And then I read this in my Bible readings.
And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says "I know Him" but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked" (1 John 2:3-6).First, note the explicit teaching. Those who know Christ will obey Christ. Those who claim to know Him but make no effort to emulate Him are liars who do not have the truth and do not know Christ. Yes, yes, I know, sounds judgmental, but I'm just telling you what John said here. So John was saying what I said. Those who belong to Christ ("the Elect") end up being godly; they are not godly in order to belong to Christ. In John's terms, "know Him" precedes "keep His commandments".
Second, notice the problem. Well, apparent problem. Now, we know that we don't earn salvation. We know that we are saved by faith apart from works lest any man should boast (Eph 2:8-9). We're all really clear on this. There can be no doubt, and any time someone pops his head up and says, "You need to work to be saved", we can easily throw this and other passages at him and shut him up. No room for boasting. Works are not involved. And yet, John says here that works are involved. Now wait! Don't we have a contradiction?
It's not just John. James says, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). Thanks, James. You can sit down now. Not helping. But rest easy. Even Paul follows up his famous "saved through faith not by works" statement with "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph 2:10). Works that God prepared beforehand. Interesting. So we are not saved by works, but we are not saved apart from works.
This seems like a contradiction, but it isn't. This is because the New Testament regards the works of the believer as a result of salvation, not a cause. Works are, in fact, an unavoidable outcome of salvation. So we work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who is at work in us giving us the will and ability to do so (Phil 2:12-13). We have works because we have faith (James 2:22).
We walk a thin line here. We hold that we are saved sola fide -- by faith alone. That is, we are saved apart from works. God doesn't choose us or save us because we merit anything based on our present or foreseen works. We are saved based on the merit of Christ. We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone. All believers have God's seed abiding in them (1 John 3:9) and, with that, cannot make a practice of sin. We are "born again" to new life, new creatures whose new nature operates with the Spirit to incline us to obedience rather than revolt. We will continue to lack perfection until we end this life, but we won't like it. And that is how we are saved apart from works but not apart from works. Works don't save, but they do matter. And godliness is indeed something to pursue.
4 comments:
Your last few lines remind me of Romans 7 mostly verses 14-25. I think they are related to your post. Good works is the result, but bad works might still be perpetrated due to our imperfection. To speak of good works demonstrating our true state of salvation presumes a perfection we cannot attain as humans on this earth. Some might despair over an inability to be the perfect Christian. Yet it is still true that good works are a sign of our salvation.
Relevant points:
"...cannot make a PRACTICE of sin.
...which is not to say that sinning a little now and then is OK, but that we strive to practice good works and NOT sin. Thus,
"...with the Spirit to incline us to obedience..."
...is almost a more important characteristic than the works themselves. "Almost", since we must let that inclination manifest.
I have a few questions. When John tells us that we should keep His commandments, which commandments is he referring to? Is it the Ten Commandments? In this letter John emphasizes the new commandment given by Jesus at the last supper that we should love one another. But what are the other commandments that he refers to? Is there a reason that John does not say what these commandments are? John does state that these commandments are not burdensome.
Yes, Romans 7 is good. I notice in 1 John that John says, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin" followed immediately with "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). Christians sin. True believers sin. Paul said he had not achieved perfection (Phil 3:12).
Unbelievers cannot not sin (Rom 3:10-12). It's the sin nature. Believers have the ability to sin or not sin (Rom 6:12 -- "Do not let sin reign ...") (Rom 8:13 -- "... by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body ..."). It is only when we get to heaven that we'll arrive at "cannot sin". (And, oh, I can hardly wait.)
John says it is "an old commandment that you had from the beginning" (1 John 2:7). He wrote in his second epistle, "And now I ask you, dear lady -- not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning -- that we love one another" (2 John 1:5). James calls it "the royal law" (James 2:8).
It is the commandment that Jesus called "the great and first commandment" -- "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:37-40).
That last phrase is critical. All of the Law and Prophets depend on the command to love -- God and neighbor. God's commands -- the ones we're supposed to obey -- are built, then, on "love God" and "love your neighbor".
So John left out specific commandments because specific rules are not in view; specific rules are simply outworkings of the essential command of Christ that we are to follow: Love God and love your neighbor.
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