What did Jesus mean, when He said,
"If Ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)?
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Inquiry
Jesus said, "If Ye love me, keep my
commandments." (John 14:15). What is its meaning?
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Response
True Christians take the matter of obedience to God (i.e.
Allah) very seriously. As you quoted from John 14:15, Jesus
himself said that we should keep his commandments. He called
them "my commandments" because he himself is God, so
He was really talking about the commandments of God. Our
obedience is not to a mere man, but to God. Disobedience to God
is sin. Therefore, true goodness must keep the commandments of
God perfectly.
But Christians also admit that no person keeps the commandments
of God perfectly. This is affirmed in many places in both the
Old and New Testaments. For example, King Solomon recognized it,
saying "there is no man who does not sin" (2
Chronicles 6:36). John said, "If we say we have no sin, we
are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us" (1 John
1:8). Jesus himself said, "No one is good except God
alone" (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19), and Jesus is sinless.
This means even Abraham was not truly good. He kept God's
commandments better than most people do, but not perfectly, so
he was still a sinner. In spite of this, God called him
righteous. Why? The answer is in Genesis 15:6 - "Then he
believed in the Lord, and He reckoned it to him as
righteousness". No person was ever declared righteous by
keeping the commandments. The only way to be declared righteous
is to truly believe in God and all that God has revealed, that
he is everything He claims to be, just as Abraham believed.
So when Jesus told us to keep his commandments, he was not
saying that keeping the commandments is the way to be made
righteous. Instead, he was speaking to those who already
believed in the Lord and thus were already declared righteous,
and he told them, "If you love me, you will keep My
commandments". So, we want to keep God's commandments
because we love him. If we truly believe in him, then we acknowledge
that he is king and lord, and we know in our hearts that
whatever he tells us to do is for the best, and so we want to
obey him.
What specific things do we want to obey? All that he has
commanded us, of course! But God has not commanded everyone to
obey the exact same things. For example, through Moses he
commanded the nation of Israel to not eat pork and certain other
foods, but he never commanded this to Abraham or Job. Similarly,
these commandments were not addressed to Christians. The Law of
Moses was given specifically to Israel only. But many of the
individual commandments recorded in the Law of Moses are
universal moral standards that God requires for all men
everywhere. For example, it is always wrong to have other gods,
to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet. Those who
truly believe in God and love Jesus always want to keep the
commandments against these things.
by EM
Last edited 01/20/2002
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