The Fullness of Love

Below is the first homework assignment, the first written response that I wrote in my journey to seek and obtain a deeper understanding of The Greatest Love Story Ever Told also known as The Bible...

New Testament: The Gospels and Acts

October 19, 2015

Question #6

Explain Matthew 5:17 in your own words

“Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the ^[f]Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill."

In Matthew 5:17, I believe Christ is expressing his intent.  I believe he is revealing the purpose of his life - to remove the layers of tradition that have ultimately hidden the core meaning of our religious undertaking.  As it stands in Romans 13:10, love is "the law" in all its completeness. 

What is the fundamental quality of Moses' Law?  What are the Ten Commandments attempting to protect and further?  Christ, in all his glory, took Moses' Law, all of the commandments and reduced them to their purest element - love.  Love is the fundamental qualifier of our call and ministry.  Love is the elemental nature of God.

Christ did not walk the earth and ascend to lay to waste the call and ministry of his direct ancestors and men of clairvoyant faith.  I believe it was Christ intentions to illuminate, to "make it plain" so that all who see and hear in the flesh or experience him in the spirit "may run with it" in the course (the process) known as life - "to have life and have it to the full." 

I believe his aim was to bring wholeness of understanding unto "the law" that was only known and applied in parts.  Each commandment can serve to stand as a part, a part that attempts to reflect the whole truth.  But what is the whole truth?  I believe the core truth hidden within layers of writings and rituals is community.  Love is a body of many expressions.  Love is host.  The body of Christ is multitudinous.  Love is communal - to love God and, in God, to love one another.  As it is foretold in Isaiah 7:14, Christ is God with us.  Together in Christ (in love) we live the fullness of the law, "the power and the glory" of The Most High.     

~Selah~