Later text
The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Intertextuality Pair
Galatians 5:14 → Leviticus 19:18
Quotation
Earlier text
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
+ 2 more earlier texts
Earlier text
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am the LORD your God. When you sacrifice a peace offering to the LORD, you shall offer it for your acceptance. It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the next day; but what remains on the third day must be burned up. If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is tainted and will not be accepted. Whoever eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned what is holy to the LORD. That person must be cut off from his people. When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God. You must not steal. You must not lie or deceive one another. You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him. You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand. You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD. You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly. You must not go about spreading slander among your people. You must not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am the LORD. You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart. Directly rebuke your neighbor, so that you will not incur guilt on account of him. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
Earlier text
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Significance
The alleged dissonance between this passage and the rest rests on the assumption chapter 3 is an indiscriminate attack on the law. But Paul's negative statements narrowly focus on one issue: law's role in justification for receiving the Abrahamic inheritance. Paul isn't proposing wholesale abandonment of God's law. Throwing off law's yoke for justification leads to its true fulfillment by the Spirit's power (5:22-23; cf. Romans 8:4). Leviticus 19 is bracketed by the holiness call (19:2), culminating in the neighbor-love command (19:18). Paul declares "the whole law is fulfilled in one word"—love. This isn't reduction but concentration. Love is law's fulfillment (plērōma), meaning when believers love, they accomplish what law intended all along. The Spirit connection is crucial: immediately after quoting Leviticus 19:18, Paul writes "walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the flesh's desires" (5:16). The Spirit's fruit includes love (5:22), and "against such things there is no law" (5:23). The law is fulfilled not by human effort but by the Spirit producing Christ's character in believers—the eschatological fulfillment prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:27.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Direct Quotation
- Connection Method(s)
- Redemptive-Historical Progression + Longitudinal Theme
Related Anchor-Text Networks
Linked Mentions 1