The Circle of Love

“But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.” (1Jo 2:5 AV)

There is great debate today of the place of commandments in the life of the saint.  There are those who believe that grace cancels law for the practical life of the believer.  Actually, this doctrine is as old as the first century church.  It was begun by a man called Nicholas.  He was the first gentile deacon of the church at Jerusalem.  He served at the time of the council recorded in the fifteen chapter of Acts.  At the time, the Gentiles and Jews struggled over the place of the law in the lives of the Gentiles.  They consensus was the law was to take a minimal place in the lives of the Gentiles until further revelation was given by God.  That is, the particularly Jewish portion of the law such as circumcision, dietary law, laws of inheritance in Canaan, etc.  No one debated that adultery was not permitted.  Baring false witness was not, all of a sudden, moral.  Nicholas used this idea of relaxed law to undermine the entire law.  He taught, as is taught today, that law was canceled in grace.  That the child of God was no longer under the law.  He was partially correct.  However, as is the case today, this idea has been abused to permit the child of God to do as he pleases and not as he should.  We are going to look at this from a different angle.

God has manifested His love to mankind by grace.  The grace revealed in His Son.  When Christ came as a man, endured temptation as we, suffered and died in our place – that was grace!  That is grace!  The gift of salvation in by the torture and death of His Son is grace.  That is how we see God’s love towards us.  But how do we reciprocate?  How is love made complete.  Perfect, in the Bible, means complete.  How is this circle of love made whole?  What is our manifestation of our love towards Him?  We cannot show grace.  Grace requires and authority or position of strength show mercy towards another of lesser strength and standing.  God is God.  We are not.  So, I ask the question again.  How do we make this circle of love complete?  The answer is throughout this letter.  By our obedience to His word.  Or, law!

A child, even though he is bent towards disobedience, still desires to please his father.  He enjoys being successful in meeting expectations placed before him. All one needs to do is watch a reaction from a child when he is congratulated for picking up his toys.  A student wants to earn an ‘A’.  An employee wants to be recognized for extraordinary work.  It is in our make-up to desire to please an authority.  Why, then, would we want to remove the law as a means to complete the circle of love?  According to our beloved Apostle, obedience is what God has given to us as means to express our love towards God.  In removing the law, the contemporary and removed the means by which God has given to show our love and our walk with God is all one-sided.  It is self-centered.  It is man-centered.  It is eventually empty.