Love for Christ includes love for the imperatives in the word of God. John 14:15; 1John 4:7.John 14:15 "If you love Me [occupied with Me, concentrating on Me in the environment of agapao love], you will keep My commandments.
/“you love me” – present active subjunctive of a)gapaw[agapao] which is a mental attitude love. This emphasizes occupation with Christ as well as concentration upon Him.\
The active voice of the verb means that loving Christ is up to you, but it does not come from tarrying in the closet or having a mountain top experience, it comes simply from the daily function of metabolizing doctrine.
/To be occupied with Him is to set Him apart as your most important relationship, 1Pe 3:15. \
/1 Peter 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord [kurios – ruler] in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope [confidence] that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; \
Confidence that results from having Christ as your Ruler or Master means no condemnation for the past [grace], freedom to step out on faith in the present [mercy], and excited and curious expectation of the future.
/Christ has initiated the relationship and after our initial response of faith we need the capacity to respond to Him in love. \
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Agpao love is the natural result of knowing God through doctrine.
1 John 4:9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. [coming up John 14:19 – because I live you will live also]
/True agapao love is thinking and not emoting. And as such it can only exist when our thinking is changed. God has the monopoly on this love. It does not have its source from the world system and so it cannot be found there. \
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us [initiator] and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Back to: John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
/“keep” – aorist active imperative of terew[tereo], which means to guard something that belongs to you. You only guard that which is important to you.\
For some reason we often separate commandments from Bible doctrine. Commandments are doctrines. Different commands fall under different categories. If you love the word of God then you love all of it as inspired by God and not just the parts that suit you.
Though certain weaknesses or flaws mean that the fulfilment of some commands are less frequent than others, by means of a grace oriented mental attitude the positive believer loves all the word of God. It is God.
With this attitude sins and flaws do not hinder our love for Jesus Christ and therefore it does not hinder our love for one another, which is a direct result of love for Him. “As you have done it to the least of these who are my brethren, you have done it to Me.”
We each have different areas of weakness. It’s easy to get shocked or appalled at another believer when you see them in their weakness; especially when you are strong in that area. Every believer priest must rebound his sins in many areas. No one reaches sinless perfection. We are all in the same boat and that boat is anchored by TLJC.
/The judge of another is a creator of doctrine and not a lover of doctrine.\
The only creator of doctrine is God and therefore He is the only one qualified to judge.
Therefore our translation of this verse will include the result of love for Christ, which is guarding the categorical doctrines as valuable and precious though you fail in them from time to time. The imperatives in the word of God fall under every category of doctrine.
/You have a perfect and eternal relationship with Jesus Christ, and the aorist active imperative of tereo [tereo] means that you guard it as precious to you.\
When your love changes, your motivations will change and eventually your habits will change.
The preservation of our relationship with Jesus Christ comes from our own consistent intake of doctrine. The constative aorist takes every day that you metabolize doctrine and looks at the sum total of the capacity they give to love Christ.
Active voice: every believer must do this for himself. No one else can do it for him. It must come from his soul and from no one else’s. You cannot have a relationship with the Lord on the basis of someone else’s soul capacity.
Like, “My mom is such a great believer,” or my dad or whomever. Every believer has EP/EO under election and predestination. These are primary assets and only you and you alone can exploit them.
He must have his own soul capacity which means he must have his own Bible doctrine, not someone else’s.
The imperative mood means that this is a command.
/“my commandments” – e)ntolh[entole] refers to the ordinances of Bible doctrine, which are included in every category. “Guard the imperatives of my categorical doctrine.” \
Left to our own power and our own human IQ there would be no means of fulfilling this command to guard as precious all the rest of the commands. Christ knew we would need supernatural help, another Advocate, and He asked the Father for Him and He came to indwell all believing mankind on the day the Church was born.
As we noted last night, our thinking must change from occupation with self [How does this affect me?] to occupation with Christ [How does this affect the glorification of Christ?]. Our Lord stated that the yoke is easy and the burden is light, but light and easy are not the right words to use for brain change because those words conveys a certain quickness as well.
When the failures come Christ through His finished work has given us a Sabbath rest. We have rebound and the faith rest drill to comfort us and the power of the Spirit then to restore us. This means that despite the bumps along the way you can rest and relax and keep taking in more of God’s word.
Amazing changes happen when God’s word is the source of repetitive knowledge. So amazing that those changes can be considered easy when viewed from a certain perspective – God’s perspective. However, it takes time and perseverance. Most people in our day do not consider anything that takes time and perseverance as easy. But under the right perspective the perseverance is PVTD daily, rebounding when necessary.
The time, though seemingly long to some, is nothing compared to the very real fact that every believer possesses eternal life. It took Paul over 30 years to reach spiritual maturity. Let’s say it takes you fifty. How does fifty years compare to eternity? Time is the most relative of all things much like size.
[four slides planets] Sun – yellow dwarf; Arcturus – orange giant; Antarus – super red giant.
And so, at the session, our Lord asks the Father to send us help.
John 14:16"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
/When Christ, our High Priest, sits at the right hand of God He will make this petition to send the Holy Spirit.\
Christ gave His life for the world, which naturally includes the church, but added to this is His numerous petitions to the Father for the church.
The church is His bride and He makes requests on behalf of her. This brings a deeper meaning to the command:
/Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; \
Under Jewish custom, when a man asked a woman to marry him, if she said yes, he would go to his father with whom he would build a home for his bride and future family. It was not until the home was finished that he would return for his bride and when he did it was an incredible time of celebration. During the building process he certainly could ask his father for things to make his home and his bride have more beauty and blessing. This is what Christ has done for us. He had many requests for us. And by the time we finish this Gospel we will have seen them.
/“and he will give you” – our High Priest’s prayer will be answered. “Father, send them help,” and the Father will send God the Holy Spirit.\
For the first time in all history, God the HS will indwell the body of every believer. In the OT the Spirit’s ministry was extremely limited. He only empowered less than one percent of all believers and His ministry to any OT believer was temporary. The HS would come and go as He pleased, and never within the body but upon the body or what is termed indument.
/Ps 51:11 Do not cast me away from Thy presence, And do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. \
/Therefore the Church-age is the first dispensation where the HS has a permanent ministry. The first advent of Christ is followed by the first advent of the Holy Spirit. \
We will not at this time study the ministries of God the HS. The Lord is going to repeat the promise of the Advent of the Spirit and we will study His role in detail at that time.
John 14:16"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
The word another is important theologically.
/“another” – a)lloj[allos] which means another of the same kind, which indicates that both Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are God.\
/“Helper” – paraklhtoj[parakletos] which means someone to assist or to stand along side to help in time of need. God the Holy Spirit becomes our true Teacher and Mentor.\
God the HS has two Advents. The first is to the Church and occurs at Pentecost, 7 weeks after the resurrection of Christ. The Second Advent of the HS occurs at the Second Coming and will last throughout the Millennium to all believers. In the Millennium His role will not be so invisible as it is now.
/The indwelling Spirit in the Millennium will be manifested in worship and praise of the Lord and in willing obedience to Him as well as in spiritual power and inner transformation, Isa 32:15, 44:3; Ezek 39:29; Joel 2:28-29; Zech 2:10.\
However, in the Church, the indwelling Spirit is to assist us, to teach us, to mentor us, to help us, and to empower us. The manifestation of His power is only known to God and the individual. In the Millennium there is a certain overt manifestation that is common to all believers.
/The Spirit’s role in the Church is more covert and more powerful as well as absolutely indispensable to our spiritual life.\
And no matter what, He isn’t going anywhere.
John 14:16"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
/ “that He may be forever in you.” – God the HS indwelt your body at salvation and will continue to be in you for all eternity, even in your resurrection body.\
That should comfort you. God is in you forever.
Now the Lord describes the Spirit’s main function.
John 14:17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.
/“The Spirit of truth” is a functional title. a)lhqeia[aletheia] is the one and only truth, which is doctrine. So He is “the Spirit of doctrine.”\ |