{"id":55,"date":"2009-01-30T10:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T10:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/2009\/01\/30\/certainty-of-assurance\/"},"modified":"2013-02-20T12:49:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T20:49:28","slug":"certainty-of-assurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/2009\/01\/30\/certainty-of-assurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Certainty of Assurance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was listening to John MacArthur&#8217;s sermons on <span style=\"font-style:italic\">The Certainty of Assurance<\/span> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gty.org\/Resources\/Sermons\/62-11\" target=\"sermon\">Part 1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gty.org\/Resources\/Sermons\/62-12\" target=\"sermon\">Part 2<\/a>) and he made a comment near the end of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gty.org\/Resources\/Sermons\/62-11\" target=\"sermon\">Part 1<\/a> that was thought provoking.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>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, &#8220;I don&#8217;t go to your church, too legalistic.&#8221;  My first concern is they&#8217;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, &#8220;Boy, I can&#8217;t go to your church because you don&#8217;t love the Law of God from the heart.  I couldn&#8217;t be in a church like that.&#8221;  You see, that&#8217;s where the law was written in the New Covenant, it was written in the heart.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\nHe was referring to the Scriptural statement of what the New Covenant is.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>But this <span style=\"font-style:italic\">is<\/span> 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, &#8216;Know the LORD,&#8217; 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) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15 NKJV)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>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:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father&#8217;s commandments and abide in His love&#8230;This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you&#8230;These things I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:10, 12, 17 NKJV) <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Jesus said to him, &#8216;You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.&#8217; (Matthew 22:37 NKJV)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And Paul tells is of the <span style=\"font-style:italic\">law of Christ<\/span>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Bear one another&#8217;s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2 NKJV)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So it would seem that the commandments of Christ relate to our loving of the LORD our God and our neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was listening to John MacArthur&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,19],"tags":[92,107],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assurance","category-salvation","tag-assurance","tag-salvation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jimonline.org\/theosguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}