THE LAW vs CHRIST’S NEW COMMANDMENT

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³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” – Matthew 22: 37-40 NIV

Jesus reduced the entire Law of Moses and all the instructions of the Old Testament prophets down to two basic things – Loving God with everything we are and have and loving our fellow human beings just as much as we love ourselves. Now the Law had blessings and curses attached to it and since no one could keep it perfectly, everyone was basically brought under the curse of the Law.

But our Heavenly Father, who loves us with an everlasting love, had a better plan; He sent His Son – Jesus who came, lived a sinless life, perfectly fulfilled the entire Law and gave Himself for us; He died on the Cross to redeem us from the curse of the Law and rose again on the third day to complete our redemption.

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” – Galatians 3:13 NIV

When we believe in Jesus we are not only Born Again and forgiven of all our sin, but we are also redeemed from the curse of the Law and reconciled to God. We are now no longer bound by the Old Testament Law, but that doesn't mean we are lawless, far from it. We now have the Spirit of God in us, He writes Christ’s Law in our hearts and empowers us by His grace to walk in it.

The grace of God empowers to follow Christ’s New Commandment, which is of a much higher standard than the Old Testament law.

According to the OT Law, we are to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind but no human being, apart from Jesus that is, has ever been able to perfectly fulfill it. God is Love and through Christ He demonstrates to us what love actually looks like. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) and that's how He enables us to love others and to reciprocate His love.

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19 NIV

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While the OT Law also required us to love our neighbors as ourselves, the New commandment we have from Christ goes even further.

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. – John 13:34 NIV

We are to love one another just as He loved us for the Love of God has already been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. His love is in us, may His grace empower us to share it with those we interact with today and everyday.