TheosGuy

I was listening to John MacArthur’s sermons on The Certainty of Assurance (Part 1, Part 2) and he made a comment near the end of Part 1 that was thought provoking.

To know God, to know Christ is to be compelled on the inside to obey the Law that God wrote there. People have said actually to me, “I don’t go to your church, too legalistic.” My first concern is they’re not Christians because they see the Law of God as something imposed on them on the outside. I would be more prone to say, “Boy, I can’t go to your church because you don’t love the Law of God from the heart. I couldn’t be in a church like that.” You see, that’s where the law was written in the New Covenant, it was written in the heart.

He was referring to the Scriptural statement of what the New Covenant is.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34 NKJV)

The implication here is that if the Law of God is written by God upon our hearts and minds, then we should love the Law of God. Jesus said:

If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15 NKJV)

I do not believe that Jesus is referring here to the Mosaic Law, especially not the ceremonial and theocratic laws. For Jesus expounds on His words:

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love…This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…These things I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:10, 12, 17 NKJV)

Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ (Matthew 22:37 NKJV)

And Paul tells is of the law of Christ.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 NKJV)

So it would seem that the commandments of Christ relate to our loving of the LORD our God and our neighbors.

Tags: Assurance, Salvation

Four times we are told in scripture that “the just shall live by faith.” Faith on the finished work of Jesus Christ as our one and only true sacrifice.

Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith. (Hab 2:4 NKJV)

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith. (Rom 1:17 NKJV)

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith. (Gal 3:11 NKJV)

Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him. (Heb 10:38 NKJV)

Tags: Assurance, Faith, Living

Dr. James Montgomery Boice in his commentary on The Epistles of John, indicates three tests to know if we are Christians.

1. The Moral Test (1 John 2:3-6)
   A test of righteousness, but not sinlessness.
2. The Social Test (1 John 2:7-11)
   Do I follow Christ? For example, do I love others? The extent of our love, the length of our love, and the degree to which it is realized.
3. The Doctrinal Test (1 John 2:18-27)
   Who do I believe Christ is? A Christian believes in the deity of Jesus Christ!

Tags: Assurance