… as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
Summary: Understanding the difference between the law and love is not as simple as it sounds.
How can anyone say that they are “faultless?”
Really?
Faultless?!
Ah, but Paul sneaks in a qualifier! “As for righteousness based on the law…” This is where things get interesting.
Let’s say a professional tennis player knows the rules of the game. They know, for example, that a mistake made while serving the ball is called a “fault.” Because they know the rules — the ball has to clear the net and stay within the lines — they have practiced serving until they can do it correctly every time.
This is called being “faultless.”
Add in a complete knowledge of the history of the game, including every single rule change and every player who ever played, and you have the tennis equivalent of St. Paul.
When it came to being righteous based on the law, Paul was the best there was. Born a Hebrew, circumcised according to the law, raised to be a Pharisee, trained under Gamaliel, and filled with a burning passion for serving God faithfully, Paul was indeed faultless when it came to playing by the rules.
The problem was that his rulebook was not the official copy.
In the centuries since Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the stone tablets from God, the Pharisees and teachers of the law had obsessed about the details so much that they lost sight of the reason for the law.
Jesus summed it up this way:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37,39)
Love.
Love is the one thing that the law cannot touch.
Love can’t be defined, controlled, or required. The law can tell you what love isn’t, but it can’t tell you what love is.
In tennis, “love” is the word for zero points. It is not that it means “nothing,” because not having scored a point in the game is “something.” Ironically, “love” in tennis is a good metaphor for the concept of love in the law. We can’t legislate love. All we can do is mark it with a placeholder and hope people figure it out.
Paul was an expert on what God required under the covenant made with Moses; what people could and couldn’t do. What he missed was the requirement for love. Then he met Jesus, and suddenly he understood.
Application: Love others as Jesus loves you.
Food for Thought: What is the best way to teach others about love?
The best way to teach someone is to model it ourselves. Jesus modeled what love is as perfectly as someone can. He selflessly, sinlessly, sacrificially modeled love by living a perfect life and dying on the cross in place of others to bring them to Himself (John 3: 16; Romans 5: 8; 1 Peter 3: 18; 1 John 4: 7 – 12).
As it says in 1 John 4: 11: Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Jesus is the model and standard. He is the perfect example. Paul grew spiritually to the point that he could say in 1 Corinthians 11: 1: Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
That is our goal too – to follow Christ’s example to where we become living examples of this mature love.
Brother Rich,
“Jesus is the model and standard. ”
Well said! 🙂
What is the best way to teach others about love?
As young boy, my father who was an ornery cuss. ran over and killed my dog. I was crushed. In time he went to the pound and got a dog who had been given to the pound for biting children, and brought him home. I came home from school, and with great excitement ran outside to see my new dog.
He was chained to the clothesline and immediately lunged at me, trying to bite me. I noticed he had no food or water, so I went inside and returned with a bowl of each. I pushed these toward him with a stick and sat down on the grass as he ate and drank, growling and snarling between bites. I did this, everyday for a time, and eventually he became my devoted friend sleeping with me at night and protecting during the day.
The best way to teach other about love, is to express your love for them in your actions.
As Rich writes, Jesus did this as He chose to cloak Himself in a body of flesh, serve mankind for thirty three years, and allow Himself to be cruely beaten and crucified on a cross for the sins of all mankind.
We teach others about love by allowing Jesus to continue loving the unlovable through us.
Luke 23:34, Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
Matthew 5:44, But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
1 John 3:18, Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Thank you, Ron!
Your story is a touching tribute to patience and love, and then love returned.
Thank you for sharing!
What is the best way to teach others about love?
Good devotion this morning and good answer from R.
I think all people at some point in their life experience love, both “feeling” the love someone gives to them, or “feeling” love for someone else. That love is conditional or circumstantial, meaning the “feeling” can go away depending on conditional or circumstances. True love is unconditional and circumstantial.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This kind of love is a Fruit of the Spirit, in fact, it is the first:
Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
So, I have to say that the love of Christ is something that grows within us by the Spirit, and becomes evident in how we treat others around us, and even how we judge ourselves. So, I don’t think we can really teach another how to love, rather allow the Holy Spirit to shine the love of Christ through us. But as the vessel we also bask in that light. We show Christ’s love when we champion justice, act in kindness, and humbly walk with our God.
1 John 4:7-12
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Thank you, Chris!
“So, I have to say that the love of Christ is something that grows within us by the Spirit…”
I agree. We can choose to love, but the urge to love that comes from the heart is of the Spirit.