Love is the Fulfilment of the Law

In the world of ancient philosophy, if you wanted to demonstrate the breadth of your learning, you would often write about the quality of your education, and your experience of sitting at the feet of different exemplars of different schools of thought. We see this in the first Apology of Justin Martyr, one of the earliest apologists of the Christian faith. He writes of sitting at the feet of Stoic, Platonist, and other pagan philosophers, before eventually embracing true philosophy as a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is worth commenting that in an earlier century, the Jewish historian, Josephus, describes the different schools of thought within Judaism in similar vein, when he describes the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Zealots.

Of course, in the ancient world, a school of thought was known as a ‘hairesis’, a term which did not suggest any negative connotation but simply meant ‘a choice’. But of course, as writers like Justin Martyr wrote of other schools of thought, this term became rather more loaded.

As he wrote in his first apology, ‘Then a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching those who are persuaded to acknowledge another God greater than the creator. In every race of humanity through the agency of demons he has caused many to utter blasphemies and to deny the maker of all as God….’ Marcion, born in the first century, is presented as the great heretic, and the term ‘hairesis’ quickly became a term of excoriation, so that in the second century, the French Bishop, Irenaeus, would publish a work entitled ‘Against the Heresies’.

Of course, as Professor Judy Lieu in her excellent study of Marcion points out, it is difficult to reconstruct exactly what Marcion’s false teaching encompassed. We only have the writings of his detractors to rely upon. But we do know that one of the principle areas of controversy which arose from his teaching was a question about the canon of scripture, and the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Marcion wanted to ditch as much of the old Jewish law as possible – there was a distinction to make between the loving God of the New Testament and the vengeful God of the Old Testament. The difficulty for Marcion was that the scriptural witness did not exactly bear this out. The passage which we have just heard from Matthew is a case in point:

‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.’

Matthew is telling us that in Jesus Christ, the promises of the law are not negated. They are fulfilled. All Marcion could do was begin to edit out much of the witness of the New Testament, and omit the writings of the Old Testament. By the time he had finished, you could fit a list of the writings of the canon of scripture on the back of a postage stamp.

Occasionally, people even today try to draw a contrast between the God of the Old and the God of the New Testaments. And yet, when we read the passage from Isaiah today, we realise that Isaiah is speaking about the way in which a genuine passion for justice can so easily be displaced by forms of religious observance. Isaiah points out that the people, when they fast, serve their own interest and oppress their workers. Surely a genuine fast, genuine self-sacrifice, would involve loosing the bonds of injustice, letting the oppressed go free, sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked: ‘Then your light shall break forth like dawn’. And immediately, we see the resonance of the words of Jesus in the gospel ‘Let you light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven’. It is no accident that the gospel of Matthew culminates in a parable which says ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me’ (Matthew 25.35-36).

There is no great contrast here between Isaiah and Matthew, between the God of the Old and the God of the New. There is a simple consistent witness – as Jesus says ‘I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfil it.’ Now of course, there are aspects of the Law which as Christians we do not observe. We are not constrained by kosher food laws or other works of the Law. Thomas Aquinas wrote of the distinction we might make between the natural, the ceremonial and the moral law. And of course, as we listen in to debates among the rabbis about the interpretation of the law, it is not always clear what obedience to the law might look like. At the Reformation, Martin Luther wrestled with this passage from Matthew, because the emphasis on works just didn’t quite fit with his accent on justification by faith alone.

It is a theme that the nineteenth century Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, does not refrain from addressing in his writings. Drawing on the letters of St Paul the Apostle, Kierkegaard makes the point that ‘love is the fulfilling of the law.’(Romans 13.10).

Kierkegaard writes: ‘If anyone asks, “What is love?” Paul answers, “It is the fulfilling of the law,” and straightway every further question is precluded by that answer. For the law – alas, it is already a very complex matter; but the fulfilling of the law – well, you yourself recognise that it this is to be attained there is not one moment to waste. Frequently in this world, the question “What is love?” has been asked out of curiosity, and frequently there has been an idle fellow who ins answering has latched on to the curious fellow, and these two, curiosity and idleness, think so much of each other they almost never tire of each other or of asking and answering. But Paul does not become engaged with the questioner, least of all in prolix discussions’.

For Paul, as for Isaiah, the sacrifice of love involves loosing the bonds of injustice, letting the oppressed go free, sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and satisfying the needs of the afflicted. In the words of Kierkegaard, “Christian love, which is the fulfilling of the law, is whole and collected in its every expression, and yet it is sheer action….It never becomes engrossed in anything beforehand and never gives a promise in place of action. It never draws satisfaction from imagining that it has finished. It never loiters delighting in itself; it never sits idly marvelling at itself. It is not that secret, private, mysterious feeling behind the lattice of the inexplicable,…. It is pure action and its every deed is holy, for it is the fulfilling of the law.’

This then is Christian love, and every parent who responds to the cry of a newborn infant recognises it instantly. We all know it when we see it: 'it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things' (1 Corinthians 13.7). This is the vocation to which Luke Christian Soren has been called, and which is why we now pray for the grace of baptism, in order that in the course of his life, he may have the strength, the courage and the resolve to follow in the way of Jesus Christ. For love is the fulfilling of the law, and wherever we discover the mystery of love, we discover the joy that God is already there: for ‘God is love, and those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them’ (I John 4.16).