THE WAYS OF THE KINGDOM

THE WAY OF HOLINESS

"But if anyone obeys His word, God's love is truly made complete in him."
1 John 2:5

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WE KNOW as Christians that we should be holy. There is a deep desire in our hearts to be holy. Perhaps we feel how far short we fail in holiness. Perhaps we have been discouraged because the way of holiness seems so hard, and we have been disillusioned by so many different teachings and exhortations which seem always to fail. Perhaps also we feel, when we think of holiness, a sense of guilt which nothing will make lighter. This text opens up to us the Way of Holiness which is set forth in the Bible, which when understood sees us standing in the grace and love of God, at peace and in victory.

This verse before us can be very threatening and condemning if we interpret it in the wrong way. I must confess it has been this to me most of my Christian life, and really only as I came to it afresh just recently, is it that God has opened my eyes to what he is saying through John here, and in consequence the threat and condemnation has been taken away, and the impotence also that went with it. It may be that you have not suffered in this way, but I know that much of the emphasis in evangelical teaching over the years have led to this burden. We must always come to the Word of God with open hearts to the illumination the Spirit gives, and not be chained by spiritual conditioning from the past. What is the right way of understanding this verse and the words of the context in which we find it.

THE WRONG WAY

It may seem wrong to put into peoples minds an erroneous way of understanding this bit of God's Word, but I feel that often when we see what something is not, what it really is becomes so much more clear. It is for this reason that I speak about the erroneous interpretation that has been my understanding for so long, so that the right one may be so much more clear in contrast.

In this wrong way the 'if' in the verse is taken as a condition. The word 'if' is usually taken in this way when it is used. This way of using the word 'if' says 'If such and such is so, then it follows that such and such is also true'. Under this way of thinking the verse becomes - if we obey God's word then we will receive more of God's love. As we go on increasing in obedience so that it becomes perfect, then we will receive and know the completeness of God's love. In other words the greater our obedience and so our holiness, the more we will know the acceptance and love of God.

Perhaps we do not express this way of interpretation in so stark a way. Usually we do not actually put into words what we understand, and so our understanding remains indistinct and imprecise. However we feel the experience of this interpretation by the fact that we feel our failure in obedience and so feel God does not love us, and that we have to improve before we will feel his love again.

This reveals the fatal flaw in this way of thinking about this verse, and in the argument in this thinking. The flaw is that we have returned to the way of winning God's favour by our doing. The fatal flaw is that continuing in God's love depends on our obedience. We have returned to works for our saving from God. This degeneration of the Gospel in the lives of Christians is always cropping up, and spoiling our Christian lives. The Apostle Paul wrestled with this tendency in the churches, which under God he had been instrumental in founding, all his ministry. It kept cropping up in all sorts of ways.

The problem is that the old covenant which God made with Adam, of 'Do this and live, disobey and die', is so burnt upon our minds and hearts. When the Gospel of God's free grace is preached, this side of our make-up reacts and says that to say that we do not have to be good to be saved, but simply to trust in the goodness of Jesus accounted to us, is to encourage people to be lax in there living and not seek to be holy. Natural wisdom feels this is axiomatic and cannot be refuted, so we are always returning to preaching the law for holiness and binding people and placing them in bondage, so all peace in the Gospel is gone.

In the right way of understanding what John is saying in our text, the 'if' is what I would call the 'if' of logic. It is like this. If obedience is there in our lives, then it shows that we are feeling and experiencing completely the love of God in our hearts and experience. Obedience, therefore, is a result of a great sense of the love of God poured out into our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord has given us.

Do we see the logic clearly? What John is saying is that "God has poured out his love into our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." (Romans 5:5). It is because of the experience of this love in our hearts which fills our lives, that our overwhelming desire is to please this gracious and loving God in every way we can, and live in the way that brings him pleasure. We are not seeking to please him to gain his approval. The love of God poured into our hearts leaves us in no doubt that we are beloved by him, and loved with that everlasting love that is in God. But rather we are seeking to please God because of his love and the fact that his love has created a great love for Him and a desire to show our love in the way we live and relate to him.

When you love someone dearly, there is that great desire to please the one we love. Love is the motivation and the power that influences and moves us. We can't bear to give the loved one pain, or to harm the beloved in any way. Thus love has become a powerful force in our lives for good. We please God not out of duty, or because we feel afraid if we don't, or because we would earn something, but because the love of God constrains us.

So I hope that we are beginning to see and be convinced that the way of holiness is not by the law. The law of God was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 2:24). It was the means which God used by his Spirit to bring us to the sense of our sin, and to our need of salvation, and our own total weakness to save ourselves, so that we would turn to Christ, the only Saviour. We found that when the Spirit had done this schoolmaster's work in our hearts effectively, and we were beginning to wonder if there was any help for us, that the Spirit then revealed the love of God to us in Christ, that God in deepest love and mercy had given Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins; to suffer all the just anger for our sins in our place that we might be totally clean in God's view, without any stain or blot before him.

When the law was convicting us we were in despair. All the law could do was to condemn, and make us feel fear and guilt. This is all the law can do. The Law can give no power to keep its precepts. It can give no desire to obey, rather as Paul found out, and he records in Romans 7:7-12 so tragically in verse 10 & 11 "I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death".

So if we seek to tackle the need for holiness by law, and by telling ourselves and others, you must do this and you failed in that, and you must try harder and turn over a new leaf, all that will happen is that sin within us will be stimulated and the adverse effect will take place. All we will have done is to increase the power of temptation to the point that we fail in holiness and obedience. We are then, because of the new regenerate life within us, cast down and left in despair; despair that simply grows because of the increasing number of times we fail in holiness.

The Way of holiness is to increase in the knowledge and experience of the love of God. Why did the Apostle Paul pray as he did in Ephesians 3:14-19? It was because this is the way that we grow in holiness. When we have been rooted and grounded in the love of God towards us in Christ's saving work, then Satan can never put us into despair when we fail, and cause us to lose the sense of God's acceptance. When we are rooted and grounded in God's love in this way, we grow in the sense of God's love for us which touches our hearts deeply and causes us to say in the words of the hymn "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me". Having been touched with this love we want to know more deeply the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of God's love, so that we are filled with all the fulness of God - the fulness of his life of love. When this is our experience then the love of God is truly complete in us. The result is that there is nothing so deeply our desire than to show our love for this loving God and Saviour by the holy way we live. Love from God, and the experience of it, is the power that causes us to obey. If we have this love within us it is natural to obey, and so John's words in the verses previous to our text, all fall into place.

We will grow in obedience to the Lord as our sense of his love for us increases. We will promote holiness in our lives by dwelling much on the love of God for us. This we do when we live in and understand more of all the God in his love has done for us in Christ, and more of all that God is continuing and will do for us in Christ. We must grow in the experience of his free and loving grace towards us and in the wonder of his electing love which looked upon us before the world was, which though seeing only sin in us, chose us in Christ because he sovereignly set his love upon us, and made us his own beloved child (Ephesians 1:3-14).

The more we live in the great truths of the Gospel of God's grace towards us, the more we will appreciate and feel God's love, and the more will our hearts be kindled in love for God, and the more we will naturally want to please him by our obedience. There is no adverse effects in this, because there is nothing here to stimulate our sinful nature, or give place for the devil to insinuate his lies. In the love of God thus shed abroad in our hearts there is all the light and atmosphere of heaven attracting us.

If the ministry of the church, and the counselling ministry of individuals, is to lead people into holiness, it must speak of the forgiving love of God so fervently and feelingly, that those ministered to feel and understand the yearning, loving, forgiving, graciousness of Jesus, so that they feel his acceptance of them in spite of all their sins, and his deep love enfolding them. Whatever power the flesh is holding over them, will be found to lose its grip under the gripping power and satisfying nature of God's love revealed in Christ. The minister cannot speak too much of all that God has done for his redeemed people in Christ. The minister needs to be deeply enveloped in these truths and the experience of the love of God in them, so that they come over to the Lord's people with all the love of God poured out. Then will God's people be found to be growing in holiness.

Dear believers in Jesus, do not make a burden of your obedience. Never let the devil or any other person burden you by emphasising the law and your failure. Dwell always in the love of God for you. Pray the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 3:14-19. Make this your great desire. Let the Spirit speak to you of God's love as you read the Bible, and when your heart is touched, stop and let the whole of the revelation of God's love the Spirit is bringing to you, envelope your soul. Share with others all you have learnt and are experiencing of God's love, so that his love may grow larger in your minds and hearts, and you may cause his love to grow in the hearts of others. When the sense of failure is upon you, turn to the Gospel of God's forgiving love for you, and in faith apply to your soul the fact that for Christ's sake God sees no sin or blemish in you, and remind yourself that it is the devil, with his arrows, who is piercing the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation.

Dwell in the love of God for you. Let the love of God be complete in your soul. Holiness will be the natural and amazing outcome of your experience.