“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” A Matter of Faith or of Works?

[newton3005]

In John 14:15, Lord Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” His commandments include loving one another. Seems to imply that our love of Jesus is to be shown through our works, inasmuch as it seems that loving eachother is a condition placed by Jesus for loving him. Or perhaps we strive toward loving him in showing it through things like our love for eachother.

We are hesitant to describe our love of him as a matter of works. The assertion made is that the works we perform are a matter of love of him. But James 2:14 legitimizes works in the face of our love and faith in him when it says “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”

The Bible infers that our love of God comes out of our faith in Him. We are not born loving Him, any more than we a reborn in love with someone we want to marry. Both come with age and out of our experience. But as James 2:14 infers, we must have works to show for our love of God through our faith in Him. On the other hand, not all works will bring us to God. We cannot, for example, merely, figuratively in most cases, say “Lord and Lord” without doing any works, and expect God to see that we love Him. To merely say “Lord, Lord” gives us the status of a Dutch uncle, so to speak, not partaking or showing any commitment to promoting His Goodness, but instead just dropping by on occasion, saying “Hello” and then leaving, leaving no more of ourselves behind than before we showed up. Our faith as a Dutch uncle in Him extends no more than our faith that He is here whenever we show up in our travels.

John 14:15 is what Jesus told his first disciples before leaving them. Among his commandments to them was to love eachother. But all of us are his disciples to the extent we have faith in God through him. We impress upon others through our works, to the extent God has blessed us with the ability to perform the works that are done out of our love of Him through our faith. If there is any boasting in our works, it is from works that we convey to others so they may see the blessings that may be given to them if they have faith like we do. Any boasting is done for the purpose of promoting God’s Goodness rather than in calling attention to ourselves for ourselves.

And when others have faith in God though Jesus like we do, then they become disciples also, and they become heirs to the Promise God made to Abraham as we are heirs. In leaving his disciples, Lord Jesus took leave of the earth to look upon us all. And when the time comes for the earth as we know it to end, we can look upon Lord Jesus in Heaven, those who are left as being judged righteous. And the love we have for God will continue when we are in His House to dwell in.

 

[truthisfreedom2019]

A little child loves his mom. He could care less if he was living by faith or works all he knows is he loves his mom. I think it is best to just keep it simple, be obedient to what Jesus said and just love him.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Works (deeds), performed in love (agape), are the evidence of faith.

 

[Josheb]

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” A Matter of Faith or of Works?

In John 14:15, Lord Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” His commandments include loving one another. Seems to imply that our love of Jesus is to be shown through our works, inasmuch as it seems that loving each other is a condition placed by Jesus for loving him. Or perhaps we strive toward loving him in showing it through things like our love for each other.

We are hesitant to describe our love of him as a matter of works......

Who is "we"?

Historically, Christendom's orthodox mainstream position has always been salvation necessarily entails a works-beggeting faith. Salvation is neither works-alone based, nor faith-alone based. When Paul and James write about being justified by faith that is what they are writing about: justification not salvation as a whole.

Context.

Inherent and stated context.

I don't now why so many have such difficulty fathoming what is clearly, undeniably, irrefutably stated. Ops like this should never occur authored by the mature. There's no excuse for not knowing, understanding, and modeling faith-that-is-evidenced-by-works. There's no excuse for not knowing, understanding, and modeling works begetting faith. After all Paul, James, and Peter all wrote decisively about the testing of our faith begetting faith and how things like goodness, affection, perseverance, etc. are thusly manifested, evident, and have effect. Any and all faith versus faith view is a false dichotomy. The two are never at odds with one another. The faithless do not work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Those working out their salvation can't do that without work. Working out without work.

Foolishness.

I, for one, am unabashed about plainly describing my love for God and His Son is a matter of works and I don't know a mature Christian who doesn't know, understand, and behave accordingly. Only the young in Christ struggle with this and that condition is usually a combination of poor reading (such as proof-texting) and poor teaching ( which is also often proof-texting).


One important factor is missing from the op: the work of the regenerating and indwelling Holy Spirit. No one should think the matters of faith or works can occur salvifically in the flesh alone. The mind of flesh is hostile to God; it does not and cannot please God. It is the mind of Spirit that begets eternal life hear and later. It is God who works in us for good according to His purpose (Romans 8). John 14 and Romans 8 (for example) are not disparate passages and should not be considered apart from each other. Whole scripture wholly understood brings holiness .

 

[anna ~ grace]

In John 14:15, Lord Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” His commandments include loving one another. Seems to imply that our love of Jesus is to be shown through our works, inasmuch as it seems that loving eachother is a condition placed by Jesus for loving him. Or perhaps we strive toward loving him in showing it through things like our love for eachother.

We are hesitant to describe our love of him as a matter of works. The assertion made is that the works we perform are a matter of love of him. But James 2:14 legitimizes works in the face of our love and faith in him when it says “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”

The Bible infers that our love of God comes out of our faith in Him. We are not born loving Him, any more than we a reborn in love with someone we want to marry. Both come with age and out of our experience. But as James 2:14 infers, we must have works to show for our love of God through our faith in Him. On the other hand, not all works will bring us to God. We cannot, for example, merely, figuratively in most cases, say “Lord and Lord” without doing any works, and expect God to see that we love Him. To merely say “Lord, Lord” gives us the status of a Dutch uncle, so to speak, not partaking or showing any commitment to promoting His Goodness, but instead just dropping by on occasion, saying “Hello” and then leaving, leaving no more of ourselves behind than before we showed up. Our faith as a Dutch uncle in Him extends no more than our faith that He is here whenever we show up in our travels.

John 14:15 is what Jesus told his first disciples before leaving them. Among his commandments to them was to love eachother. But all of us are his disciples to the extent we have faith in God through him. We impress upon others through our works, to the extent God has blessed us with the ability to perform the works that are done out of our love of Him through our faith. If there is any boasting in our works, it is from works that we convey to others so they may see the blessings that may be given to them if they have faith like we do. Any boasting is done for the purpose of promoting God’s Goodness rather than in calling attention to ourselves for ourselves.

And when others have faith in God though Jesus like we do, then they become disciples also, and they become heirs to the Promise God made to Abraham as we are heirs. In leaving his disciples, Lord Jesus took leave of the earth to look upon us all. And when the time comes for the earth as we know it to end, we can look upon Lord Jesus in Heaven, those who are left as being judged righteous. And the love we have for God will continue when we are in His House to dwell in.

Both. We need both.