Love Your Neighbor
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments (Exo. 20:1-17), “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39; Leviticus 19:18).” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Jesus restated the whole of the ten great moral laws, the ten commandments, in two statements in Matthew 22:
Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
The first four commandments are wrapped in the first statement: If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, then you will have Him first in your thoughts always, you will never lift up an idol between you and God, you will never blaspheme His name, and you will always make time spend with God in worship. The last six commandments are wrapped in the second statement: If you love your neighbors as you love yourself, you won’t steal from, lie to, cheat, hate (murder), lust after (adultery), or covet your neighbor or anything in his household. These are the fulfillment of the law of God – these are the things that God has called us to and which are now available through Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. We are no longer bound to the law of sin and death but we are freed from that law to worship God rightly and to follow after His heart.