The Wonderful Law

Psalm 119:18 from yesterday was a prayer to open our eyes so we might see wonderful things in God's Law and I talked about delighting yourself in the Lord as a means to see those wonderful things. So...what are the wonderful things about The Law?

The Law of Moses, the life instructions God gave to Israel as they wandered the desert, is quite long and detailed. There is a ton of information to sort through there and some of it seems pretty dated or even a little silly by modern standards. You can go check out Exodus and Leviticus and read some pretty crazy stuff, and I think that's where the psalmist is wanting to be shown the wonderful things in the law. To find our answer, we have to jump ahead and look at what the New Testament has to say about the Law (all from NIV)...

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. -- Matthew 5:17

“This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” -- Luke 24:44

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. -- Romans 13:8

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. -- Romans 13:10

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. -- Galatians 6:2

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” -- Galatians 5:14

Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and Paul tells us in Galatians that the law if fulfilled by keeping that command. Now go back and look through the Old Testament Law and see how often you find instances of instructions that boil down to "love your neighbor as yourself". They are all over the place!

God gave Israel many instructions in order to keep them healthy and show them the right way to live and a big part of that dealt with the proper way to treat each other. Jesus came along and told us He was sent to fulfill the law. His greatest instruction to us, the most important thing He wanted to impress upon us, was to love one another as much as we could ever love ourselves. Love is it! It's the key to knowing The Wonderful Law, the key to life itself, because without love in our hearts we cannot know Jesus and there is no life without Him. Don't shrug away from the Law, embrace it. After all, the law being fulfilled is what has set us free, free indeed!