The gospel of Christ perfects relationships between people when they internalize its precepts and implement them in their behavior. The reason for this is simple, when one understands the basic precept of Jesus' teaching. That precept is love, which means unselfishness. When a person interacts with others on the principle of unselfishness, he is hardly apt to offend them. His consideration flows outward to them rather than inward unto himself, as in the case of a selfish person. Typical in the gospel is the exhortation of Php. 2:3, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself." Jesus would turn each of us away from self indulgence and cause us to take into consideration the needs of people about us, especially of those who are involved in some kind of suffering. So rather than having debts to each other that are paid by acts of getting even, we should owe nothing but love to one another.
There is another important point in the text that must be considered carefully. It is expressed in the words, "for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." The object of "the law," whether it be the law of Moses or the law of Christ, is to establish a mode of life which God approves. This text (Rom. 13:8) and many others like it declare that love, when it is the kind that dwells in God, will achieve the same goal as law. When it is incessantly expressed in pure form, it will lead a person into the lifestyle which pleases God. At this point, however, many people draw a faulty conclusion. They decide that one can magnify the action of love in his life and pay less attention to the details of the law. In other words, one need not take the New Testament too seriously or be overly concerned with its detailed requirements. Just devote your life to the way of love, and all will be well. The fallacy in this line of reasoning is that it gives too much credit to our human ability to deny selfishness and surrender ourselves totally to the principle of absolutely unselfish love. The strongest man is still, after all, just a man and therefore subject to human frailty. As long as we live in the flesh there is always the dark side to our nature, something which I Cor. 2:14 calls the "natural man." This wild potential needs to be controlled, for its desire is to satisfy itself. God, who knows our constitution far better than we ever will, is fully aware of our inner "natural" character. He has given us a law by which to subdue it and then keep it under control. The more one takes his attention off of the law God has given us to govern our lives, the more that person makes himself vulnerable to corruption by his basic human urges. We are thus admonished in I Cor. 10:12, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."
Love is not, therefore. a substitute for strict attention to the New Testament law and its details. In fact, in the words of Christ Himself, one cannot truly love Him without being attentive to His law. In Jno. 14:15 He said, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." It is erroneous for someone to say, "I will love Jesus and my fellowmen without reservation, so I need not pay any great attention to every jot and tittle of New Testament scripture." Jesus declares that we can keep His law only by the love that we have for Him. It is actually a reciprocal thing in that love leads to obedience, and obedience leads to greater love. We need to preach and practice love far more than we do, but not at the expense of devotion to the law of Christ. Love and obedience to Christ cannot be separated.
