Link here ->Complete Luther Sermon for the Epiphany 4 Epistle
LOVE FULFILS THE LAW.
“For he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law.”
7. Having frequently spoken of the character and fruits of love, it is unnecessary to introduce the subject here. The topic is sufficiently treated in the epistle lesson for the Sunday preceding Lent. We will look at the command to love, in the Law of God. Innumerable, endless, are the books and doctrines produced for the direction of man’s conduct. And there is still no limit to the making of books and laws. Note the ecclesiastical and civil regulations, the spiritual orders and stations. These laws and doctrines might be tolerated, might be received with more favor, if they were founded upon and administered according to the one great law — the one rule or measure — of love; as the Scriptures do, which present many different laws, but all born of love, and comprehended in and subject to it. And these laws must yield, must become invalid, when they conflict with love.
Of Love’s higher authority we find many illustrations in the Scriptures.
Christ makes particular mention of the matter in Matthew 12:3-4, where David and his companions ate the holy showbread. Though a certain law prohibited all but the priests from partaking of this holy food, Love was empress here, and free. Love was over the Law, subjecting it to herself. The Law had to yield for the time being, had to become invalid, when David suffered hunger. The Law had to submit to the sentence: “David hungers and must be relieved, for Love commands, Do good to your needy neighbor. Yield, therefore, thou Law. Prevent not the accomplishment of this good. Rather accomplish it thyself. Serve him in his need. Interpose not thy prohibitions.” In connection with this same incident, Christ teaches that we are to do good to our neighbor on the Sabbath; to minister as necessity demands, whatever the Sabbath restrictions of the Law. For when a brother’s need calls, Love is authority and the Law of the Sabbath is void.
8. Were laws conceived and administered in love, the number of laws would matter little. Though one might not hear or learn all of them, he would learn from the one or two he had knowledge of, the principle of love taught in all. And though he were to know all laws, he might not discover the principle of love any more readily than he would in one. Paul teaches this method of understanding and mastering law when he says: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another”; “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law”; “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”; “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor”; “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Every word in this epistle lesson proves Love mistress of all law.
9. Further, no greater calamity, wrong and wretchedness is possible on earth than the teaching and enforcing of laws without love. In such case, laws are but a ruinous curse, making true the proverbs, “summum jus, summa injustitia,” “The most strenuous right is the most strenuous wrong”; and again, Solomon’s words ( Ecclesiastes 7:17), “Noli nimium esse justus,” “Be not righteous overmuch.” Here is where we leave unperceived the beam in our own eye and proceed to remove the mote from our neighbor’s eye. Laws without love make the conscience timid and fill it with unreasonable terror and despair, to the great injury of body and soul.
Thus, much trouble and labor are incurred all to no purpose.
10. An illustration in point is the before-mentioned incident of David in his hunger. 1 Samuel 21:6. Had the priest been disposed to refuse David the holy bread, had he blindly insisted on honoring the prohibitions of the Law and failed to perceive the authority of Love, had he denied this food to him who hungered, what would have been the result? So far as the priest’s assistance went, David would have had to perish with hunger, and the priest would have been guilty of murder for the sake of the Law. Here, indeed, “summum jus, summa injustitia” — the most strenuous right would have been the most strenuous wrong. Moreover, on examining the heart of the priest who should be so foolish, you would find there the extreme abomination of making sin where there is no sin, and a matter of conscience where there is no occasion for it. For he holds it a sin to eat the bread, when really it is an act of love and righteousness. Then, too, he regards his act of murder — permitting David to die of hunger — not a sin, but a good work and service to God.
