With April 23, 2006 being the 2nd Sunday of Easter, the assigned readings in the three-year lectionary are Acts 3:13-15, 17-26 (Sermon in Antioch); I John 5:1-6 (Are we children of God?) and John 20:19-31 (Doubting Thomas). The verse chosen to preach about is I John 5:3 which states, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.”
At first reading, this verse can be frightening. It appears to be saying that our love for God can be measured by how well we keep the commandments. Who of us keep the commandments perfectly? No one. Therefore, how can this be a comfort that our obedience to the commandments reveals our love for God?
Once more a confusion of Law and Gospel leads to despair and fear about God. Note how we interpret the verse “the love of God” to be referring to our love towards God. Once more we become the center of attention and fall into the trap of either imagining that we love others better than we really do or else that we fall into great despair realizing that if it is up to me, then, woe is me!
But the phrase “love of God” refers to the love from God towards me that then results in keeping his commandments. How does this work? The more I come to realize how far God went in suffering and dying for me out of His love, the more I keep the number one commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” And how do I keep the number one commandment? Not by obedience of all ten but by believing in Jesus as the Christ. In fact, both verses 1 and 5 connect faith in Jesus as the Christ to being born of God and overcoming the world.
That is why salvation is not by works through effort but by grace through faith; and that faith not of ourselves but as a gift from God so that no one dare boast of his status before a gracious and merciful God. Through faith in Jesus we gain a new perspective on how to relate to God. Though sin continues throughout life, it now results in an attitude of humble repentance and trust in the One Who died so that we will never really die and Who lives, so that we live eternally.
Once more by simply letting God be the creator and sustainer of our salvation, we are comforted not by the growing level of our love but the growing recognition by us of the tremendous love from God to us, the undeserving.
Name:Tom Baker
Tom, your message on 1 John 3:10 gives good answer to a comment that some of my Reformed theology friends frequently use, “I question that person’s salvation,” based on a disobedient behavior that they observe in a person. Yet, if they see me on a good day they might think that I am a saint, and if they catch me on a bad day they might think that I am of the devil. It reminds me of an old saying, “my dog doesn’t cuss, spit, or chase women, but he’s no Christian!”