Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: If a young man knows that the girl he loves wants violets, he will go to florist after florist to find a bouquet of these flowers. No law commands him to do it. And if she knows that he went to such trouble to procure them for her, she will love him all the more in return.

When I go through the word of God, I seek to find some expression of His desire, so that I may fulfill it. He will know that I'm not doing this through fright, but because of love. He will know that His love has begotten new love in me, that I love him because He first loved me. And His love will turn toward us even more because of our gesture of love.

I beseech you, study the Bible to find out something that the Heavenly Father wants you to do, and begin to practice it for His sake. The flooding of love is a transcendent thing, and will send you forth to love Him and to love your neighbor, and thus quite unconsciously, you will be fulfilling the law. Yes, if you learn truly love to God, you will discover that you are keeping the law without trying to keep it.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled The Law of Love. The Pharisees diligently sought to obey every point of the law of God, but they missed one essential element of true obedience. Jesus declared that all of the law and the prophets hung on these two commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Genuine obedience to the Lord is manifested by following the law of love. How can we learn to live every area of life according to the law of love? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible: Romans chapter 13 and verses 9 and 10. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled The Law of Love.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto the our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We worship thee and acknowledge thy right to command us to do whatsoever thou wilt, and rejoice that whenever thou dost command, thou dost also give us the grace and the strength to fulfill thy commands. Bless in this hour the preaching of thy word. Use it to convict and convert men and women and to build us in the truth that is Jesus Christ. Meet the need of each listener and bless thy people that we may be faithful to thee in showing forth the love that thou dost bring to our hearts. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

We come now in the 13th of Romans to the last section that deals with love in the life. The commandments: you shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this sentence: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Many differences in theological interpretations are neither more nor less differences in words. When one aspect of a truth is overemphasized, division or contradiction may result. Luther believed so strongly in justification by grace through faith apart from the works of the law that he defined the letter written by James as an epistle of straw. A prominent leader of our own day became so committed to the doctrine of the love of God that he denied that God could have commanded extermination of heathen nations in the days of Moses and the Exodus.

Now in our study of Romans, we have followed in detail the Holy Spirit's mighty emphasis on justification by faith apart from the works of the law. In the epistle to the Galatians, the emphasis against legalism is even more strongly stated. Paul preached sovereign grace to such an extent that his hearers wondered if he were preaching license to sin. They asked the question: What then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And the answer came clearly: God forbid! What an absurdity.

Now, although the New Testament shows that God has definitely condemned law as a method of salvation and has just as definitely condemned law as a way of life, our text tells us that the righteousness demanded by the Ten Commandments comes into full flower by the life of love that Christ lives in and through the believer. In the first verses of the eighth of Romans, Paul shows us that the demands of the law are far too great to be fulfilled by a human being. It is impossible to put the ocean into a quart cup.

But what was impossible because of the feebleness of our human capacity, God has accomplished by making us new creatures in Christ Jesus. Having been made partakers of the divine nature, we have acquired a capacity with new dimensions. Thus, God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. Sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

In the light of all this, I make two statements which may seem contradictory. First, God's law has every relevance to the Christian life, and in the second place, God's law has no relevance to the Christian life. And these contradictory statements, I believe, are brought into agreement by the present text, which shows also the true direction for positive Christian living.

A Christian layman whom I highly respect as a philosopher recently wrote an article on the Christian and the law. He described the conflict that exists between two points of view and failed, I believe, to resolve the difference. He set forth the position of one group in a series of quotations from the Bible. We are not under the law, but under grace. Having begun in the spirit, are we now perfected in the flesh? The law is not of faith. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code, but in the new life of the spirit. Our sufficiency therefore is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code only, but in the spirit. For the written code kills, but the spirit gives life. Now, all of this I would accept without question. This is, I believe, the teaching of the New Testament and the right direction of emphasis.

But the converse of this position as set forth by the group he was quoting is that our daily decisions are to be directed immediately by the spirit. The new birth has given us a new nature, and in this new nature, the spirit instructs us what to do. The Lord will guide us with His eye. Well, this far I will accept his conclusions because they accord with scripture. But suddenly a conjunction leads to a mistaken conclusion. The full sentence from this professor is: The Lord will guide us with His eye, and neither the law in the Old Testament nor the commands in the New Testament lay any obligations upon us. They are neither prerequisites for salvation nor guidance for life.

Now, of course, the commands of God, whether in the Old Testament or the New, are not means of justification, for no man can do what God has asked of him. If righteousness could come by the law, Christ would have died in vain. Well, what then is the place of the law? The friend whom we have been quoting goes on to say: If we all admit that we must no longer be the servants of sin but must present our members as instruments of righteousness unto God, the next question logically is: What is sin? What are good works? What is righteousness?

We want to do good works. We want to avoid evil works. But how can we distinguish between them? There need be no vague guessing to find clear light on this problem. And the Holy Spirit will never lead a child of God to do what is absurd or sinful. Sin is indeed the transgression of the law. Furthermore, we learn many things about righteousness and good works by a close study of the law and all that it commands.

But just here is a difference that I think is important. This friend says: It should be evident therefore that good and evil are defined only by the law of God. And this conclusion is reinforced by the strictness with which God enjoins obedience. This is the way, walk ye in it. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left. Thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day to the right hand or to the left. It should not be thought that these Old Testament principles do not apply to us, nor should anyone suppose that all this is inconsistent with grace.

But I believe that this brother has missed one of the most wonderful aspects of grace and what it really does for the believer in Christ. And I believe that the difference is set forth in the text that we are considering. To illustrate this difference, I give you a brief parable. Here's a young man who's thinking about marriage. I have known many a young man who thought seriously about marriage before he met the girl whom he took as his bride.

One young man in my congregation whom I know and love very much had a whole list of requirements against which he checked every girl whom he met. When he finally met a girl who obviously fitted most of his requirements, he began to be seriously interested in her. He met her on a Wednesday, and they were engaged by the following Monday. After they had avowed their love for each other, they went to visit her parents. And suddenly while they were driving along the road, he put his foot on the brake and pulled over to the side of the road and he said: "Oh, I forgot to ask you if you're healthy."

Well, she was, and the marriage was completely successful. But the young man's meticulous caution was a standing joke among their friends. Now the parable is this. Suppose that such a young man wrote down a long list of requirements for a wife. She shall keep the house clean. She shall prepare the meals. She shall wash the dishes. She shall do the laundry. She shall not allow herself to weigh over 125 pounds. She shall not wear her hair too short, and so on. A young man might have such a list.

And then he meets her, and they're married. One day she finds his list, this list of requirements written years before. Now, does she do all these things because he required them? She had been doing many of these things before she found the list. But it reveals to her some things that she had not been doing and had not thought about. As soon as she reads the paper, she begins to think about how she can do the things revealed in his list of requirements. Not because she considers this list as mandatory, but because she loves her husband.

And this is what we sorely need: love. Love cannot be pumped up. Love cannot be forced. Love comes from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. As we know Him, we learn to love Him. And as our love for Him grows, so our love for our neighbor grows. Then we will find ourselves loving in such a way that there will be no desire to transgress a commandment of the Lord.

I know a young believer in Christ who is kindness itself. She knows the love of Christ, and thus she is loving toward all people and toward all creatures. She was astonished to learn that there are verses in the Bible which command kindness to animals. "Isn't it wonderful," she said, "that the Lord took the trouble to put it in the Bible that people were to feed and care for their animals? But it's just like Him, isn't it?"

Now if someone had said to her: "Now there is a commandment in the Bible about kindness to animals, so you must be kind to animals," I'm sure she would be astonished, shocked, grieved. The idea of telling me that I must be kind to animals because of a commandment! I'm kind to animals because Jesus Christ lives in my heart, and He is kindness itself.

Now what is true for such a small matter as feeding a kitten is, of course, true for much greater matters. The Lord mentions four of them in our text. The first is: You shall not commit adultery. Why not? The answer is not that God dislikes for His children to enjoy sensual pleasure. The contrary is true, and sensual pleasure is a distinct part of God's plan for His children. The husband, the Bible tells us, is not to defraud his wife, and the wife is not to defraud the husband. And the Song of Solomon exalts love within marriage, presenting it as a picture of the love of Jesus Christ for His bride, the true church.

Why then does God forbid adultery? The answer is given here. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. In the course of 30 years as a minister and pastoral counselor, I have dealt with dozens of cases of homes broken because of adultery. And I can understand why God has put this commandment in the Bible. Adultery tears people apart emotionally and is as bad for them as fire burns are for a child. So God forbids adultery because He loves us and does not want us to be burned and scarred.

But the believer in Christ turns away from carnal lust, which is the natural tendency of the human race outside of Christ, because the love of Christ constrains us. How can a man take another man's wife if he truly loves Christ, truly loves his own wife, truly loves his neighbor? Yes, and truly loves the neighbor's wife. Such love will lead to purity of life. And thus love is the fulfilling of the law.

This same principle is next applied to murder. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. When all other debts are paid, we still owe the debt of love. And when we truly love, we shall not work any harm to a neighbor. Therefore it is inconceivable that we should wish to destroy him. In what state of mind would a man have to be in order to kill someone else?

A man would have to be horribly proud, so utterly selfish that he would grind out of his heart an assault upon God. God, you are supposed to be running things. Didn't you see that he did this or that to me? And you let him go unpunished. And it was to me he did it. And since you didn't strike him, I will. And that's murder.

Love on the other hand says: "Lord, I deserve no grace from thee. I deserve nothing but the crushing blow of thy justice. Instead, I am the object of thy love. Well, let me love thee in return, and let me love all of thy creatures, showing them a little fraction of what thou hast poured out on me." Thus, without even thinking about the law, love turns us in the right direction, and the law is fulfilled not by obligation but by love.

The same principle can be applied to robbing a man of his private property and of coveting what is not one's own. And finally comes the phrase: "and any other commandment." This is one of the great inclusives of scripture. All things are covered by what we have here. It has been said: Paul has set forth an extremely comprehensive principle which he expects to operate in concrete and particular cases. In its scope, love is wide enough to include every demand, yet it is relevant to any situation that may arise.

But what is inclusive is apt to appear general and end by becoming slightly abstract. After centuries of lip service to love, the relationships of race to race, of class to class, of group to group, of man to man, and this is within Christendom, are still marked by hatred and antagonism. One of the salutary disciplines which Christians need to practice is the habit continually of illuminating their relationships both individual and communal by an imaginative attempt to bring them to the bar of love as the New Testament defines it.

Law represents one approach to life. Faith and love, another. The same basic premise holds true both in thought and in conduct. Law by itself cannot provide an adequate foundation for the good life. What faith does for theology, love does for ethics. It provides a practical alternative to the self-defeating claims of legalism.

What will love do for me in relation to the Bible? Recognizing that here is the revelation of God's holiness and of God's justice, love will lead me to comb the scriptures to find one more shade of God's desire and to fulfill it. If a young man knows that the girl he loves wants violets, he will go to florist after florist to find a bouquet of these flowers. No law commands him to do it. But he wants to see her face when he gives her the violets.

And if she knows that he went to such trouble to procure them for her, she will love him all the more in return. When I go through the word of God, I seek to find some expression of His desire so that I may fulfill it. He will know that I'm not doing this through fright, but because of love. He will know that His love has begotten new love in me, that I love Him because He first loved me. And His love will turn toward us even more because of our gesture of love.

One of my sons, who learned how to do welding during the war, prepared a stainless steel background edged in a raised metal molding to be put in the back of a fireplace. And it bore in metal the words of my life text: "That I may know Him." When I saw it, I was so overcome that I had no words. I believe that I almost conveyed the impression of indifference. And yet that moment, almost stifling, was perhaps one of the great moments of my life. Love had fashioned this text in steel because love knew that this was something that I loved.

I'm quite sure that the Lord God our Father feels far more than this when we approach Him with something that is simple love because He has loved us. And He's not awkward as we are with our answering expression of love. I beseech you, study the Bible to find out something that the Heavenly Father wants you to do and begin to practice it for His sake. The flooding of love is a transcendent thing and will send you forth to love Him and to love your neighbor, and thus quite unconsciously, you will be fulfilling the law. Yes, if you learn truly love to God, you will discover that you are keeping the law without trying to keep it.

And our God and Father, we pray thee that thou shalt bless this great truth to our hearts and send a new filling of love to all of thy children that men may be conscious of the fact that we have been with Jesus Christ and shall know that we are thy disciples because we love one another. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): Authentic Christian love fulfills the true intent of the law of God. It compels you to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. We hope you have benefited from today's Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible message entitled The Law of Love.

To listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online anytime, anywhere around the globe at AllianceNet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free: 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled The Law of Love, or simply request message number R13-10.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled Death is Swallowed Up in Victory. In this four-chapter booklet, Dr. Barnhouse answers such questions as: What happens the moment you die? Where are the dead right now? Is there such a thing as soul sleep? These and many other questions on the subject of death are treated with profound biblical insight. Are you grieving the loss of a loved one or struggling with the issue of death? Ask for your free copy of Death is Swallowed Up in Victory when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice and Every Last Word featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, please visit our website at AllianceNet.org. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air.

For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Again, that's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at AllianceNet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening today. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.