Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter – Our home with Christ in the word “abide”: Command – abide in Him.

Thursday May 31, 2018

 

Title: Ruth 4:8-12. Final chapter - Our home with Christ in the word “abide”: Command - abide in Him.

 

Christ said that He went to heaven to prepare a place for us and then He said that place would with us if we love Him.

 

There is a question asked by Judas (not Iscariot) that leads Christ to say this.

 

JOH 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

 

JOH 14:19 "After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.

 

JOH 14:20 "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

 

JOH 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him." 

 

JOH 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?"

 

Judas, also Thaddaeus (MAT 10:3), raises the problem of revelation. He could not understand how Jesus, if He reappeared to His disciples, could avoid showing Himself to the world. If He was disclosing Himself as the Messiah, and that they would be able to behold Him, why couldn’t the world behold Him?

 

Jesus’ answer centers on love.

 

He said: You will behold Me, you will live as I live, and you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

 

We will see Him. We will have His life. We will know His union with the Father and our union with Him.

 

But will the world comprehend this? No. The gospel will be given to the world as Jesus was given to the world, but only those who have faith in Him will have their eyes opened.

 

Immediately after revealing to them what they will see, He again brings up the topic of God’s love.

 

JOH 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him."

 

Jesus is crystal clear on what love of Him looks like because He knows there will be a lot of lies said about it. He wants us to know that we love Him. If we love Him, we will have and keep His commandments. We will follow Him. We will submit to His will.

 

He Himself said of His entry into the world, “I have come to do Your will, O God.” He did so voluntarily. Why? He loves the Father and so loves the Father’s will. 

 

The Son of Man loved the Father’s will because He loved the Father. He has forever been in the bosom of the Father (intimacy and love).

 

JOH 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father (intimacy and love), He has explained Him.

 

Only in God are will and person identical. You may truly love another person, but not always love his will. That can never be the case with God because His will and His person are the same thing.

 

We must have the love of God in us if anything that is called life by God is going to work.  

 

God the Father and God the Son has a love which has had no beginning since they are one God and eternal. The question begs: Would the love of the Father to the Son and that of the Son to the Father have become known and adoringly apprehended by the redeemed, had it not been for the Incarnation of the Son?

 

Observing the person who possesses the most human love would not show us the love of God. Reading about God’s love in OT song literature wouldn’t be enough for us to comprehend it. Even seeing God’s love for Israel in the pages of the OT wouldn’t be enough for us to know it.  

 

The Incarnation of the Son allows us to appreciate in measure what the Father is to the Son and the Son to the Father, and due to that, we can know the love of God.

 

HEB 1:5

"I will be a Father to Him

And He shall be a Son to Me"?

 

Judas asks, “How will the world not behold You?” And Jesus responds with the same statement of love.

 

JOH 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?"

 

JOH 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.

 

JOH 14:24 "He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.

 

Jesus need only repeat what He said because only those who love Him are going to see the full revelation of Him.

 

This is why we are studying the word “abide.”

 

The home that Jesus prepares in heaven (His way, truth, and life) will remain unseen and unlived if the believer does not abide in Him from loving Him.

 

Every believer has this home, and for some, they will not see it for what it is until heaven. Every believer is to behold it now. You have no other option that would qualify under the term “life.”

 

Our home is His life, His way, His truth. This is why the world will not see it.

 

If an unbeliever has recognized the resurrected Christ during the forty days He was on the earth, they would have sworn it was a ghost or a hallucination. Even the disciples had to be convinced.

 

Having eyes, they do not see. Having ears, they do not hear. Direct communication with the world is impossible because they hate Him. Yet those who love Him both see and hear what natural eye and ear cannot.

 

Love engenders obedience and more revelation. If we reject the first commands, how will we come to know the second and third ones?  

 

If I don’t love Him, then I can’t love the brethren. If I don’t obey the Holy Spirit then I can’t be virtuous. Love of Christ opens up possibilities and opportunities that I could have never dreamed.

 

Remain in your given home every day and do not become distracted by anything outside of it.

 

If you say you abide in Him (it is your lifestyle) then you ought to walk as He walks.

 

If you love the brethren then you abide in the light.

 

The word of God abides in the strong.

 

Be sure to let the sound doctrines from the beginning abide in you. If so, you will abide in the Son and in the Father.

 

Next:

 

1JO 2:27 And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him (baptism of the Spirit) abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit (anointing) changes the believer forever. It abides in him and that means that his regeneration cannot be undone or changed.