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| Love is the End of All the Commandments, and God Himself is Love.
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Chapter 121.—Love
is the End of All the Commandments, and God Himself is
Love.
All the commandments of God, then,
are embraced in love, of which the apostle says: “Now the end of
the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good
conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”1324
Thus the end of every commandment
is charity, that is, every commandment has love for its aim. But
whatever is done either through fear of
punishment or from some
other carnal motive, and has not for its principle that love which
the Spirit of God sheds abroad in the heart, is not done as it
ought to be done, however it may appear to men. For this love
embraces both the love of God and the love of our neighbor, and
“on these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets,”1325
we may add
the Gospel and the apostles. For it is from these that we hear this
voice: The end of the commandment is charity, and God is love.1326
Wherefore,
all God’s commandments, one of which is, “Thou shalt not commit
adultery,”1327
and all
those precepts which are not commandments but special counsels, one
of which is, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman,”1328
are
rightly carried out only when the motive principle of action is the
love of God, and the love of our neighbor in God. And this applies
both to the present and the future life. We love God now by faith,
then we shall love Him through sight. Now we love even our neighbor
by faith; for we who are ourselves mortal know not the hearts of
mortal men. But in the future life, the Lord “both will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the
counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of
God;”1329
for every
man shall love and praise in his neighbor the virtue which, that it
may not be hid, the Lord Himself shall bring to light. Moreover,
lust diminishes as love grows, till the latter grows to such a
height that it can grow no higher here. For “greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”1330
Who then
can tell how great love shall be in the future world, when there
shall be no lust for it to restrain and conquer? for that will be
the perfection of health when there shall be no struggle with
death.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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