i only mentioned one tiny part of that love. as somone else mentioned, sharing ones meal with another when one barely has enough is another aspect of that love. i think it would take a lifetime, and library, to point how far-reaching and deep that love goes.

I see things this way as well.

As this week's study is on grace, how do love and grace relate to each other?

You reasoning is faulty -- at least that's what they taught us in school.

It goes like this --

All cats have four legs
That creature over there has four legs, therefore it must be a cat.
BUT no -- it's not.

What you are saying:
All God's commandments are summed up in love
That person is loving, therefore he is keeping God's commandments.
BUT no -- they may be, but yet they may not be.

Love must be governed by more than what one thinks is the "loving, selfless thing to do". God's commandments must take precedence.

You've jumped too far in the educational system. The logic is based on propositional logic, not the syllogisms of deductive logic. Here's how it goes:

Love is the fulfillment of the law.
Therefore, if a person is loving, he fulfills the law.

The key to the logic is the simple proposition that love fulfills the law.

What you seem to be proposing is that love does not always fulfill the law. Is that right?


I think the problem is not one of governance, but definition. Love is NOT "what one thinks is the 'loving, selfless thing to do'." If that's what you think love is, then you certainly should reject it as the guiding principle of godliness because it has human ideas as its foundation.

But once we escape the tangles of human ideas, we will find that love, as God defines it, is not something that is subject to the law, but is something that determines what the law must be. Check this out:
I was going to cut that shorter, but it was too good to abridge.

So there we have Paul's one-liner, and the SOP expounding on it. Underneath God's law, acting as its foundation and guide, is divine love. In short, love is what GOD thinks is the "loving, selfless thing to do" and His law is simply an enumeration of how to go about doing that. And if one is loving, as God defines loving, how could he sin? (Now would be a good time to segue into 1 John 3.)

Check out the SC 60.2 quote above. Grace is what enables us to love. Without it, all we can do is to be selfish.

So you reason --

Since sin is the opposite of righteousness
And selfless love is one of the highest attributes of righteousness,
Therefore selfless love is the opposite of sin.

Which is true if you are working from the general principle to the specifics, but faulty reasoning if you then throw out the premise and replace it with a specific.

Righeousness is still the starting premise.

Faith and trust in God are also the opposite of sin.
Romans 14:23 whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
So is temperance the opposite of sin.
1 John 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
Purity is the opposite of sin.
So are all the attributes of righteousness, the opposite of sin.
Gal. 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
5:23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Thus righteousness is still the opposite of sin.
Love must be part of that righteousness, to be included as the opposite of sin.


So was Adam's self sacrificing love for Eve sin or righteous, when he chose to die with her rather than to obey God?
Adam, through his love for Eve, disobeyed the command of God, and fell with her.





"This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments."1 John 5:3 "He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." Proverbs 28:9.

Love is fulfilling God's law. It doesn't take the place of God's law.

Yes, love for God and others in perfect accord with God's will is the goal.
Yet, God's Word, must always take precedence, it must be placed higher than our best concepts of love, or we will never be in accord with God, but making "love" our god.


God is a God of truth. Justice and mercy are the attributes of His throne. Holiness and purity radiate from His person. Power and majesty are His. Yet, He is a God of love, of pity and tender compassion. Thus He is represented in His Son, our Saviour. He is a God of patience and long-suffering, not wanting people to perish but to come to repentance and turn from their evil ways to His saving grace. If such is the being whom we adore and to whose character we are seeking to assimilate, we are worshiping the true God.

Yes, we need to dwell upon the matchless love of God revealed through Christ our Savior, yet if we concentrate solely on one attribute to the neglect of the others, we may end up with a different god.

It appears you are coming at this from an idealistic viewpoint, not from real world.
We are humans not robots.
We make choices as to what to do and not to do.
That's how God made us -- to be thinking people.

You seem to be saying we are infused with "divine love" and automatically fulfil the law, and any "loving act" is therefore fulfilling God's law.

BUT THE REALITY of life is --
What we choose to do IS HUMAN choice, we are NOT divine.
People will THINK and feel they are doing the loving thing, when in actuality their "loving act" could be against God's commandments.
They think that since they are now Christians and have accepted Christ -- their "loving" impulses are now automatically fulfilling God's law.

Yes,
Love is the fulfilment of the law --
We can't separate love from obedience, or it isn't obedience at all. However, LOVE WILL SEEK TO FULFIL THE LAW.

The quote you gave CLEARLY SAYS LOVE LOOKS TO THE LAW for its direction. It seeks and wants to obey God's law. It makes God and His Word the precedent, not the "love".




Of course love is the human response.
You aren't saying that we have become gods and now love like God? We will never love like God. We can only love as human beings. And that love MUST BE SUBJECTED TO GOD'S WORD! We must seek out God's will, and conform ourselves to His will, that is love, not the other way around.

That love response in us grows as we contemplate the cross, and what Christ has done for us. And then, yes, we want to do what God says. We love to do what He says, because we love HIM. We love others because we see His love for them. But it will always be our love from our human hearts and minds. Influenced and renewed by the Holy Spirit, yes, but still our human love.

And IT MUST BE IN SUBJECTION TO GOD'S WORD AND COMMANDS.



What can I say, without appearing as "unloving". But how in the world does one "escape human ideas" without going to God's word and law?

What you wrote there is the very essense of "new theology" -- to think our love is no longer our human love but divine love within, and so we can determine what the law must be?

Brother --
We are human beings,
don't get into the mystic idea that we will ever have so much "divine love" that we can determine what the law is to be.
We are subject to God's law.

When EGW says divine love is implanted in our soul,she's refering to the change in our motives, she does NOT mean we become divine and can now determine what God's law should be.


The quote you gave, does not match the statement --
It clearly states that God's law becomes imprinted in our hearts and minds, and our love response to God is to fulfil His law. We NEVER DEFINE the law.

Was Jesus as you describe - bound by the shackles of human love?

Jesus asked Peter, "Do you agape Me?" Peter could only respond, "I phileo You."

Who is our example, Jesus or Peter?

The "love" you speak of is generated by human effort, trying hard to keep the law of God as a set of rules. The "love" I speak of seeks to bless others, for the benefit of others, and thereby fulfills the law as a result.

You see keeping the law as resulting in love; I see love as resulting in keeping the law. It's a question of which is the cause and which is the effect. "If you keep My commandments, you will love Me."

Have you ever seen the EGW quote that says that in obeying God's commands, Christians are merely following their own impulses? That's conversion. He has been changed from the inside, making the outside Christlike also. Something like the cup.

In contrast, the one who looks at the law as a set of requirements is trying to clean the outside of the cup. Life is one big chore for such a one.

Plus, it's time to use your syllogisms now. You have erred in concluding that I said anything like "we can determine what the law is to be."

6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, 16 knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
17 “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. 19 For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—
9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. 10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”
19 What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. 20 Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. 21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
8 But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— 25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— 26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. 13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.


This is the source of my reasoning.