Eternity 105 - The Kingdom Of Heaven And The Law Of Love
(James 2:8 NKJV) If you really fulfill the royal law according to
the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you
do well;
(Galatians 5:14 KJV) For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
In the kingdom of the heavens there is a "royal law", and James
spells it out as the well-known commandment: "You shall love your neighbor
as yourself,". The law of the Kingdom is not a long list of do's and
don'ts and religious taboos. It has just one great overall law, this law
of love.
Lets start back at the basics. The Kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of love
and when God's will is done on earth as it is done in Heaven the result
is a loving community of Spirit--filled believers like the Jerusalem church
in Acts 2-5. The central Christian requirement is to love God, to love one
another, to love the brethren, and to live in a way that builds other people
up and which blesses their lives.
The manifestation of the Kingdom will be a loving, peaceful and righteous
community of faithful believers. It will be filled with grace and truth
and have healing and spiritual power in its midst and be eager to fulfill
the commandments of Jesus. This community will be a place where the "one
another" commands of the gospels are fulfilled. How we treat one another
is the basis of Christian community and a list of the "one another"
imperatives in the NT is included below.
The One Another Commands
There are many "one another" commands in Scripture: have peace
with one another (Matthew 9:50) and love one another as I have loved you
(John 13:34, Romans 13:8).
Romans 12 and following has a whole string of them: be kindly affectionate
to one another (v.10), give preference to one another (v.10) be of the same
mind to one another (v.16), do not judge (Rom 14;13), accept o.a. (Romans
15:7), admonish o.a. (Rom 15:14), Greet one another with a holy kiss (Rom
16:6, 1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12),
And the problems of the early church mean that the epistles are full of
them such as: do not go to law with o.a. (1 Cor 6;7) do not deprive one
another (1 Cor 7;5) wait for one another (1 Cor 11:33), have the same care
for one another (1 Cor 12:25), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), bear
with one another (Eph 4:2), be kind to one another (Eph 4:32) forgive one
another (Eph 4:32), speaking to one another is psalms and spiritual songs
(Eph 5:19) submit to one another (Eph 5:21) , do not lie to one another
(Col 3:9), comfort one another (I Thess 4:18) edify one another (1 Thess
5:11), exhort one another (Heb 3:13) consider the spiritual condition of
one another (Hebrews 10:24), confess your sins to one another (James 5:16)
and pray for one another (James 5:16), have compassion for one another (1
Peter 3:8), be hospitable to one another (1 Peter 4:9) and minister to one
another (1 Peter 4:10) plus a host of "do nots" such as do not
grumble to one another etc.
The Dynamic Of The Kingdom Of Love Is A New Nature
(Colossians 1:8 NKJV) who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
(1 John 4:12-19 NKJV) No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another,
God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. {13} By this we
know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His
Spirit. ....{16} And we have known and believed the love that God has for
us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
{17} Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. {18}
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear
involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. {19}
We love Him because He first loved us.
To live in the flow of the "one another" commands of the New Testament
requires a radical death to human selfishness and to the proud and contentious
nature of the flesh. This can only be accomplished through the cross in
the power of the Holy Spirit. We can only love if God works that love in
our hearts first. We do not naturally love in the sense of "agape"
Kingdom love, we love because He first loved us.
We need a new born-again nature filled with the Holy Spirit if we are to
joyously and easily and lightly carry out the commands of Christ to love
one another as we love ourselves. Unless Christ in us does these things
they simply will not be done. Life is too busy, too fearful, too self-preserving
for us to think much of others and their needs.
The old nature will go to a thousand churches and perform a million penances
rather than die to self. The law of Christ and His Kingdom does away with
all these externals.The law of Christ demands the one thing the old nature
will not, indeed cannot do - that is to be utterly selflessly loving in
all righteousness and truth. Our Christian duty boils down to just one utterly
impossible duty - to love our neighbors as ourselves. But what is impossible
with man is possible with God. With Christ in our lives we can be truly
loving, we can fulfill the royal law by the power of the Holy Spirit. And
when we do, we start to do God's will on earth as it is in Heaven and we
begin the manifesting of the Kingdom of the Heavens.