The Schoolmaster: Law Love vs Spirit Love

By Gregory John Wilson

Wouldn't it be strange if a husband told His wife, "YOU SHALL LOVE ME", in command form?
In OT, God had to say this to His bride though - to spell out the standards of what is right and not right.
Although we humans should naturally love our most Amazing, Wonderful, LOVING, Compassionate, Glorious, Just Father God, we don't, because of our selfish flesh that does not give Him the glory He deserves.
He knows that we were MADE to love Him, and when we do that, we will be most fulfilled.
Thus in the case of our love for GOD, there was a time and a place for God to spell out the standards of what is right and expected of us, His bride - the greatest commandment according to Jesus - Hear oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength….
Yet still, this feels a bit wooden, a bit fake, a bit unnatural, Him telling us we MUST LOVE Him. Again, it SHOULD come natural to us to love Him, like a couple that is joyfully in love. That couple doesn't need to be told that they need to love each other. They are overflowing with love for each other!
Yet, for our good, God found it necessary to have to spell out what we should do - in the Law – which is thus like a Schoolmaster, teaching us what we should do, prodding us to do it, swatting us when we don't. – Consider Galatians 3:23-27:

23 "But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, confined for the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24 So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Messiah, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26 For you are all children of God, through faith in Messiah Yeshua. 27 For as many of you as were immersed into Messiah have put on Messiah." Galatians 3:23-27

So before we had that personal saving faith in God our Father, believing in the salvation Jesus offers via the cross, and thus knowing Him in an intimate living way, it says the Law was our tutor, or "Schoolmaster" in the KJV. It teaches us how we are NOT doing what's right, or having the right HEART that LOVES Him.
BUT. Now that we have that living faith and relationship with Him, it's like we no longer need that Schoolmaster telling us, "You SHALL love Him, you SHALL do this, you SHALL do that". - We know it in our hearts now, and hopefully if we are walking in the Spirit, we ARE full of that love for God. We have fallen in love with Him and no longer need the swats of the Schoolmaster! Our hearts have been made new in His love and His commandments are written on our hearts!
It's not that the Law is abolished. NO. It's filled up in our hearts - the way it was always meant to be - the LOVE we should have for Him! We've entered a new covenant! The Law no longer has to beat us over the head. Our spirits have been made alive to walk in His ways!
Now. Is it still profitable to study and know the Law and try to obey it? Sure! But in a NEW Messianic way, not by ROTE or stiffly, or woodenly. No, in a LIVING way, from our HEARTS!
For the Jews still blinded to Messiah, they seek to carry out the statues of the law, but in a heavy, dutiful sense, not in the living, loving way we know. The veil lies over their hearts. It is dead, sorry to say.
Yet, BECAUSE we still have the flesh, it's like that Law is still there in the background to keep us on track and make sure we're not going crazy or veering off track in the "Spirit". Scripture says all Scripture is profitable for instruction and doctrine. So it profits greatly to LOVE the Law of the Lord, but with a heart alive on fire, not just going through mechanical outward motions!
So next time you see a newlywed couple smiling gleefully at each other, gushing with love, think of your relationship with YESHUA, the bridegroom, and His Father, the Almighty, and the great love that exists between you 3, that moves you to keep His commandments from a living, willing heart, no longer dead in sin.
Shalom, peace to you as you fulfill the law naturally as you walk in the Spirit!

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