The problem we have is Jesus defines love differently than we do. He defines love as it relates to God and since He is the God of the new covenant, love is defined as it relates to Him. Christians today are performing multitudes of good deeds but none of their good deeds measure up to Jesus’ definition of love according to 1John 5:3. Thus, 1Corinthians 13 says, “Though I have all faith and can move mountains and cause the seas to flow up stream and have not love, I am nothing.” “Though I feed the poor and give my life for the kingdom of God and have not love, I am nothing.” None of our goodness, none of the good we devise, will count toward God’s definition of love if “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.”
This is our first clue 1Corinthians 13:4-8 is not defining love. Most every renowned television and radio preacher will tell you if you have faith you have it all but 1Corinthians 13 tells us faith without love is nothing. If love is defined as obedience, as 1John 5:3 states explicitly, then 1Corinthians 13 certainly deserves a fresh look.
The Lord’s Supper was instituted for this very purpose, to give us an opportunity to measure ourselves by God’s definition of love, but the world-wide Church has failed to discern between the old and new covenants; it has failed to discern between the Father and the Son, and failed to discern that the title, “Lord,” changed hands. Moreover, it has failed to discern the God of the old covenant is not the God of the new covenant. As a result of this failure, Christians cannot discern the difference between the Lord and the Christ and cannot discern the Lord’s commandments or keep them. The effect has been that Christians are left to devise their own definition of love and have devised a definition as it relates to themselves and their fellow man.
And, of a truth, the old covenant defined love in this way, at least partially. The second of the Ten Commandments is a command to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus added to this commandment saying, “Love your neighbor as I have loved you,” but both of these commandments were made obsolete at the fulfillment of the old covenant. That is the very definition of a fulfilled covenant; it is obsolete. All of the old covenant commandments were made obsolete by Jesus’ death on the cross. We live in the new covenant age.
Love, as defined by Jesus, is keeping His commandments, as stated by 1John 5:3, “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love,” and “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and he that loves me will be loved of My Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest myself to him.”
The problem is most Christians cannot tell you which commandments are Jesus’ commandments and which are the Father’s commandments, they cannot tell where the old covenant ends and the new covenant begins; they do not know which belong to the old covenant and which belong to the new, and therefore have no idea how to walk in love. 1Corinthians 13, then becomes the definition of love because we are told obedience has nothing to do with salvation.
When John says, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not knows not God, for God is love. And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him,” 1John 4:7,8&16, the definition of love is obedience. The way we love one another is through obedience, for obedience is of God; and everyone that obeys is born of God, and knows God. He that obeys not knows not God, for God is obedience. And we have known and believed the obedience that God has to us. God is obedience; and he that practices obedience dwells in God and God in him.
The word, God, could be substituted with the name, Jesus. In which case the verses would read: The way we love one another is through obedience, for obedience is of Jesus; and everyone that obeys is born of Jesus, and knows Jesus. He that obeys not knows not Jesus, for Jesus is obedience. And we have known and believed the obedience that Jesus has to us. Jesus is obedience; and he that practices obedience dwells in Jesus and Jesus in him.
You see, according to Isaiah 53:6, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” the Father was God of the old covenant and held the title, Lord, but when the Father raised Jesus from the dead, Galatians 1:1, He gave all power in heaven and earth to Jesus by giving Him the name above every other name. That is the name, Lord. According to Galatians 4:4, the Father sent Jesus to redeem mankind from the old covenant law but according to Hebrews 12:2, Jesus came for a completely different reason. Jesus came to establish a new covenant. The new covenant is Jesus’ covenant.
Therefore, the God John speaks of is not the Father, it is the Son, the one who was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And, Jesus defines love as obedience because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The Father gave His Son to be born a human baby in a manger in Bethlehem and live out His life as a child, adolescent, teenager, young man, and adult, and to suffer at the hands of the Roman soldiers and die alone on a cross, naked, on a busy Roman road, and Jesus was obedient. It’s a remarkable thought that the second member of the Godhead, the creator of all things, was able to humble Himself so completely, so thoroughly, and execute total obedience to His Father’s wishes considering the human condition and the things that He suffered.
Thus, the father of obedience is Jesus and Jesus defined love by His obedience. According to Hebrews 5:9, “And being made perfect (by obedience) He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him,” salvation under the new covenant is gained by obedience and is defined by obedience. So although the salvation provided by the Father is a free gift, the salvation of the new covenant must be gained. Which is why Paul tells us in 1Corinthians 13, if you don’t have love, you don’t have anything.
Now, Jesus’ very first commandment to His disciples after He had fulfilled His Father’s covenant and established His own was to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is on the earth in this present age to represent Jesus and Jesus is love and the word, baptize, means saturation, those who wait for a baptism with the Spirit are waiting to be saturated with love. To walk in obedience is to walk in love. It is easy to see then why Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love." It is easy to see why John said “he that practices obedience dwells in Jesus and Jesus in him.” Those who keep Jesus’ commandments keep themselves saturated with love.
If you remember, in Matthew 7:22-23, Jesus said, “Many will come to me in that day saying Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in your name? But I will say, I never knew you, depart from me, workers of iniquity.” As I have said many times before, the word, iniquity, means to live outside obedience of commandments. If we place Matthew 7:22-23, next to 1Corinthians 13:1-3, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy, and can understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing,” we begin to get a glimpse of what Paul is saying.
Even though saturation is accomplished through the gift of tongues, it is not the gift of tongues that is important. Neither is it walking in the gifts of the Spirit, which is promised by Jesus in Acts 1:8. This includes the gifts of prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and the gift of faith. It is not benevolence of heart or martyrdom that moves God, only obedience. If we obey Jesus’ first commandment, we keep ourselves saturated with love, day in and day out, and all these other things naturally flow out of that saturation but it is not the things that flow out of saturation, but the saturation itself that is important. If we don’t have obedience, we have nothing, because eternal life is gained by obedience.
While it is true the Father sent Jesus to redeem mankind from the law and gifted the whole human race with His death on the cross, the old covenant never promised eternal life and being redeemed from the law cannot provide any more than the law promised. Sons of God can be banished from the presence of God and sent to judgment as easily as any other class of people. In order to gain the eternal life promised with the new covenant, we must keep the new covenant.
In Acts 1:8 Jesus said, “You shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses,” but that power will not get you to heaven, any more than giving all your worldly goods to the poor, or giving yourself as a martyr to the cause of Christ, which includes dedicating yourself to preaching a gospel at home or abroad.
Romans 8:1 serves to explain 1Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love suffers long and is kind, love envies not, love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
The word, love, here, is the Holy Spirit; God is love. “There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ.” If you are on the earth today, you are in Christ, because His righteousness has been accredited to your account. However, the differences between the old and new covenant are not widely disseminated today. There was no decree not to approach the mountain from whence the new covenant originated; and in fact, the whole world was invited to not only approach, but to climb.
As a result, the Holy Spirit does not use any of the tactics used to encourage obedience under the old covenant. The Holy Spirit is our encourager and comforter. He will gently lead, coax, encourage, and ease us toward obedience; He will never give up on us, but with patience and belief in us, will exercise hope in us. If you are looking for someone to hit you over the head with a need to obey Jesus’ commandments, it will not come from the Holy Spirit; it will not come from love. If you are looking for conviction or condemnation for a lack of obedience, it will not come. “If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.” That is free to obey or disobey.
Jesus sets us free by His death on the cross. He delivers all mankind from sin as defined by the old covenant law. However, Jesus went on to establish a new covenant with new commandments. There is no condemnation for not keeping these commandments because Jesus has set us free. This is the reason for the emphasis on love in 1Corinthians 13. If you keep Jesus’ commandments, it will not be because of condemnation for disobedience or conviction of wrongdoing; it will be because of love.
The old covenant had a built-in authority to condemn for disobedience. It is this built-in authority that causes mankind to feel conviction and condemnation for disobedience. When Jesus set us free from the law of sin and death, He set us free from the condemnation for breaking those laws but because Jesus fulfilled the old covenant without destroying it, it still has that built-in authority and will attempt to bring you back under its authority through conviction and condemnation. Only those who know they have been set free can live above the law.
Before we understand the new covenant, we are like children, we understand like children, we think like children, but when we understand that we have been set free from the law and that eternal life is gained by obedience and begin to practice that obedience, we become adults, we become responsible, and although we see through a glass darkly, we see, we have a vision we didn’t have before, and it makes us knowledgeable about things we didn’t understand before. This knowledge propels us forward to obedience.
“And now abides faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” We must first believe in Jesus; we must believe Jesus was raised from the dead with all power in heaven and earth. We must believe the Father gave to Jesus the name above every other name. We must believe Jesus is the blessed only Potentate, the only wise God. Then we must have hope in the integrity of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we must exercise love. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” The greatest of these is love, because, “Having been made perfect, He became the author of eternal life to all them who obey Him.”
The father of obedience invites us to love Him as He has loved us, which is by obedience. The father of obedience invites us to love one another as He has loved us, which is by obedience. He invites us to take up our cross of obedience and follow His example of obedience. The father of obedience invites us to take His yoke of obedience onto ourselves, and follow His illustration of obedience. He does not, however, compel us to obey; He does not demand we obey. Just as Jesus freely obeyed His Father and offered His Father perfect obedience, Jesus asks the same of us. “Take up your cross and follow me.” “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
There is no demand of obedience even though eternal life can only be gained by obedience. The new covenant is an entirely voluntary covenant Jesus offers to His brothers, the sons of God. The sad thing is that our modern Church has not discerned the end of the old covenant and the beginning of a new covenant. Christians today can gain the salvation of the old covenant and still lose the salvation of the new covenant. A gift given freely and without merit may be rescinded if it is judged the recipient is living unworthy of the gift but salvation earned through obedience cannot be taken away.
Many thousands will stand before Jesus to say, “But we fed the poor and gave our lives for your kingdom.” Others will say, “But we worked miracles in your name and by your power.” And still others will say, “But we were baptized with your Spirit and spoke in tongues,” but Jesus will say, “I never knew you, depart from me you workers of iniquity.” The word, iniquity, means a failure to keep commandments, it indicates a lack of obedience.
It is an amazing thing from my perspective that mankind can receive a baptism with the Holy Spirit and be filled with power of the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues regularly, and be familiar with all nine of the gifts of the Spirit and still fail to obtain eternal life, just as you might think it amazing that a man can give His life for God or give all his worldly goods to the poor and still fail to obtain eternal life. This only serves to illustrate how drastically different mankind’s thinking is from God’s, who in this case, is Jesus. When God said, “For my ways are not your ways,” He wasn’t kidding.
Jesus was the first man to offer God complete and total obedience. All mankind suffers with the idiosyncrasies of the human condition, but for Jesus to take on Himself those same attributes and suffer right alongside mankind while giving comprehensive obedience to His Father’s commandments and complete vigilance to His wishes is utterly astonishing, and, from this perspective, it is easy to see why a very specific obedience to a very specific set of commandments would be the key to unlock eternal life.
We, all mankind, must recognize we live in the new covenant age. We must recognize that Jesus kept the commandments of the old covenant law in our stead and for our benefit. We must recognize that it is our duty to duplicate that obedience in the new covenant age to the commandments of our King. We must recognize that Jesus shed His life blood to offer us forgiveness for disobedience if we repent and turn to obedience. This mechanism of forgiveness for disobedience makes our obedience perfect.
Now, perhaps it should go without saying, but God’s love for humanity is a constant, unchanging, force, and by, God, I mean the complete Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christianity needs to recognize, however, that those loved by God can still be condemned. God loved Adam but condemned him to a life outside the presence of God, outside God’s blessings, because of disobedience. Adam had no mechanism of repentance in his covenant.
The Children of Israel were loved by God but were likewise condemned for disobedience. It’s just that I hear Christian radio quoting the verses from 1John 4, comforting and encouraging Christians as if to be loved by God is the most important thing. And, if Ephesians 2:8-9 are taken out of context, and Hebrews 5:9 is ignored, along with 1John 5:3, and 1Corinthians 13 is interpreted without the benefits of the rest of the New Testament, it is reasonable to believe that to be loved by God is all one would ever need.
Yet all one needs to do is consider John 3:16 to grab hold of the truth. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to be tortured and die a cruel death at the hands of His enemies, yet the great majority of mankind will be sent to the lake of fire for disobedience. “This is the love of God that we keep His commandments.” “In order to remain in my love, you will need to keep my commandments.”
Let’s examine John 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,” a little more closely. This one verse explains how to receive eternal life as simply as any in the scripture. How would mankind, or better yet Christians, ever make it to heaven believing in Jesus if they cannot remain in Jesus’ love without keeping Jesus’ commandments? According to Jesus, it is impossible. Therefore, Ephesians 2:8-9 cannot be speaking of eternal salvation. It is critically important to know which commandments are Jesus’ commandments and which are the Father’s. It is critically important to understand where the old covenant ended and the new covenant began. Let’s face it, anywhere is heaven if you are in Jesus’ love and to remain and to continue, and abide in His love, all you need to do is keep His commandments.
Furthermore, if we are saved eternally by grace through faith, why does 1Corinthians 13 tell us, “Though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” If you have just a little faith in Jesus, would that not make you saved? Would it not make you a Christian? A child of God? How can Paul say you are nothing with all faith if you have no obedience? Love, or better stated, obedience, really is everything because if you don’t have eternal life, you have nothing.
From the Church’s perspective, Paul’s words are nonsensical. Anyone who had all faith so that they could move mountains could only get that faith through Jesus. If they had Jesus, they would certainly have love because Jesus is love. It is only by applying Jesus’ definition of love to this verse that it makes any sense at all. We could paraphrase the verse to read: “Though you receive a baptism with the Spirit and receive the gift of faith in full measure, yet fail to obey Jesus’ commandments, you have failed to inherit eternal life.”
Wasn’t it Paul who said, “If we have hope for this life alone, we are of all men most pitied?” Curiously, the old covenant, of which Jesus’ death on the cross was a fulfillment of, only had promises that pertain to this life. So why would Paul say we are of all men most pitied? Could it be because of the presence of the new covenant with its promise of eternal life and three commandments to keep? Could it be because the yoke of the new covenant is so much easier than the yoke of the old covenant, yet most Christians wear the yoke of the old covenant law? Could it be because we are so close to obtaining eternal life, yet failing to do so? It would be a real pity to get so close as to have hope but fail to obtain.
But how is mankind to obtain eternal life when these truths are not taught? The gospel that is preached today is the gospel of the fulfillment of the law; it is the gospel of the Christ. The gospel of the Lord is not the same.