Sabbath: Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law

Daily Lesson for Sabbath 22nd of March 2025

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Exodus 20:1-17; Romans 6:1-3; Romans 7:7-12; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 23:23-24; James 2:1-9.

Memory Text:

“Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8, NKJV).

While they were dealing with a problematic member, someone on the church board said to the pastor, “We can’t make decisions based on compassion.” We can’t? The pastor wondered what this person’s understanding of God and of God’s law must have been. Compassion certainly needs to be central in how we deal with people, especially erring ones. Compassion is part and parcel of love, and as Romans 13:8 tells us, to love one’s neighbor is to fulfill the law.

If love is indeed the fulfillment of the law, then we should be careful not to think of law in a way that is separate from love or to think of love in a way that is disconnected from law. In Scripture, love and law go together. The divine Lawgiver is love, and accordingly, God’s law is the law of love. It is, as Ellen G. White put it, the transcript of God’s character. (See Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 305.)

God’s law is not a set of abstract principles but commands and instructions intended for our flourishing. God’s law is, in its totality, an expression of love as God Himself expresses it.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, March 29.

Sunday–>

Print/PDF/Email

(0)

We are coming to the end of our study on “God’s Love and Justice”, and it is time to consider what we have learned. Has it been an academic pursuit of spiritual knowledge so we can more eloquently describe the nature of the Godhead? Or is it a springboard for action in a world that is in desperate need of love and justice?
This little episode from a favourite Australian author gives us something to think about as we start this week’s final study on this topic.

[In a little bush chapel in the throes of a harsh Australian drought, Peter M’Laughan, the preacher for the day, ended the service saying.] “We will now sing” — he glanced at Clara Southwick at the harmonium — “we will now sing ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’” We all knew that hymn; it was an old favourite round there, and Clara Southwick played it well in spite of the harmonium.
And Peter sang—the first and last time I ever heard him sing. I never had an ear for music; but I never before nor since heard a man’s voice that stirred me as Peter M‘Laughlan’s. We stood like emus, listening to him all through one verse, then we pulled ourselves together.

"Shall we gather at the River,
Where bright angels’ feet have trod—"

The only rivers round there were barren creeks, the best of them only strings of muddy waterholes, and across the ridge, on the sheep-runs, the creeks were dry gutters, with baked banks and beds, and perhaps a mudhole every mile or so, and dead beasts rotting and stinking every few yards.

"Gather with the saints at the River,
That flows by the throne of God."

Peter’s voice trembled and broke. He caught his breath, and his eyes filled. But he smiled then—he stood smiling at us through his tears.

"The beautiful, the beautiful River,
That flows by the throne of God."

Outside I saw women kiss each other who had been at daggers drawn ever since I could remember, and men shake hands silently who had hated each other for years. Every family wanted Peter to come home to tea, but he went across to Ross’s, and afterwards down to Kurtz’s place, and bled and inoculated six cows or so in a new way, and after tea he rode off over the gap to see his friend. Henry Lawson, “Shall We Gather at the River”

We have been comfortably sitting on the veranda of our houses of worship, discussing the great themes of the Bible, but the time has come, to break down walls, heal wounds, dispel hatred, and counter the injustices we see around us. If we have experienced “the river” we must share it with others.

(2)

Reply ↓

Comments

Sabbath: Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law — 2 Comments

Maurice Ashton on March 21, 2025 at 10:14 am said:

We are coming to the end of our study on “God’s Love and Justice”, and it is time to consider what we have learned. Has it been an academic pursuit of spiritual knowledge so we can more eloquently describe the nature of the Godhead? Or is it a springboard for action in a world that is in desperate need of love and justice?
This little episode from a favourite Australian author gives us something to think about as we start this week’s final study on this topic.

[In a little bush chapel in the throes of a harsh Australian drought, Peter M’Laughan, the preacher for the day, ended the service saying.] “We will now sing” — he glanced at Clara Southwick at the harmonium — “we will now sing ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’” We all knew that hymn; it was an old favourite round there, and Clara Southwick played it well in spite of the harmonium.
And Peter sang—the first and last time I ever heard him sing. I never had an ear for music; but I never before nor since heard a man’s voice that stirred me as Peter M‘Laughlan’s. We stood like emus, listening to him all through one verse, then we pulled ourselves together.

"Shall we gather at the River,
Where bright angels’ feet have trod—"

The only rivers round there were barren creeks, the best of them only strings of muddy waterholes, and across the ridge, on the sheep-runs, the creeks were dry gutters, with baked banks and beds, and perhaps a mudhole every mile or so, and dead beasts rotting and stinking every few yards.

"Gather with the saints at the River,
That flows by the throne of God."

Peter’s voice trembled and broke. He caught his breath, and his eyes filled. But he smiled then—he stood smiling at us through his tears.

"The beautiful, the beautiful River,
That flows by the throne of God."

Outside I saw women kiss each other who had been at daggers drawn ever since I could remember, and men shake hands silently who had hated each other for years. Every family wanted Peter to come home to tea, but he went across to Ross’s, and afterwards down to Kurtz’s place, and bled and inoculated six cows or so in a new way, and after tea he rode off over the gap to see his friend. Henry Lawson, “Shall We Gather at the River”

We have been comfortably sitting on the veranda of our houses of worship, discussing the great themes of the Bible, but the time has come, to break down walls, heal wounds, dispel hatred, and counter the injustices we see around us. If we have experienced “the river” we must share it with others.

(2)

Reply ↓
Omwenga Mwambi on March 21, 2025 at 12:06 pm said:

If all citizens of a country were to exercise love in all their actions, there would be no need to have the police department or courts. Governments would save lots of money to be used elsewhere to improve public services. Therefore, the best strategy to eradicate crime and improve the quality of living globally is for all the world governments to join hands to preach love. Love is the answer to all social, economic, and political problems under the sun.

"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" - 1 Corinthians 13:1 (NLT).

(0)

Reply ↓

Sabbath School Net

Seventh-day Adventist Bible Study Discussion

Sabbath: Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law

Read for This Week’s Study: Exodus 20:1-17; Romans 6:1-3; Romans 7:7-12; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Matthew 23:23-24; James 2:1-9.

*Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, March 29.

Comments

Sabbath: Love Is the Fulfillment of the Law — 2 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply