1 John 4:15-19 (NKJV)
“The Royal Law of Love”
February 4, 2024
The Apostle John wrote in verse 10, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” The fact that Christ has borne all sin renders God propitious. Simply put God is satisfied with the price that was paid in love on calvary’s cross. Love is a highly misunderstood word; most people have a very narrow, limited definition of it. The world sings songs about it, writes books about it, and talks about it frequently, but love, in its purest form, is perfectly defined only in the Bible. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). And when the believer demonstrates in their own life what God taught us in the ministry of Jesus, we fulfill His law of love. Love may involve human emotion, but it goes way beyond that. Even when someone else is totally “unlovable” and loving is difficult, the expectation of our King is that we adhere to Kingdom principles. When Jesus came to us, He taught us about the law of love that “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: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30). It all boils down to this: LOVE. This one law is simple and straightforward and yet most people still struggle with it today. Jesus knew very well that we could never fulfill the spirit of God’s law by ourselves. So, His Holy Ghost empowers us to do what we can’t do on our own.
The Apostle James said, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well.” (James 2:8). But we all have days when we’re tempted to fall back into the world’s way of behaving. Life’s frustrations would be too much for us to handle if it weren’t for what God did to enable us to love others. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him… We love, because He first loved us” (verses 16 & 19). We’re able to put others first and stay out of pride and self-centeredness when we truly believe this. When we truly believe that our King is in fact the very character and essence of love and that as children of royalty, we are expected to uphold the royal law of the kingdom - We must love, “because He first loved us.”
The Apostle Peter says that the world stumbles because they disobey the word of our King, as they were destined to do. (1 Peter 2:9) “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” John said, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God…” And because we are the children of the King, we are under the laws of the Kingdom, therefore I want to teach today the Beliefs of Royalty, the Boldness of Royalty and the Bravery of Royalty. What is royalty? Webster says, royalty is a sovereign status or power; a noble character or regal bearing; a person of majestic lineage or of imperial rank; an elite class within a kingdom.
The Beliefs of Royalty - we have known and believed the love that God has for us. We confess with our mouth and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord. God is Love! Greek philosophy had learned that God is Spirit, Judaism had learned that God is light, but only Christianity saw the one truth worth all languages in earth or heaven - God is love! Paul says that nothing named in heaven or on the earth can separate us from it, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35). Nothing in all creation—present or future—can come between us and God’s love! All God’s activity is loving activity. If He creates, He creates in love; if He rules, He rules in love; if He judges, He judges in love! He cannot change: for God is love! If we live in love we live in God. This is the Royal Law! The Royal Law is always about Love! Jesus says if you keep this law, there is no commandment greater than this!
The Boldness of Royalty – scripture teaches that we can boldly approach the Throne of Grace… We can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in the world. We are in the world but not of the world. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. I don’t know how we shall be, but we shall be like Him! Why are we called to be bold? Because He is not only our King, He is also our Father! We may call Him, Abba! That is “Daddy” in the Greek. There are certain things a King might not do for you but there is nothing that our Father withholds from us! "For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11) Our lesson states that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. The writer was not referring here to a final judgment in which the eternal destiny of each believer hangs in balance. There is no such judgment for a believer (John 5:24). But a believer’s life will be assessed at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). Our identity as children of God is hidden in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26). We have a good father who loves us and will care for us and supply our needs for all eternity. Our purpose now, as the children of God, is to develop into our full stature by becoming more and more like Jesus: “For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to become like His Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” (Romans 8:29).
The Bravery of Royalty - Being brave or fearless does not mean the absence of fear, as fear is a natural and instinctual response to unfamiliar or challenging situations. Instead, it means acknowledging fear and choosing not to let it hold you back. John teaches that there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. We have adopted the Greek word for fear into our English vocabulary: phobia. All sorts of phobias are listed in psychology books; for instance, acrophobia—“fear of heights,” and hydrophobia—“fear of water.” John is writing about krisis-phobia—“fear of judgment.” If people are afraid, it is because of something in the past that haunts them, or something in the present that upsets them, or something in the future that they feel threatens them. A believer in Jesus Christ does not have to fear the past, present, or future, for he has experienced the love of God and this love is being perfected in him day by day. The Hebrew writer says, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). But a Christian does not fear future judgment, because Christ has suffered his judgment for him on the cross. “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).
The Apostle Paul teaches, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). For a Christian, judgment is not future; it is past! His sins have been judged already at the cross, and they will never be brought against him again. Fear in the day of Judgement is because one knows he is guilty and fears punishment or torment! Though we were guilty we have now been cleared! Our sins have been washed away and we stand before Him without fear! The passage ends, “We love, because He first loved us.” (In original manuscripts “Him” or “others” was not included). The omission of the pronoun "Him” from this sentence by the Revisers is unquestionably warranted. It remains true that we love God because He first loved us; but it is also true that we love one another, that we love all men, because God first loved us. How true, then, the declaration that “We love, because He first loved us.” Jesus said, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” When we know that love, when that love is shed abroad within us, then we do truly love. “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.”
