Objection 13: The only command that we need to keep now is Christ's new commandment to love one another, for He declared that we should keep His commandments even as He had kept His Father's commandments. And does not the Bible say that love is the fulfilling of the law?
It is quite true that Christ said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34. But there is nothing in this new commandment that indicates that it is to replace all the others. The text does not allow such a conclusion.
Christ did not say that we should keep His commandments in the place of His Father's commandments. It would be rebellion for the Son to free us from the Father’s laws and set up new ones in their place.
Christ’s purpose was not to destroy the great moral teachings and laws that had been given in former centuries. In His sermon on the mount He declared: think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill them. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matt. 5:17, 18.
And when we read further in that wonderful sermon, we find Christ telling His hearers that they were viewing various commandments of the Ten Commandments in too narrow a sense. Instead of abolishing or even restricting His Father's commandments, Christ magnified them.
Thus in His commandment to the disciples concerning love, Christ wanted them to view love in a more holy sense than formerly. He wanted them to love one another not as the world interprets love—selfishly, sentimentally, or even sensually—but rather in the elevated way in which He loved his Father and His Father loved Him. In His life, Christ had set before His disciples an example of what true, unselfish love really is, such love as had never before been witnessed on earth. In this sense, Jesus’ commandment might be described as new. It charged His followers not simply to love one another, but “that you love one another, as I have loved you.” John 15:12.
But what of the statement that love is the fulfilling of the law? The objector often expands this by saying that Christ declared that all we are to do is to “love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves.” Let us read exactly what the Bible does say on this matter:
“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22:35-40.
Christ was here setting forth no new doctrine. On the contrary, He was answering the specific question, “Which is the great commandment in the law?” His answer is almost an exact quotation from the Old Testament. (See Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18) In other words, the two great commandments to love God and to love our neighbor belong definitely to Old Testament times. Now then, if these two commandments take the place of the Ten Commandments, why were the Ten Commandments ever given? But the very Israelites who listened to the exhortation to love God and their neighbor also listened to the clear-cut command to obey the ten precepts of the Ten
Commandments.
No, these two commandments on love do not take the place of any other law. Instead, Christ declared that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” How evidently wrong, then, to make these two commandments hang by themselves, and cut off everything else.
This is contrary to the teaching of Christ. According to the Bible you cannot separate love from law. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:2-3.
Thus reads the Good Book. If we truly love our fellow man, we will not steal his goods or lie about him or kill him. Indeed, we will not do any of the things prohibited by God's commandments. And if we truly love God, we will not bow down to false gods, or take God's name in vain, or use for our own purpose His holy Sabbath day. In other words, if we truly love God and our fellow men—not sentimentally or selfishly, but really—we will not willfully break any of the Ten Commandments.
Keeping the law is love, and true, unselfish love requires the keeping of the law. Instead of love’s being a substitute for law, love is the one power that brings forth true obedience to God's commandments. The Bible warns us against those who say they know and love God but refuse to keep His commandments. (1 John 2:4.) Such “love” is a counterfeit and a deception.