"We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not abides in death." (1 John 3:14,RV)
This is much more comprehensive than the rendering, "He that loves not his brother, abides in death." (KJV) Moreover it is identical with: "Love is of God, ... We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:7,19)
Perfect love is unselfish, and comes from God alone. It appears in man only when the love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5:5) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life: "It is the Spirit that quickens." (John 6:63) "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)
Christ symbolized the Spirit as "living water," (John 7:37,39) and also said, "Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:14) "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you." (Romans 8:11)
Love and life, therefore, come from God, through His Spirit. This is what is indicated by the text first quoted. Love is the evidence of having passed out of death into life. That is, the new life from above, which begins in those who believe on Christ (John 3:36) is love, and the beginning of that life in man is the beginning of love. True love and real life are identical. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
In giving His Son, God gave himself: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." (2 Corinthians 5:19)
It is the death of Christ that reconciles us to God. (Romans 5:10) Therefore God was in Christ in His death. So the elders are exhorted to "feed the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." (Acts 20:28)
We cannot understand the mystery of it, but the fact remains that God has given His own life for man; and those who pass from death to life, receive the life of God. Love is but the outflowing of the life of God. "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." (1 John 5:4) "Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:10)
We have seen that the life of God is love; and since love is the fulfilling of the law, it is evident that the life of God is the perfect law. So that life, love, and law are identical. "God was in Christ;" (2 Corinthians 5:19) in Him the life of God was fully exhibited, so that in the life of Christ we find the perfection of the law. As the hymn says:
My blest Redeemer, and my Lord,
I read my duty in your word;
But in your life the law appears
Drawn out in living characters.
--Isaac Watts, Hymn: My Dear Redeemer and My Lord.
What then necessarily follows from the fact that it is the life of God which comes into believers? Nothing less than that the law comes in with the life, because the life is the law. What that law of life and love is, we see stated in the ten commandments, which Christ spoke from Sinai, and which He lived out in Judea and Galilee. He kept the Father's commandments, (John 15:10) because the law was within His heart: "I delight to do your will, O my God: yes, your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:8)
But Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." (Hebrews 13:8)
Therefore when He lives in the heart by faith, He will live as He did when on earth eighteen hundred years ago. There will be no change. God changes not; (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17) Christ changes not; therefore the law which is but the life of God in Christ, cannot change. "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." (Luke 16:17)--Present Truth, December 14, 1893 Original title: Front Page.