Sermon: Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Six)
Symbiosis Between Love and Law
#1739
David F. Maas
Given 16-Dec-23; 69 minutes
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transcript:
Greetings brothers and sisters from Colton, California, here in the Golden West, where on July 11, 1886, Virgil Earp was elected as Colton’s first City Marshall, six years after his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, and his close friend Doc Holliday, took care of the hoodlums in OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona on October 26, 1881, attempting to restore a love for law and order—one of the major topics I plan to address today.
Let us turn to John 17:3, the umbrella verse. This is a message from the high priestly prayer of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on his last Passover as a human being.
John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
The Amplified Classic edition adds the following salient details: “And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent.” The entirety of our lives, after our John 6:44 calling and our baptism as chosen saints of God, we have a solemn responsibility of choosing life (referring to Deuteronomy 30:19), the choice between life and death, blessings and curses, made possible only through having God’s Holy Spirit and spiritual law permanently engraved into our hearts (Hebrews 8:10; 10: 16, and Jeremiah 31:31-34).
We, then, are given only a little dab of Holy Spirit, which the late Herbert W. Armstrong described as an impregnation of the spirit in man deep within our nervous systems, a tiny down payment, an earnest payment endowed upon each one of us by the laying on of hands (II Corinthians 1:22 and Ephesians 1:13-14) at which time we are sealed by the Holy Spirit (which Herbert Armstrong repeatedly described as God’s law in action). This earnest payment of our inheritance is a spirit body to live forever in the Kingdom of God as a full member of the God Family embarking on an endless career of service to our spiritual siblings in the God Family.
In this sixth installment of “Strategies for Escaping Babylon,” my specific purpose will consist of uncovering practical tactics for approaching God, in other words, attaining eternal life through embracing and internalizing God’s holy and spiritual law as the very core of our being. On January 27, I will conclude this series by focusing on knowing God by practicing consistent or continuous prayer and greatly expanding the scope, as well of the focus, of our Bible study.
Over the past several years when it became increasingly clear that the established medical community were lying to us, Julie and I have sought life-saving advice from the Bible, as well as alternative health sources, including Frontline Doctors, headed by Dr. Simone Gold, Dr. Jason Fung, Dr. Ken Berry, Dr. Sten Eckberg, and Dr. Eric Berg, all who have posted multiple videos on diet and fasting, as well as exposing the multiple the lies. I was recently inspired by a 6-minute video posted July 2, 2019, by Dr. Eric Berg, titled Dr. Berg’s Meals and Intermittent Fasting Pattern, candidly and unabashedly demonstrating what he has discovered through experimentation and trial and error, contributing to his current daily dietary practices. He has given a disclaimer that every individual has a responsibility to tailor his or her own plan based upon individual needs and quirks. No two of us are 100% alike and should only imitate or duplicate up to a point. For example, when Debbie Clinton and I compare our diabetic symptoms and regimens to combat insulin resistance, we both realize we are at different places along the metabolic continuum and what may work for me may not work for her, and vice versa.
Consequently, today and in future installments I would like to share the results of experiments on embracing God’s law, experiments on trying to make prayer more continuous, consistent, and meaningful, and experiments at making Bible study more continuous, consistent, and meaningful. Like Dr. Eric Berg, Dave Maas makes a disclaimer that these techniques may not work for everybody-and that all of you will need to do your own experiments to see what works best for you. Whatever practices you choose to do, we can feel assured if we follow the spiritual principle outlined by Jesus’ half-brother in James 4:8.
James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
The Amplified Classic version offers the following cogent details: “Come close to God and He will come close to you. [Recognize that you are] sinners, get your soiled hands clean; [realize that you have been disloyal] wavering individuals with divided interests, and purify your hearts [of your spiritual adultery].” Evidently Jesus’ brother James had no patience for the cheap grace, no works doctrine accepted by most professing Christians in the world’s mainstream Protestant and Evangelical churches.
Last Sabbath, in his sermon “Four Warnings (Part Two): Beware of False Prophets,” Richard Ritenbaugh declared that false prophets are doing today as they have always done, turned grace into license, failing to distinguish the profane from the holy, reminding us further that Peter, Paul, and Judah all warned of false prophets bringing on the heresy of Hellenic, neo-platonic, gnostic dualism, ardently and faithfully followed by all the main branches of professing ‘Christians,’ preaching the immortal soul and eternal security falsehood, originally promulgated by the serpent to mother Eve in the Garden of Eden, “You shall not surely die.”
Jude warned us that these false teachers who have turned grace into licentiousness have plagued the church from the very beginning and, sadly, will be with us until the close of the age. Thankfully, as Richard assured us last Sabbath, God’s people will be able to know them by their fruits—or assess the integrity of the delivered message by the consequences or the ultimate results, just as the dominant political party in the United States (really both political parties) has demonstrated over the past 3½ years, as the rhetoric has galvanized into evil, antinomian, anti-God, satanic legislation, permanently destroying the culture and morals of this country and shamelessly squandering Abraham’s blessings on his offspring.
Richard warned us that even as helpless sheep, we must exercise maximum vigilance detecting the poisonous fruits of their deceptive preaching, running to our Lord for safety when our defenses flag, realizing that our eternal life is at stake.
Perhaps one of the most damnable aspects of the Hellenistic neo-platonic gnostic dualism promulgated by Protestant and Evangelical Christianity is the savagely forced bifurcation of law and grace, law and love, law and faith, and faith and works, which I have previously described in my September 10, 2022 message, “God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part Four).” After the apostle describes his intense cognitive dissonance at being imprisoned by the law of sin and death in Romans 7:1-2 (though his heart and mind desires to embrace the law of Almighty God), Paul proclaims the solution to this doubled-minded cognitive dissonance declaring, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ” because Christ Jesus has set you free “free from the law of sin and death.”
Remember Richard informed us last week that one major ploy of all false prophets is their tendency to over-emphasize freedom, not from sin, but freedom from that horrible old covenant Jewish law, especially the burdensome Sabbath which restricts their fun. If the Protestant animus were against “the law of sin and death” I would gladly join them. But their hatred is and has always been against the law of God, which in their warped estimation restricts them to keep that old covenant Jewish Sabbath, and likewise will not permit them to endorse abortion, sodomy, and homosexual marriage, as well as sending young men and women to go off to war, senselessly giving up their lives to keep the military industrial complex thriving.
The forked tongue of Satan the Devil (who has cleverly transformed himself into an angel of light, II Corinthians 11:14) has inspired his false ministers to create some false dichotomies or bifurcations upon concepts which were intended to be symbiotic rather than adversarial.
Here is a partial list of bifurcations which mainstream antinomian Protestant evangelical Christian churches have surreptitiously promulgated on their unwary membership:
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Law and grace are allegedly polar opposites.
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Faith and works are allegedly polar opposites—leading Martin Luther to declare the book of James an epistle of straw.
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Law and love are allegedly polar opposites.
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Law and faith are allegedly polar opposites.
Count Alfred Korzybski blamed these ubiquitous polarizations either-or-dichotomies on the faulty Aristotelian structure of Indo-European language. Even in our previous fellowship, as Dr. Don Ward explained in Doctrines class, the artificial bifurcation or separation between so-called physical and spiritual sins (as some have mistaken interpreted in their understanding of the symbols of bread and the wine during the Passover) is patently false. All sin (from gluttony to first degree murder—as well as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit) is spiritual transgression, whose penalty is death. These kinds of semantic fractures or splits are just as deadly to our salvation as the splitting of the atom to create a deadly weapon of mass destruction capable of leveling of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or possibly London, New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles in the not-so-distant future.
Now what exactly have been the consequences or the fruits of Martin Luther’s faith only/no works doctrine? Back on May 12, 2021, the Evangelical Lutheran Church elected its first transgender bishop, Meghan Rohrer, over the Sierra Pacific Synod, headquartered in San Francisco, California, making them the first transgender person to serve as bishop in any major Christian faith in the United States, gleefully and happily reported by CBS News. And do not forget I mentioned my own “conservative” city’s Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Simi Valley, a member of this synod, is proudly flying the LGBT rainbow flag, proudly endorsing sodomy and same sex marriage, a violation of the seventh commandment, proudly endorsing abortion, a flagrant violation of the sixth commandment, and along with all other Protestant and Catholic sects, a virulent, seething hatred of the fourth commandment.
I firmly believe that if we could resurrect Martin Luther today, he would be shocked and horrified to see what his confused flock had done with his antinomian faith only/no works doctrine which has enslaved the entirety of Protestantism and evangelical fundamentalism. Though I have always had a high regard for Martin Luther’s linguistic and translating skills, his theology savvy (aside from his attack on relics and the sale of indulgences) have not been as insightful or helpful.
Recently, I read an insightful appraisal from a Catholic priest, discussing Martin Luther’s decision to add the Latin word “sola” next to Romans 3:28, which reads, “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.” Sadly, besides writing sola near the text of the Latin Vulgate text, he added the German word “allein” in his translation of the German Bible, rendering the passage: “So halten wir nun dafuer, dass der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, allein durch den Glauben.”
This Catholic clergyman, in his insightful article “Luther and Romans 3:28,” appearing in the April 22, 2016 www.catholic365.com, takes issue with Luther’s presumptuousness, stating that in his translation of Romans, Luther added the word to verse 28 of chapter 3 (making it appear to say, “man is justified by faith alone apart from the from the deeds of the law)” in order to make it appear that he had biblical support.
The article continues, “Luther admits adding the word ‘alone’ to Romans 3:28 saying arrogantly: ‘I know very well that in Romans 3 the word solum is not in the Greek or Latin text—the papists did not have to teach me that. It is fact that the letters s-o-l-a are not there. But it is there, because Dr. Martin Luther will have it so!’” (Translated from “Ein Sendbrief D.M. Luthers) in Dr. Martin Luther's Werke.
The author of this article claims this presumptuous behavior offends him in two major ways:
First off, it contradicts Scripture which says: James 2:24—Ye see then that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And we know that Luther knowingly did so, unless you want to say that he did not actually call the Epistle of St. James an “epistle of straw.” Secondly [ according to this irate priest], he admittedly adds a word to Scripture which isn’t there and thus violates the rule often quoted by Protestants in Rev 22:18, ‘For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.’ Now although he (Martin Luther) justifies his action by claiming that this is the gist of St. Paul’s meaning, he must be wrong for St. Paul said previously, Romans 2:13 ‘For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.’ Therefore St. Paul says that unless one works and keeps the Law, one will not be justified by God. Therefore faith ‘alone’ cannot be what St. Paul meant. Because the idea directly opposes Scripture in James and Romans 2.
In my humble opinion, this angry priest uses better proof texts than most Ambassador College graduates!
Last week, Richard alerted us that false prophets like to glom onto the word ‘freedom’ equivocating it with the concept of license or tolerance for evil, calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). Even more sinister is the entire practice of equivocation—the overarching category, which false prophets have pulled multiple bait-and-switch practices for sneaky semantic flimflams.
In his 1989 article in the Banner of Truth magazine, “The Critical Relationship Between Love and Law,” Earnest C. Reisinger warns that,
One of the great difficulties in dealing with the subject involves the words themselves, “law” and “love.” There are many ways in which they are used in the Bible. We have, for example, ‘the law of God,’ ‘the law of Christ,’ ‘the law of Moses,’ ‘the law of love,’ laws with respect to ceremonies in worship, and laws that have to do with civil duties. Sometimes the word ‘law’ refers to the whole Bible, sometimes to the Pentateuch, sometimes to the Book of Deuteronomy, and sometimes to the Ten Commandments. This makes for some difficulty. Unless otherwise stated, the word ‘law’ is used here in reference to the Ten Commandments [sometimes referred to as the Keter Torah or the Crown of the Torah referring to the moral law of God, the holy and spiritual law of God (Romans 7:12, 7:14)], which will last forever through eternity well beyond the time the last mortal will be transformed into spirit.
Sadly, Protestant evangelical equivocators have distorted the intent of the apostle Paul’s scriptures, convincing the leadership of our previous fellowship (and among some of our sister congregations in the greater church of God), that believing in Christ makes law keeping unnecessary or passe′. In my April 16, 2022 message, “God’s Merciful Course Correction” I state, “antinomian Protestant theologians love to glom onto Romans 10:4, proclaiming gleefully that “Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes,” hopelessly ignorant of the full range of meaning for the Greek word telos, which Dr. E. Howard in his insightful September 1969 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, explained that the word telos, rather than denoting an end or putting a stop should be translated as “goal,” “aim,” or “purpose,” the beginning of a journey.” Our goal, aim, or purpose is to develop the mind, character, and wisdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, ardently keeping God’s law flawlessly, perpetually, and eternally.
The apostle Paul was never trying to denigrate or abolish the law in Romans 10:4, but rather he was teaching that our goal in keeping the law is to become like Jesus Christ in thought, word, and deed, exercising His very mind (I Corinthians 2:16). We all need to read Earl L Henn’s insightful April 6, 2022, reprinted article, “Was God’s Law Nailed to the Cross?”
One of the current pastors in Grace Communion fellowship had the temerity to suggest that God the Father and Jesus Christ are not bound to the law because They created it, obviously forgetting the insights of Habakkuk 1:13, that “God Almighty’s eyes are too pure to look upon evil.” I do not think that any of us can say that about ourselves. Hebrews 6:18 identifies “two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie.” Deuteronomy 7:9 reminds us that the Lord our God is faithful “who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
In the apostle Peter’s second epistle, he kvetched about the difficulty of interpreting some of the Scriptures, claiming that in all his letters, “speaking in them of these things, in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (II Peter 3:16). I firmly believe if Paul had been blessed with a copy editor of the caliber and diligence of Charles Whitaker, who untangled much of my murky academic verbiage, the apostle Peter and all the rest of us would have an easier time understanding Paul’s difficult convoluted sentences and sometimes tricky metaphors.
One of Paul’s metaphors which causes some individuals to stumble regarding law-keeping is the schoolmaster or tutor metaphor in Galatians 3:24, which states, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith,” alleging that this faith in Christ replaces that harsh Old Testament law, with its regulations trying to tell us what to do. In the past I have asked that we take a mature look at this schoolmaster analogy. I, myself, have served as a schoolmaster and have had, in turn, many schoolmasters over me. We dare not confuse the schoolmaster with the laws and principles they teach us. A schoolmaster could be considered an external guide to the laws of grammar, mathematics, chemistry, physics, or music, using textbooks, exercises, perhaps commandments written on stone or on a mezuzah, but the principles are eternal and are of no practical use until they are internalized.
What gives me grandfatherly satisfaction is when one of my students exceeds what I have taught them, going on to the next level, as many of my students in the sound of my voice have done. In the spring of 2012, I received a big lump in my throat after I had sent my former high school German teacher, Herr Ron Steinberg, whom I regarded as one of my stalwart mentors, a copy of the interlinear IPA translation of the Megillah which my Linguistics class had assisted me. He replied in an e-mail: “David, you are so kind to remember your old German teacher. No one else does! Your work is light years beyond my comprehension. I do have great respect for the Hebrew culture, and I am no stranger to the Holy Scriptures by any means. My Hebrew is lacking, and my Greek is just a bit better. I am a Latin languages person. Anyhow, it seems that you have eclipsed me! Incredibly my high school German teacher said the same thing to me a long time ago!”
One is enabled to move on from his mentor only when he can do as well as the schoolmaster or even better. I feel extreme gratitude at the great number of my former students who have applied the grammatical and rhetorical laws I have taught them, moving way beyond what I have taught them. Among my former clientele are college professors, attorneys, social workers, a whole passel of pastors (several in each of the splinter groups of the greater church of God), and even one successful movie producer currently working in Hollywood. And this morning I received a friend request from a former Ambassador College student from years ago, who has recently published a novel.
The disciples, during the night of their last Passover with Jesus Christ, must have been taken aback when their [as well as our] Schoolmaster proclaimed, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” (referencing John 14:12). Jesus assures us that we prove ourselves to be His disciples by bearing much fruit (John 15:8).
Guess what? We will all be schoolmasters teaching our clients God’s law full strength from our permanent internal resources. Our Lord and Savior demands of His disciples works and law-keeping which magnify the love of God. We must ignore the siren songs of the Protestant antinomians promising freedom from the law. We absolutely do not want freedom from God’s righteous, holy, and spiritual law. We want freedom from sin which is defined as law-breaking (I John 3:4).
There is no freedom apart from the law; there is no faith without works; there is no grace without the law; there is absolutely no righteousness apart from the law; there is no godly love apart from the law because the love of God is that we keep His commandments (Matthew 22:37-40; I John 5:3). God’s laws will be in force for eternity—long after the last fleshly being has been sanctified and glorified, when we will all collectively own God’s law as our precious family property!
Ironically, one of Martin Luther’s favorite philosophers argued that love for God cannot be separated from love for God’s law. In his exposition of Psalm 119:97, Augustine of Hippo asks an important question: “How can it be that what God commandeth to be loved, and yet the commandment itself be not loved?” Love for God and what He has commanded us to love is inseparable from love for the very commands of God. If we love the Lord, we will automatically love His law, for His law is a reflection of who He is. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 119 (more than likely David) models this truth for us. Let us take a look at some of the things David modeled for us.
Psalm 19:7-11 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. [We could say that hating God’s law is equivalent to hating wisdom, defined by John Ritenbaugh as “skill in living.”] The statues of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. [Conversely, we could say that hating God’s law is equivalent to embracing sorrow or depression]. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes [Conversely, hating God’s law is equivalent to embracing darkness, murkiness, or uncertainty.]; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever [Conversely refusing to fear the Lord (by keeping His laws) is equivalent to having our lives cut short into oblivion.]; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. [Conversely, to hate God’s laws is equivalent to embracing evil or wickedness.] More to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold [Conversely, hating God’s laws is equivalent to embracing worthless or valueless junk, refuse, or garbage.]; sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. [Conversely, to hate God’s law is to embrace bitterness or unsavoriness.] Moreover by them your servant is warned [Conversely, hating God’s law places us in jeopardy or in mortal danger.], and in keeping them there is great reward. [Conversely, hating God’s law brings us a penalty, punishment, or curse.]
In Psalm 119:99, David assures us that God’s law makes us wiser than our teachers or schoolmasters. Consider:
Psalm 119:99 I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are meditation.
The Amplified Classic edition adds the following cogent details: “I have better understanding and deeper insight than all my teachers, because Your testimonies are my meditation.” If we persist in following the equivocating antinomian false prophets, gazing blindly through their Luther lenses, we will be cursed with spiritual blindness or dullness. David’s son Solomon revealed to us throughout the book of Proverbs that commandment keeping is a major contributory factor in longevity or long abundant life. Consider the following examples:
Proverbs 3:1-2 My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands; for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.
The Amplified Classic edition offers the following additional details: “My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life [worth living] and tranquility [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you.”
Proverbs 4:1-4 Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to know understanding; for I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law. When I was my father’s son, tender and the only one in the sight of my mother, He also taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words; keep my commands, and live.”
I will now read the same passage from the Amplified Classic edition:
Proverbs 4:1-4 (AMPC) Hear, my sons, the instruction of a father, and pay attention in order to gain and to know intelligent discernment, comprehension, and interpretation [of spiritual matters]. For I give you good doctrine [what is to be received]; do not forsake my teaching. When I [Solomon] was a son with my father [David], tender and the only son in the sight of my mother [Bathsheba], He taught me and said to me, Let your heart hold fast to my words; keep my commandments and live.
Evidently, Solomon profited from his father’s instruction, having lived 12 years longer than his father, dying at the age of 82 in 931 BCE, while his father David died at the age of 70 in 970 BCE.
Proverbs 6:20-23 My son, keep your father’s command, and do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart; tie them around your neck. When you roam, they will lead you; when you sleep, they will keep you; and when you awake, they will speak with you. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is a light; reproofs of instruction are the way of life.
Notice how Solomon glommed onto his father’s instruction.
Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
In Psalm 37:31, David says of the righteous man,
Psalm 37:31 The law of God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
Proverbs 7:1-3 My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands within you. Keep my commands and live, and my law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
I find it particularly fascinating that both David and Solomon throughout the Psalms and the Proverbs anticipate the terms of the New Covenant in Hebrews 8:10, 10:16, and Jeremiah 31:31-33 correcting the deficit God Almighty detected in the Old Covenant when He lamented in Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh, that there were such a heart in them that they would fear Me, and always keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!”
Jeremiah 31:31-33 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 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 will be My people.
The New Covenant did not replace the law of God with faith in the name of Jesus Christ as some antinomian theologians or commentaries have proclaimed. Instead, the New Covenant converted an external law (inscribed on stones, papyrus, paper, or electronic impulses) into an internal law (inscribed on our hearts and minds in the core of our nervous systems) as the Holy Spirit fuses with the spirit in man (Job 32:8, Proverbs 20:27), sometimes referred to as the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts our beings.
Now this is important to remember. Turn to Proverbs 13.
Proverbs 13:13 He who despises the word will be destroyed, but he who fears the commandment will be rewarded.
The Amplified Classic version provides these details: “Whoever despises the word and counsel [of God] brings destruction upon himself, but he who [reverently] fears and respects the commandment [of God] is rewarded.”
Antinomian theologians and commentators have successfully persuaded many gullible people that “under the law” means “subject to the law,” but “under the law” actually means “under the penalty of the law.” In his CGG Weekly article, March 27, 2020, “Let Us Examine Ourselves,” Ronny Graham declares that “under law” does not apply to people who govern themselves. God is looking for humble people who govern themselves by His Word with outgoing concern and respect for others. Such people, who rigorously judge themselves, do not have to be governed. This is what Paul means when he says we are not under the law (Galatians 5:18). “There is no judgment when we keep the law. A state trooper will never feel inclined to write us a ticket for driving the speed limit or stopping at a red light.”
Our Lord and Savior, during His last Passover as a human, made it abundantly clear that loving God is contingent upon keeping His law. He proclaimed in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (Conversely, we can infer that if we hate God, we will reject or refuse to keep His commandments.) Likewise, in John 14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me.” (But the converse is also true. If we do not love His commandments, His holy law, we do not love God.) In John 14:16-17 and verse 23, Jesus assures His disciples that His and His Father’s promise to send the Holy Spirit and His promise to live in us is contingent on keeping His law.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word [containing His law]; and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make Our abode with Him.”
John 15:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.”
In John 15:14, Jesus tells His disciples, then and now, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Conversely, we are God’s enemies or adversaries if we do not do what He commands us.
In his article, “The Critical Relationship Between Love and Law,” Ernest C. Reisinger maintains that “Love only doctrine [like Luther’s “faith only” doctrine] is the enemy of true Christianity.” Dr. Reisinger refers to the tolerance of sin that emerged out of Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock and today manifests itself in the woke LGBT propaganda supported by politicians, educators, and Big Tech censors. Reisinger insists that “it [that is acceptance and tolerance for sin] is not Bible love at all because Bible love and God’s law are inseparably joined together. Any form of lawless love cannot be accepted by a follower of Christ. Though the gospel breathes the spirit of love, it is never at the expense of the law.”
The law and love are bound together symbiotically. According to Reisinger, love is a motive, not a direction. Citing II Corinthians 5:14, Paul proclaims, ‘The love of Christ constrains us.” Love is a constraining motive to duty, but love does not define that duty. Therefore, we must look elsewhere to know that duty. Love, then, is the motivation, and law is the definition of how love is to act. “It is clear,” continues Reisinger “that the command to love will not create or generate love.”
To create a dichotomy between love and law, grace and law, works and law, or faith and works, destroys the interdependent symbiotic relationship which God bound together in the first place. Our Lord and Savior connected the law and love (Matthew 22:36-40) teaching that upon the two commandments (loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves) hang all the law and prophets. Paul also connected law and agape love (Romans 13:8-10; I Corinthians 13), maintaining that love is the fulfilment of the law.
As God’s chosen saints imbued with God’s Holy Spirit, we dare not separate what Christ and the apostles joined together. There is no love apart from the law, there is no faith apart from the law, there is no purity apart from the law, and there is no righteousness apart from the law.
We must resist the world’s satanic pulls to make sin the norm, and righteousness acts of hatred, as the corrupt activist judicial system with their reprobate social justice warriors and the antinomian churches of this world have mandated (Isaiah 5:20) calling evil good and good evil, putting darkness for light, and light for darkness, and putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.
We must resist the antinomian siren songs of the world’s Christianity, accepting the belief promulgated by mainstream Christianity, as well as the evangelicals and the so-called fundamentalists of the “immortal soul,” “eternal security,” “once saved, always saved,” and “grace alone-no works,” resembling the indolent behavior of many workers during the 1936 New Deal “Works Progress Administration” instituted by FDR. WPA was often referred to as “We Poke Along,” depicting eleven guys resting on their shovels while one dedicated individual eagerly digs a ditch. Similarly, mainstream Christianity also resembles a massive WPA program with countless millions allowing Jesus Christ to do all the major lifting while they comfortably rest on the laurels of their prior justification, not expending any kind of work or energy lest someone might think they are trying to earn salvation.
In stark contrast to the “no works” philosophy promulgated by theologians, our Lord and Savior accented and amplified works, assuring His disciples, then and now, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).
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