Remaining in Christ’s Love for paper Dec 24

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”  John 15:9–10  

This scripture is in the middle of Jesus’ farewell message to his disciples, just before he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane where he is betrayed and arrested, which makes his words extraordinary. In just a few hours, Jesus will experience betrayal, abandonment, and unlawful arrest. Then he will experience cruel abuse and execution. Yet Jesus speaks of both his and the Father’s love. This is especially noticeable in the use of the Greek noun for love four times and the verb for love five times in this section of scripture.

We all know how sweet being loved is, but Jesus also gives us commands to love and obey in this scripture: “remain in my love”; “keep my commandments” How well do we fit these love and obedience descriptions? How are you doing with these commandments? Jesus says, in verse 10a “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love”. Because of our sinful nature, we break the commandments continuously and constantly, so how could we possible remain in his love?

We all inherited a sinful nature from Adam and Eve. Because of this and the resulting actual sins of which we are all constantly guilty, we cannot possibly keep the commands and deserve both physical death and eternal punishment in hell.

So we’ve all failed to keep Jesus’ command to love. But Christ does not want us to perish spiritually and eternally, and in love he calls us to repent. When we do repent, it is by God enabling us. He warns us by his Law—like the words we just heard—but then he makes his loving purpose immediately evident as well. He promises us if we are truly repentant of our sin he will forgive us and absolve us completely. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel and absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ), and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest.

When we repent and confess our sin, then God forgives us of our sinful nature and all our actual sins. He forgives us for the sake of Jesus Christ. How? By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes,  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5: 21

Sin was destroyed at Calvary even as Christ carried all of it for all of mankind in his own body. At the cross, Jesus is your substitute. He suffered and died in your place to pay the penalty for your sins and satisfy the wrath of God. And every Sunday we proclaim the Easter message that Jesus rose again from the dead, victorious over sin, Satan and death, bringing us new life in the face of death. And so forgiveness, life, and salvation are available through faith in Christ Jesus and his great love for us.

We started quoting “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love”. And because of our sin asked “how could we possibly remain in his love?” Well we do not do it. Jesus does it for us as described above.  We access all Jesus has done for us by faith, faith in all he has done for us and promised to us.

Even more, the love of Christ is transformational. The evidence of faith in Christ is seen in the changes that take place in our lives. Scripture uses words like born again, rebirth, regeneration, renewal, and transformation to describe what Christ’s love does to us. We are not only free from sin and the effects of sin, but we are free also from the power of sin. We are thus freed from all our sin, freed to remain in his love, and freed to bear the fruit of the spirit

Jesus spoke all the words of 1 John so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete. Indeed, we rejoice remaining in his great love!

Blessings,