John 15:7-10, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue in my love. If you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love.”
When Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments,” it should be clear the Father’s commandments are not Jesus’ commandments (Jn.15:10). Jesus expresses a clear difference between Himself and His Father here. He reveals the utter devotion He has to His Father and explains the utter devotion He expects of His disciples. In saying, “If you keep my commandments,” Jesus is drawing a distinction, a dissimilarity, a contrast, between His commandments and His Father’s commandments. Jesus kept His Father’s commandments so we don’t have to but we are going to have to keep Jesus’ commandments if we are to abide in Jesus. We are not talking about old covenant commandments. It would be silly of Jesus to say we must abide in Him and then also say we must keep His Father’s commandments. Jesus could have just as easily used the word, “our,” but He didn’t. To abide in Jesus is to be free of the Father’s commandments.
Jesus goes on in John 15:10 to say, “Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you” Jn.15:7. “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love” Jn.15:10.
I wonder if you realize the importance of the words Jesus speaks here. Throughout the New Testament are found the words, “In Christ,” “in Him,” and similar other like phrases. These words are used to indicate the blessings of the new covenant. Every Christian wants to be in Christ or in Christ Jesus but just how do Christians become “in Christ.” Jesus very plainly explains the process whereby believers are placed in Christ in these two verses. The question is, “How many people will believe these words.”
According to Jesus, who authored and ratified the new covenant, the only way to be in Him is to keep His commandments. Now, in Galatians 3, Paul tells us the Galatians were converted to Christianity through a gospel that allowed Paul to work miracles but today, no such gospel is preached. In Romans 10 we learn Paul’s gospel had two parts, a belief of the heart that led to righteousness and a confession of the mouth that was made by faith.
If it takes a careful keeping of Jesus’ commandments to abide “in Christ,” then certainly that was the gospel preached by the early Church fathers but today it is the Father’s commandments we are instructed to keep. The modern gospel stands in stark contrast to the gospel of the first century. Most Christians cannot tell you what Jesus’ commandments are. All they know are the commandments of the old covenant, commandments Jesus said He had kept and it is this perfect keeping that He imputes to all those who accept His death under penalty of sin.
Notice the words of Galatians 3:1: “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?”
Although today we are told to receive Jesus’ righteousness is eternal life, the New Testament does not teach that truth. Just consider Romans 10:10: “For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Now while it is clear to be redeemed from sin is to be saved from sin, for those who are willing to see the truth, it is just as clear that redemption from sin is not eternal life.
Perhaps a short history lesson is in order. In the case of the Galatians, Paul preached Christ to them and they received Christ and were saved. He later wrote this book to them. This is the case of all the books of the New Testament. They were all written to correct wrong thinking of folks who were already Christian. Thus, we don’t have a clear presentation of Paul’s gospel and must glean it from the pages of the New Testament. The same is true of the other writers. If we must keep Jesus’ commandments in order to abide in Christ then certainly Jesus’ commandments are the foundation of the new covenant, the central theme of the gospel, but we would not expect to see a clear presentation of this truth brought out in letters written to Christians.
What we would expect to see is a chastisement for leaving this truth to pursue another. The problem was: the Church was born out of the old covenant and the old covenant required the keeping of the old covenant laws. The first Christians were primarily Jews who understood the need to keep the law but the old and new covenants are as different as night and day. Here are some examples.
The focus of the old covenant was righteousness but the focus of the new covenant is the glory of the Father.
The old covenant was temporal but the new covenant is eternal.
God judged disobedience under the old covenant but Jesus reserves all judgment till the end.
The old covenant was made with the Jews but the new covenant was made with all mankind.
Obedience was required under the old covenant but invited under the new.
There was no indwelling of God for humans under the law but there is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit under the new covenant.
Under the old covenant we are tasked with believing God loves us but the new covenant tasks us with believing in God's integrity.
There are distinct similarities however. Both covenants were founded on commandments; commandments that if kept, unleash all the good will and favor God has for mankind. The big difference in these commandments is their focus. As previously stated, the old covenant addressed man’s sinful nature by imposing commandments that governed behavior related to morality. Even in this however, there are similarities between the two covenants.
The word righteousness means right behavior. The right behavior was defined differently under the two covenants by the commandments issued. Jesus perfectly kept His Father’s commandments but died under the penalties of disobedience. All who receive His payment for sin receives His perfect keeping of the law and thus enters the new covenant righteous according to the old covenant standard. The commandments of Jesus reflect this.
Under the old covenant, behavior as it relates to morality was addressed by commandment. The commandments and the need to keep them to remain in right standing with God curtailed or controlled immorality. There are no such commandments in the new covenant and this may very well be why the Galatians were encouraged to go under the law.
The new covenant is built on the foundation of Jesus’ commandments; commandments that do not regulate morality by directive. Under the new covenant, morality is controlled by saturation. In Acts 1:4, after Jesus has perfectly kept His Father’s commandments and died under the penalties of disobedience, having been raised from the dead and given all power in heaven and in earth, He gathers His disciples about Him and commands them to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit. The word, “baptize,” means to saturate. Jesus had previously instructed that “when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will testify of me,” so to be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be saturated with Jesus. It is the love for Jesus and the daily, almost continuous baptism that controls morality.
The baptism with the Spirit is not a one-time experience. It is not enough to have received a baptism with the Spirit. Jesus said, “You must keep my commandments.” How does one keep a commandment to saturate themselves with Jesus? On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on those first believers they spoke with other tongues and among the many gifts of tongues the Father God gives the Church is one that remains under the control of the believer. They can speak in tongues whenever they like. Thus every believer who has received an initial baptism has the ability to keep themselves saturated with Jesus continuously.
However, mankind has never liked being controlled by another, not even a benevolent God. Remember Adam in the Garden of Eden? All he had to do to retain the blessed life He lived was to keep one commandment, but He couldn’t do it and I suspect early Christians struggled to keep themselves saturated with Jesus using the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues is naturally offensive to the psyche of man. Self respecting Church leaders needed a way to control the behavior of early Christians, who were not keeping themselves saturated with Jesus, thus, the old covenant law was instituted into the Church.
Moreover, it is clear from the book of 1Corinthians the early believers did not have a clear understanding of the primary use of the gift of tongues. We know this from Paul’s addressing of the public use in their services. This lack of knowledge coupled with a general lack of appreciation for the gift of tongues and the chaos being caused were reasons to discourage the use of tongues altogether. We see the same dynamics at play today in our modern churches.
Let’s go back to Galatians 3, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?”
Jesus spoke of two dispensations of the Holy Spirit. In John 4, in talking with the woman at the well, Jesus said I can give you a well of Living Water springing up to everlasting life, but In John 7:38-39, Jesus speaks of rivers of Living Water flowing out of the belly. It is reasonable then to believe the well of water is received at the point faith in the heart is exercised for righteousness; the rivers of Living Water being the gifts of tongues pouring out of the belly at the baptism with the Spirit. This agrees with Romans 10:10, “For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” It is the obedience of Jesus’ first commandment that causes a stream of words to flow over the tongue and eternal life is gained by abiding in Jesus through the keeping of His commandments.
Even though these are two separate and distinct experiences and acts of faith, the first being in Jesus’ death on the cross in payment of sin and the second being exercised in the promise of power to witness of Jesus, the now resurrected Lord, those of Cornelius household seemingly exercised both faiths simultaneously. “And they of the Circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. For they heard them speak with tongues,” Acts 10:45-46.
We know Paul’s methodology from Acts 19. In arriving at Ephesus Paul finds certain disciples of John the Baptist who preached Christ Jesus. In speaking to these disciples Paul learns they have not heard of the Holy Spirit. If they have not heard of the Holy Spirit, they were certainly not baptized with the Holy Spirit but they had been baptized into Jesus, which was John’s practice. However, John practiced a baptism of repentance. Paul re-baptized them in water, which is the baptism of repentance unto righteousness, then laid his hands on them and they received the baptism with the Spirit and spoke with tongues. Here it is demonstrated that Paul had the ability to convey the baptism with the Spirit by the laying on of hands and we have every reason to believe that is how the Galatians came to be saved.
When Paul said, “before whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth, crucified among you,” Paul is speaking of the power to witness of the resurrection of Jesus promised by Jesus in Acts 1:8. The Galatians somehow witnessed, saw for themselves, evidence of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. It was this experience that caused them to turn to Jesus. So when Paul said, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth,” he is speaking of the truth of the new covenant, the keeping of the commandments of Jesus. The Galatians had somehow been convinced not to keep themselves saturated with Jesus as a means of obtaining eternal life but to try and keep the Ten Commandments of the law. There was no promise of eternal life found in the law and the keeping of the law cannot convey eternal life. Thus, Paul asked, “who has bewitched you.”
All of the promises of being in Christ or in Him are dependent on a keeping of Jesus’ commandments, the first being the foundation of the new covenant. In 1Peter 2:1, Peter issues this warning to the Church, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby.” Peter seems to be saying to the Church, “We need to get back to the foundation and keep it pure.” He continues, “If so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious (forgiving). To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.”
As we will see in a minute, the living stone is the foundation of the Church. At the time of this writing, parts of the Church have already moved away from keeping Jesus’ commandments as a means of obtaining eternal life, which is the same dynamic we see in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The keeping of Jesus’ commandments is the way of eternal life chosen by God and it is precious in His sight.
“You also, as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” The spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God by Jesus are the gifts of tongues that flow from your mouth continuously in response to Jesus’ commandments. It is our obedience that is the spiritual house, the lively stones built on the foundation of the new covenant.
The “chief cornerstone, elect, precious” is the first commandment of Jesus. Listen, the Church, and this letter was written to the Church, not the Jewish Nation, did not reject Jesus and has not rejected Jesus in all its long history but it did and has rejected Jesus’ first commandment. It is clear there are many beliefs that can be exercised in Jesus but not all produce the same result. To believe on Jesus, the word on meaning a place arrived, means to believe on His resurrection, the place arrived through faith in his death. If we believe on the resurrection we will respond to Jesus’ commandments. If we do not arrive at Jesus’ resurrection, we will have no reason to respond to the Lord. This is the reason the Church is encouraged to remain under the old covenant and use the blood of Jesus to cleanse away sin.
By this means the Church never becomes the Church without spot or wrinkle, the glorious Church never comes to fruition and the plans and purposes of God are thwarted. The glory of the Lord never covers the earth as the waters cover the sea and there is no return of the Lord and Satan can continue his kingdom on the earth.
By now I suspect I’ve lost you. Let’s go back to the beginning. In John 15:7, Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” Then, in 15:10, He says, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” In that God is love and Jesus is God, the only way to be in Jesus is to keep His commandments. Why then is the Church instructed to keep the old covenant commandments but not the commandments of Jesus?
Perhaps it is because the Father God and Jesus, the Son of God, are perceived to be two faces of the same person, therefore, to keep the Father’s commandments is to keep Jesus’ commandments. However, if the two are one, why did Jesus draw a clear distinction between Him and His Father? There are a lot of questions here, questions you will have to answer for yourselves. The new covenant is a covenant of faith. It is clear the Galatians were in the process of abandoning the gospel of Paul to embrace another gospel and similar wording can be found in almost all the books of the New Testament. The disciples Paul found in Ephesus thought they were saved but Paul did not think so and took immediate action to rectify the error of their belief. He re-baptized in water for the remission of sins, then laid hands on for the baptism with the Spirit and when they spoke with tongues he knew they had it. Only, eternal life is not about speaking with tongues, speaking with tongues is just the vehicle through which obedience is practiced.
The book of Hebrews was written to people who, having been delivered once by God, were refusing to enter God’s promise, this according to Hebrews 3 and 4. Eternal life is subsequent to deliverance from sin according to Romans 10:10 and eternal life is the promise of the new covenant.
The modern Church places a great deal of emphasis on God’s love as if God’s love will save but John 3:16 draws a line in the sand. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God loves the entire world equally but only those who believe in Jesus should not perish. Therefore, God pursues each and every person with extreme passion and encourages them toward the truth.
The question is, “Which belief saves and which belief saves eternally?” We know it is not the belief that God loves us that saves. If it were the whole world would be saved. We know it is not the belief that Jesus is God’s Son. It is not the belief that Jesus was born of a virgin or that His father was a carpenter. The truth is, even believing Jesus died on a cross will not save from sin unless it is made personal. Still the Lord pursues, encouraging, cajoling, and cheering us toward the truth. The problem is; most Christians take His encouragement to be confirmation of arrival at salvation. They stop pursuing the truth and believe they have arrived.
It is important to remember “words have meanings.” The word, “in,” as in “believe in,” means to be placed into. Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.” Jesus is love so to abide in Jesus’ love is to abide in Jesus. The belief in Jesus is a belief that saturates with Jesus. In order to stay saturated with Jesus there must be a mechanism to do so. The belief that produces eternal life is a belief on His resurrection; a belief that causes the gift of tongues to pour out of your mouth in response to the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the new covenant that promises eternal life; not the old. Since the Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus, to allow the gift of tongues to pour out of your heart is to be saturated with Jesus; it is the meaning of “believe in.”
Notice 2Corinthians 5:17: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.” To abide in Jesus is to keep Jesus’ commandments. To be “in Christ,” you must first keep Jesus’ commandments. Am I missing something? All of Christianity is saying all you have to do is believe and half of Christianity doesn’t even bother to define belief. Yet Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Jesus is saying, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me because I keep His commandments.” What I am saying is that in order to be “in Christ,” we must keep Jesus’ commandments. The first holds the key to being in Christ.
It is faith in the promise of power to witness of the resurrected Lord, which is the ability to glorify God that causes believers to keep the commandment and through keeping the commandment believers realize everlasting life.
“He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself (the gift of tongues): he that believes not God has made Him a liar; because he has believed not the record God gave of His Son. And this is the record (the gift of tongues), that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life (to abide in Jesus is to keep His commandments); and he that has not the Son of God has not life. (You must believe in Jesus.) These things have I written to you that believe on (the word “on,” meaning, a place arrived, indicating arrival at His resurrection) the name of the Son of God (the name of the Son of God is Lord, Lord of Lords and King of Kings); that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God” (1John 5:10-13).
In 1John 5:13, John, in an environment of disobedience, is encouraging obedience of Jesus’ commandments and affirming those who do obey that they have eternal life that they might continue to obey in spite of teaching to the contrary. John, who also wrote the book of John, in this book, is emphasizing the importance of Jesus’ (God’s) commandments because the Church had started moving away from them as a means of obtaining everlasting life.
Hereby we know we are in God and God is in us, if we keep His commandments.