Love Your Neighbour

(Galatians 5:14-15)

If there is one aspect of Christianity that we all need to aspire to, it is finding the love of God.

Love is more important than anything else, and the verses we are looking at today gives us an indication of how weighty this matter is. They state:

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another. (Galatians 5:14-15)

How different a world it would be if everyone lived by these principles. As this chapter of Galatians continues, which I will cover in the next few posts, we find out how we come into the place of finding and living in God’s love.

Love is greater than the law

The first of these two verses shows us that love is greater than the law. To love your neighbour as yourself is greater than keeping the law.

This is important to understand.

The laws of God as given to man through Moses, including the Ten Commandments, are founded in love. God does not want man to suffer unnecessarily, so He gave a set of rules and regulations by which man should live if man chose to live in peace and harmony with God, with his fellow man and with himself.

Jesus showed us that the two primary and the greatest of the commandments were:

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:28-34)

See the emphasis that Jesus places on these two commandments? The first is to love God and the second is to love your fellow man. And note also His response to the scribe who agreed that these are the greatest commandments and much more important than sacrifices and offerings. Jesus stated that this man was very close to the kingdom of God.

The sacrifices and offerings were done according to the law for the atonement of sins. Other laws were highly regarded and followed by the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and followers of Judaism at the time, but these too pale into insignificance in relation to learning about God’s love.

God gave man the law because of His love for mankind and His desire that man should find a better way to live. The law was originally based on love, which is why Jesus stated that these two greatest laws sum up ALL of the law, and likewise Paul shows us in Galatians 5:14-15 that the whole law is fulfilled when we love others as God loves us.

Redeemed from the law

We know that in Christ we were redeemed from the law through His sacrifice for our sins. In His death, our sins were taken away and the law was also taken away.

We are told in other places in the Bible that the Old Covenant is becoming obsolete and fading away with the introduction of the New Covenant. When a person comes to Christ they exit the realm of the Old Covenant, which covers this life on the earth, and they enter into the kingdom of God that is governed by the New Covenant in faith. Thus, under the New Covenant the law is obsolete because the Old Covenant was a covenant of law.

But even though we are redeemed from the law and sin and death, we are not separated from love. Love is the fulfilling of the law.

All of these other things will eventually pass and fade away. But love is eternal.

Love is eternal because God is eternal and God is love. Even many of the things of the New Covenant will fade and pass away in time, but not love, as we see in the following verses.

8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

All other things will pass away because they are imperfect. But love never passes away when it is perfected in us and we walk in the love of God.

We are being trained as Christians to learn how to walk as Christ walked. We are being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ who bears the stamp of God the Father’s nature and is in His image.

Thus, God is love, Jesus is love and we are being transformed by the Holy Spirit into their image. When that transformation is complete, then the “perfect” will come and God will live with man.

But we are not there yet and so all those things of the New Covenant, faith, grace, hope, tongues, prophecy, knowledge and so on, are still necessary. These are given to us by God so that the work of transformation can be completed in us and so that we can walk in love as God is love.

Do not bite and devour

This brings me to the second verse in this section under review, which is to not bite and devour one another.

Think about it this way. How does biting and devouring show the love of God? How does arguing, fighting, back-stabbing, jealousy, envy, and the like show the love of God?

They don’t! And in this verse there is a warning.

Paul does not use the words “bit” and “devour” for no reason. He chose these words because they add weight to what he is trying to warn us about.

When we bite and devour others, we are the ones that are consumed. Our love is destroyed and consumed as if eaten through these negative and destructive behaviours.

If we bite and devour others, are they harmed? No, it is we who are harmed.

If you get angry and strike out at others, it is you who are in the wrong. Sure, they may have made a mistake or even a deliberate action against you, but when you bite back you prolong the issue and become party to the wrongdoing they have done.

Love does not behave this way. When you walk in love, if someone attacks you, you do not bite back. Arguing and fighting, especially among the brothers and sisters in the Lord does not promote the order of love.

Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek when attacked. To do so will defuse the argument and show that we walk in love. But if we bite back, the hostility increases.

Not everyone has this knowledge and not everyone has the degree of control over their emotions to walk in these ways. That’s OK. It takes time to learn how to walk in God’s love and to grow to this level of maturity in Christ Jesus. If we hold fast to our faith and we continue to learn and exercise the walking in the spirit ministry, we can come to this place where the peace of God rests and stays in our hearts.

Suffice to say, to love as Christ loved and to walk in love is the aspirational goal of all Christians. Without love we will not live with Him and be a art of the final kingdom when God lives with man.

So learn all you can about what is required to love your neighbour as God loves you. Be prepared to forgive and to overlook the failings of others, just as you have been forgiven by God. This is the path to peace and to love.

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