The “alleylon” (one another) passages in the New Testament, Part 5c:
Bear each others’ burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2)
So for the last couple of weeks we’ve been peering into the meaning of this verse in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, attempting to understand what all this carrying of burdens is about. So much of what we find is familiar: humility, dependence on the Spirit’s power, receiving before we give, and giving in turn through our faith and trust in Jesus. That should hold us for a while, except that we can’t ignore the second half of the saying, which states the consequence and probably the goal of carrying out the exhortation to serve: to fulfill the law of Christ.
To fulfill the law of Christ. I love how the Old Testament is chock full of grace and how the New Testament never leaves us without law. God’s word is such a magnificent, perfect unity that defies easy categorization and takes us out of any complacency about how it wants to work to transform our lives as we encounter it. In the Scriptures the Lord reveals himself as the great and consummate dialectician, never allowing us to pick and choose one truth or another at the expense of its balancing principle. So it is with grace and law. There is never one without the other, and to deny one is to denigrate the other.
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