,
I ought to understand that love is the fulfilling of the law.
And again, he's not saying we equal to the perfection of love
that's in the law, but that's our standard, that's our goal.
And then look at verse 11. He says, and that knowing the
time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now
is our salvation near them when we believe. What he's talking
about is final glory here. And he's saying, look, time is
short here on earth. And we who are getting older,
we realize how short it is. So don't sleep on this. There
may have been a problem in this church, as there so often is,
people who are very lax, who are very lackadaisical in the
duties of love and obedience. He says, wake up. Don't go to
sleep on this. Wake up. Love one another. Obey God. Evangelize. All of
these things, you see. Because our salvation, which
I believe he's talking about our final glory, is nearer than
when God first brought us to a saving knowledge of Christ
in our new birth. So he says, don't waste time.
Don't let the time pass. Use your time wisely under God
to honor him and to glorify him. Owe no man anything, see? Don't
hold back on these things that we owe one another, the things
that we owe God, which are debts of love. and realize that we're
sinners saved by grace based upon the love of God for us in
Christ. And thank God not our love for
him, because if it was based on our love for him, we'd all
be goners, as one guy said. All right.