Tag: Legalism

How Do You Practically “Abide in Christ’s Love”?

Published on by nickcadyLeave a comment
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Abide and Bear Fruit is our theme for 2020 at White Fields Church

In my recent post, The Active Passive Actions of Relationship with God, I talked about how abiding in Christ (see John 15:1-11) may at first sound passive, but abiding actually requires action.

A Practical Guide to Abiding

Still, someone might ask: “How exactly do you abide in Christ though?

After all, in John 15:9, Jesus told his disciples:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

But what does that mean? What does it look like on any given Wednesday, for example, for me to abide in the love of Christ?”

Thankfully, Jesus answered that question for us!

In John 15:10, here’s what Jesus said:

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

So, the way to abide in Jesus’ love is to keep his commandments.

This is interesting, because just a few verses later Jesus says:

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:13-15)

This is interesting because it tells us that there is a good and proper motivation for obeying God’s commandments: love for God and a desire to abide in his love.

Obeying God Matters, But It Also Matters Why You Obey God

Obeying God’s commandments matters. Consider what God told King Saul:

Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.  (1 Samuel 15:22-23)

But when it comes to obeying God, why you obey God also matters very much. It is possible to obey God for the wrong reasons. If your reason for obeying God is self-justification or self-glorification, you will find yourself in the position of being in opposition to God. As we are told in James 4:6,

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

On the other hand, if you love someone, and you want to express your love for them, if you want to experience the joy of fellowship with them, what do you do? You find out what they like, what they love, what makes them happy and brings them joy, and you do those things!

An Example: My Wife’s Birthday

My wife’s birthday is coming up. Knowing the things that she likes, what if I were to say: “I don’t have to do those things in order to win her love, since she already loves me. Therefore I will do nothing, because I don’t have to earn her love.”

Of course my wife will love me even if I don’t do anything for her birthday. However, because I love her and want to share a great experience with her (since intimacy is created through shared experiences), I want to do something for her that she will like. Thus, in my pursuit of her, in my desire to know her, one of my goals is to discover her likes and dislikes and do things she likes; not to earn her love, but as an expression of my love for her, and as a way of having fellowship with her.

In the same way, we can express love for God and experience fellowship with God by doing the things that we know He likes!

For more on this topic, see: “Oh, How I Love Your Law” – the Role of the Law in the Life of a Believer

May we be those who abide in Christ’s love, just as He abided in the love of the Father!

“Oh, How I Love Your Law” – the Role of the Law in the Life of a Believer is More than Just Showing You that You Need a Savior

Published on by nickcady7 Comments

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For Thanksgiving I took my family to California to visit family and friends. We drove out; it’s a 15-16 hour drive each way, but this afforded me the chance to listen to 3 audiobooks.

The first was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Earlier this year I read A Farewell to Arms and loved it, particularly the ending, and how Hemingway is clearly expressing his own wrestling with faith and belief in God. However, The Sun Also Rises was not like that at all. Besides the detailed account of bull fighting, I didn’t really like the book.

The second book I listened to was The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson, on the topic of the Marrow Controversy, a debate which split the Scottish Presbyterian churches in the 18th Century over the topics of legalism and antinomianism (anti – nomos (law) = against the law).

Ferguson points out that legalism and antinomianism are like cousins who are more related to each other than they are to the gospel. The legalist looks to rules and performance to earn status and favor with God. Clearly this is a wrong and unbiblical view. But the other extreme is antinomianism – a rejection, even antagonism towards the Law, i.e. the moral commandments, rules and obligations which the Bible lays out.

The thinking behind antinomianism is that the Law served one purpose: to show us that we are sinners who need a Savior, and once that work is done, we have no further use for the Law, and we should have nothing to do with it in our lives, beyond historical reference.

It is true that the Law serves to show us that we are sinners who have not lived up to God’s perfect standards, and therefore we need a Savior. Romans and Galatians make this point crystal clear. But is this the only function of the Law in the life of a believer? The answer is: No.

So then what is the role of law in the life of a believer – one who has been set free in Christ – beyond just showing us that we are sinners who need a savior?

1. The Law points us to Christ as the Fulfiller of the Law

The Bible is full of moral principles and injunctions towards things like kindness, compassion, honesty, forgiveness, generosity, humility, etc. The problem is that very often we read these (or teach them) without reference to Christ. Paul writes in Galatians 3:24 “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”  The Law shows us that we are sinners who desperately need a Savior. But, we see the perfect fulfillment of the Law in Christ—and only in Him! The Law points us to Christ not only by condemning us for breaking it, but by pointing to Christ who is the fulfillment of it! Jesus said: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17)

2. The Law Reveals God’s Character and Shows His Glory

The Law reveals the Glory of God, by showing us His holiness, how He is “other”, different, perfect and good. Where we fall short, He does not.

The Law leads us to reverence and worship of a God who is greater than us. This leads us to a posture of humility before God. 

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)

3. God’s Law is a playbook for the redeemed person to use in bringing Him pleasure

We ought not look to God’s moral injunctions as the means by which to garner His love or favor, nor as a way of earning or meriting anything from Him. But for the redeemed person, the Law becomes a playbook in our hands, which tells us what God likes and dislikes – and therefore how we, as people who love God, can bring joy and pleasure to His heart.

I recently taught a class at White Fields’ School of Ministry on the Minor Prophets. The last book, Malachi, talks a lot about obeying God by keeping His law, and specifically talks twice (in only three chapters) about tithing. The question I asked the students was: What is the role of keeping God’s Law, and specifically of tithing, for the New Testament believer?

The answer was that, as people who don’t relate to the Law as a means of earning or meriting anything from God, we approach it as a playbook which instructs us about what God loves and hates, and therefore helps us to respond in love to Him who has poured out His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit and redeemed us from the pit and set us on a rock in Christ. When we obey His moral instructions and commands, it doesn’t make Him love us more, but it is a way that we can bring Him joy and pleasure.

May we not become antinomian in our view of the Law, but may we see it for the good and glorious thing that it is, and say with the Psalmist: “Oh, how I love your Law!” (Psalm 119)