“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose” – Matt. 5:17 (NLT).

The Bible speaks about the law often. The law is a general term, and frequently a confusing one, that is used throughout the whole of scripture. I probably won’t be the first to admit that sometimes when I read the Bible, especially some of the deep theological arguments of Paul, even I get a little muddled about the law, what it is exactly, and why it is important. When Jesus makes the statement that He did not come to abolish the law but to accomplish it, the meaning of the statement is lost to many of us. It carries no weight on its own; and the reason for this is because we do not understand it. Like the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time, we make it into a long list of rules – dos and don’ts. Thinking about the famous Ten Commandments, are they not a list of dos and don’ts? What about all those crazy sounding laws in the book of Leviticus? What about the subsequent laws found in the books Numbers and Deuteronomy? Yes, in fact they are rules – they are dos and don’ts – but not to keep us in fear of breaking them. They were designed to fulfill a singular purpose – to guide us into love.

If we boil down all those laws to their fundamental element, we will see, that, at its heart, the law is love and its purpose is to love. When God gave the law to the Hebrew people, He had just freed them from slavery and bondage. God knew they needed guideposts to help them stay focused on their main objective. You see, the people of Israel had been set free for a singular purpose. They were now to be God’s ambassadors to the rest of the world. They were to be a light in a dark and wicked world. They were to demonstrate to the whole world the love of God. This is why understanding what the scriptures are talking about, in regard to the nature of the law, is so vitally important. When Jesus makes the statement, “I have come to accomplish their purpose,” what He is saying is that He came to be God’s love to us and to demonstrate to us how to love others the way God loves them. Those who proclaim Jesus as Lord are now fellow ambassadors of God’s love. Just as the Israelites were set free, in Christ, we to have been set free from our bondage to sin, for the same singular purpose, to be the light of love in the world. In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the entire law hangs upon the first two commandments. What are the first two commandments? They are love. To love God first in all things, and to love others as much as you love yourself. If we, who are God’s ambassadors of love, fail to love God and love each other, then aren’t we breaking God’s law?

Directly following His statement about accomplishing the law’s purpose, Jesus teaches us how things like committing murder, lust, adultery, passing judgement, getting angry, breaking vows, and revenge are all actions of unlove. These unloving actions are breaking God’s laws and are known as sin. The definition of sin that we should take away from this lesson is this: sin is merely the act of unlove, or the perversion of love, or the rejection of love. Think about the classical understanding of sin as “missing the mark.” If the target is to love like God loves, then missing the target would be when we choose not to love another, or pervert love into something it was never meant to be, or to reject love altogether.

Love is the only business about which a Christian need be concerned. As Paul reminds us in Romans 13:8-10, “Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These—and other such commandments—are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.” In his commentary on Romans, N.T. Wright wrote, “God has made the world in such a way that kindness, gentleness, generosity, humility – love in all its forms – is life giving, while evil is deadly in all its forms.” Do not give into sin by refusing to love, for that will bring a deadly evil. Find a way to love even the most unlovable. For this reason alone, Christ came to die, laying down His life for the love of another – not just another, but His enemy. Are you being the light of love to the darkened world around you?