The Royal Law

by L.A. Hickling | Category: General | May 1990

Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ye do well (Jas. 2:8)

James in this verse is quoting the scriptural commandment that was given long ago to Israel. The Lord Jesus gave His own emphasis to the importance of that commandment when He was asked by one of the scribes, "What commandment is the first of all?" (Mark 12:28). He gave the following answer:

The first is ... thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength...the second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself There is none other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:2931).

Love to God and love to man, these are the great commandments that have stood over the years; commandments which none except the Lord Jesus Himself has been able to keep fully. What a different place the world would be if men lived their lives in the attitude of mind these commandments prescribe.

Just a short time before the Lord Jesus was to be crucified, after He had showed His love and care for His disciples by washing their feet, He said to them:

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another (John 13:34,35).

In these words the Lord emphasized to those who would be His witnesses on earth after He had returned to the Father the importance of love in their relationships with one another.

We who have been born again love our Saviour. We love Him because He first loved us; with the apostle we can say, He "loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20). Because of this we should be ready, as the hymn says, in some small degree to return His love again. May we seek grace to grow in love to Him. Then if we love Him we shall keep His commandments, and one of these is the command to "love one another". Notice what the Lord states should be the measure of that love - "even as I have loved you". That goes a long way beyond the statement in the law, "to love thy neighbour as thyself", but this is the standard set for disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle John develops the theme in his first epistle:

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another... And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also (4:11,21).

When developing this theme John makes the following serious point:

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen (4:20).

We would do well to ponder the full meaning of that solemn statement.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians wrote:

For ye, brethren, were called for freedom: only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another (Gal. 5:13).

L.A. Hickling | May 1990
General