The Great Giveaway

Paul tells us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Let’s reword it so we can see it clearly. God’s best “I love you” for us is seen in Christ dying on our behalf. Love is the essence of the gospel.

But love is more than that. In Romans 1, we see that God’s righteous wrath isn’t about our misdeeds; it’s about our relational failure toward Him (Rom 1:18-21). It’s not that we were bad little boys and girls; it’s that we refused to acknowledge Him. The initial problem, then, was a breakdown in love.

Beyond that, Scripture makes an amazing claim. God’s Word claims that love is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus said that loving God and loving our neighbor was the entire law (Matt 22:37-40). He told His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). See that? Not “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” but “you will keep My commandments.” Paul wrote that “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:8-10). He told Timothy, “The goal of our instruction is love” (1 Tim 1:5). He told the Galatian Christians, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'” (Gal 5:14). James calls love “the royal law” (James 2:8), God’s “ultimate law.”

Therefore, the problem of sin between us and God and between us and our fellow human beings is a failure to love, and love is the fulfillment of the law.

But what does that love look like? Not our anemic “warm feelings” idea. We can see this at the outset when God demonstrates His love toward us by sending His Son to die for us. That’s not “warm feelings.” That’s sacrifice. Paul told the Philippians to share the same mind as Christ did “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Php 2:6-7). Love, then, seeks the best interest of the loved one without regard to self. Love empties self in order to give to the loved ones the very best.

Thus, husbands are commanded to “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).

Our fundamental sin problem is relational. Our design is for love—loving God and loving His people. Love is setting ourselves aside in order to gain another’s best interest. That love fulfills the law. Self-sacrifice is our reasonable, spiritual service of worship (Rom 12:1). Dying to self in this way is only possible if we are counting on our God to supply all our needs (Php 4:19). It is, however, loving in the way that we are loved and in the way we are commanded to love.