"No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and His love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12).
It's interesting that love is likened to beholding God. And it makes sense, for we read in the preceding verses "God is love" and "love is of God" . The manifestation of God's love towards us was quite literally nailed into our historical record as the ultimate display of love (1 John 4:9, John 3:16). We are born of God, therefore we have the capacity to express godly love (I use the term godly to distinguish between biblical love and the secular definition/display of love). Let's take a moment to dissect the second part of the passage: "if we love one another, God abideth in us, and His love is perfected in us". Wow, what a powerful statement. That is not to say that you have to love others first in order to have God abide in you. This would be an incorrect understanding of the passage. Love is borne of God, for "God is love" as we read in the preceding verses. The passage above is stating that, if you do in fact love others (as you are commanded to do), it is because God is abiding in you and His love is perfected in you. Put simply, your ability to love others is directly contingent upon the perfection of God's love in you. That itself is affected by your reverence to His appeal in James 4:8: "draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you". We are to abide in Christ. This means fellowship. We cannot fellowship with Him if we do not read and apply His Word. So when Paul tells us to pursue love in 1 Corinthians 14:1, He is actually telling us to pursue God, because God equals love. As you continue to grow in fellowship with Him, as you continue to know (Greek, epignosis, to experience) Him, His love will begin to permeate through your being and you will gain the capacity to love others. This concept is important one to consider because so often we try to bypass God to follow His laws. But this is not possible. Jesus says "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:15). And it makes sense, it took a perfect being (Jesus Christ) to uphold God's law and satisfy His judgement. Jesus is God, so essentially only God could satisfy His laws. Knowing this, we act foolishly when we neglect abiding in Christ yet attempt to live successfully the Christian life. Perhaps we should start by asking ourselves what is the Christian life? What is our purpose? Our reflex response is likely: "our purpose is to glorify God and to preach the gospel". True, but what does that mean? How do you glorify God? Can you effectively preach the gospel in the absence of glorifying God? If you answer to that is no (as rightly should be), then you see how we are clearly a schizophrenic bunch of Christians because we attempt to serve God without Him. We have neglected to keep His Word, thus in our inaction we have ceased to know Him. If we do not know Him, we cannot love Him. If we cannot love Him, we cannot love others. Period. It is that simple. "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments" (1 John 2:3). You cannot keep His commandments if you do not know them. In fact, your negligence to read His Word is proof positive of your disobedience and/or ignorance of His laws, for Joshua 1:8 says: "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but thou shalt meditate on it day and night". I like 1 John 5:3 because it clarifies further what was said in chapter 2: "for this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome" (emphasis added). Now that puts a spin on things. Even if you do read the Word, and you somehow manage to keep His commandments, there is still another test. The question is, are they burdensome to you? Do you find great difficulty in doing them because you have no desire to follow His laws? God would be contradicting Himself if He told us to "come to [Him], all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) if we were still to be laboring over following His commandments. This cannot be so. There must be source that facilitates (or rather, drives) the process of obedience. Jeremiah prophesied of this in Jeremiah 31:33 when he speaks of the new covenant. Moreover, Paul refers to it twice in Hebrews and identifies it as the work of the Holy Spirit. First let's look at the passages in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 31:31-33 reads, ""Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:31-33 ESV) This is strikingly similar to the passage we read in Ezekial 36:26-27, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." Which is itself similar to the one found in John 16:12-15 which clarifies the Spirit even further as the "Spirit of truth": "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" In Hebrews, Paul explains that this new second covenant was necessary insofar as it corrected the deficiencies of the first. "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold the days come…that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…" (Hebrews 8:7-8) So we see that the second covenant, framed by the period theologians have called the 'Church Age' which began after the resurrection of Jesus Christ at the Day of Pentecost, is better than the first covenant. "But now hath he obtained a ministry the more excellent, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises" (Hebrews 8:6). Moreover, while the second covenant is indeed better than the first, we understand that it is still imperfect - for the potential to sin is still present in the flesh (Romans 7:18). Our war against ourselves stems from the opposing natures of body and Spirit; "the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing things you want to do" (Galatians 5:17). So while through "a new covenant He hath made the first old…that which is becoming old and waxeth age is nigh unto vanishing away" (Hebrews 8:13). Enter the final piece… The fulfillment of the second covenant is the part for which we currently await: "when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part will be done away". As believers, we are being "conformed to the image of His Son" throughout our daily lives as we await the salvation of our physical bodies. The spiritual always precedes the physical, but it is the realization of the physical that marks the total fulfillment of a promise. Whereas we find ourselves currently in a constant struggle against our flesh, we understand that this is but for a time, for "a little while…you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me again" (John 16:16). We covered a lot here, and there is still yet more to follow. This study will lead us into a discussion of the concept of sanctification. I introduced the second covenant as the arrival of the Holy Spirit indwelling believers to move us towards a discussion of His person and function in the life of a believer. Briefly, it is through Him that we can express love, for love is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Thus our ability to perform God's laws is facilitated by the indwelling Spirit. This is why keeping the commandments is "not grievous" (e.g. difficult) for a Spirit-led believer because it is the Spirit's nature that drives you towards righteous living. |
Today's Verse
“Behold you are beautiful my love, behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves” Song of Solomon 1:15 ESV Quotations"A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin." Archives
January 2023
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