 This video is part of a study series titled Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. Please see the playlist link in the video description. Hello and welcome to the next episode of Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. We'll be looking at the Gospel of John chapter 14 in this video. So I'm sorry it's took me quite a long time to release this. It's just took me so long to build the material for this chapter because it's a very difficult part of the Bible. I think there's a lot of difficult themes to unpack here. And it's certainly a passage that people certainly struggle with. So it's going to be quite a long study. You might not want to watch this all in one sitting. So do refer to the video description for the schedule and all the chapters. And do excuse me as well because I've got a bit of a groggy voice while recording this today. So this in this study, this is going to be a very complex study because of the face value of what we will read in this chapter that seems to be counterintuitive given what we have read in John's Gospel so far in this series. So earlier in the series, while John 6 and John 10 that we looked at our passages, we typically use to justify eternal security. John 15 is a passage used to justify conditional security. And chapters 14 and 15 are also used to justify a works-based salvation, whereas up to now we've frequently seen belief or faith as the action required for eternal life. First, I will deal with so what I'm going to do. I wanted to cover chapters 14 through to 16 in one sitting just because it's one long conversation and really it does carry on from John 13. But it's a very difficult part of the Bible. There's a lot to unpack and there's a lot of way you really do have to go to other parts of the Bible to explain it because it's quite difficult to understand what Jesus is talking about. So what I'm going to do is in this study, first I will deal with non-holy spirit related issues in these chapters. So like keep my commandments abiding me. And then once I've gone through John 14, 15 and 16, I'll then probably do a separate study on the Holy Spirit specifically and just revisit all three chapters. So the conversation or the context if you like of John 14 continues the same conversation where we left off from John 13 and we'll carry on to John 16 as one long conversation. So we can see these chapters as one long conversation. So do make sure that you view all study videos in sequential order so that the train of thought makes sense. So it might be more might make more sense to watch my video on John 13 first if you haven't seen it yet. Okay so although I am only going to do John 14 just because otherwise the video would be ridiculously long just summarizing all chapters here. John 14 to 16 is a very complex passage. It contains themes which are very difficult to understand. A lot of similar themes from these chapters are echoed by John in his first epistle and then to a lesser extent his second epistle which is also a very difficult book to understand especially particularly in relation to eternal life. So a lot of verses in these passages have double meanings that there's an immediate application to the disciples who are the direct audience of Jesus' dialogue. But then there's the extended application to us as believers. Otherwise it may be difficult to know whether he's referring to his disciples specifically or all believers generally. The passage doesn't really mention eternal life directly as a repetitive theme. But there are many themes in this passage which typically Christians typically associate with having eternal life such as knowing Jesus and knowing the Father. Jesus abiding in and manifesting himself to us and then believing in the intertwined relationship between the Son and the Father. Although he doesn't mention eternal life a lot of Christians would equate those things as part of the eternal life package. Even Jesus' own disciples didn't understand a lot of what Jesus was talking about in these chapters. So if they struggled to understand it then when they hung around with Jesus all the time they'd been with him for so many years and they were right there with him and they could ask questions that we can't ask well obviously we're going to certainly struggle with this passage as well. But at least at least we have the hindsight that they did not have it that full. You know we've seen what happened to Jesus after this time. We have the epistles to further build on these foundations. Another reason why this is a very hard passage to understand is that Jesus often speaks here with a sense of finality as if it's kind of the last time he sees his disciples and he will leave them yet eventually he will actually rise again and see them very shortly after and so this has potential to become rather cryptic and confusing for us that why does he speak to his disciples with such finality when they will see him again in only a few days when he speaks of coming again does he mean when he resurrects the disciples or does he mean that the second coming including all believers right and alongside this finality Jesus appears to bounce back and forth between subjects and repeat things so it's not always clear how intertwined and related these statements are so it is a very you know difficult passage difficult chapter that we're going to be looking at today because of the contrary teachings that are out there that use this passage as one of their key proof texts and because I have so vehemently you know proclaimed eternal security and faith alone up to this point in the series we do need to be very careful about how we handle this passage we don't want to butcher it to try and bend it to say into what and to say what we think it ought to say or what we want it to say but we have to be careful that we can answer it diligently and accurately and to be proven with hard questions when confronted about this passage and we can't just dismiss this passage as not being about losing our salvation although that's you know more John 15 without actually proving and justifying why we can't just use dismissive and lazy answers such as you know it's not about salvation it's about discipleship and then you know terminate any further discussion on the matter unless we can unequivocally prove this to be the case we need to understand and examine the language very closely and understand the key points that Jesus is actually teaching in these chapters so in this study we will have to digress from sorry I've put John 14 16 John 14 several times because that there are wider biblical things we need to understand so that we can grasp what's going on here holistically to understand some of the things that Jesus is talking about in these chapters so up to this point in the series I've tried to keep things fairly simple but this study is going to be more complicated than things I've previously discussed for the simple reason that it's a very difficult passage to understand okay I'll try to explain it as simple as possible you know please do take breaks and think about some of the things and come back to the video if you need to refer to the schedule that I'll pop in the description so as I said earlier ideally chapters 14 through 16 should be combined into one study but because it's such a long conversation you know there's so much to address here and what one study video was just be far too long for one sitting so I'm just going to have to do it one chapter at a time as I have been doing in the series most of the time so in this study we're going to focus on John 14 so hopefully you did already watch my video on John 13 to get get some of the train of thought but recalling what we still did will help us to understand the background of this conversation leading into chapter 14 so remember that the the disciples do not fully grasp what Jesus is about to go and do this they're still lacking a confident faith in everything that Jesus has spoken to them Peter and the other disciples said that they would die with Jesus and not denying but we know that they won't follow this through despite this Jesus said to Peter you shall follow me afterwards so Jesus is aware of their false face of confidence if you like but he has other plans for the disciples Jesus is going to his death then see the disciples for a short time when he resurrects but after this they will be without him so he's going to leave them the Holy Ghost in his place and he also commands the disciples to love one another as I have loved you okay so this all sets the context for what John 14 through 16 is talking about because it's really a continuation of this dialogue sorry it's been over eight minutes and I'm still babbling but there's just some important disclaimers that we we need to be aware of before we read these passages that you know so that we don't run to this passage at the expense of clearer teaching so disclaimer number one Jesus is speaking to his own disciples not ordinary believers certainly not unbelievers so that these are the 11 that followed Jesus all the way through his ministry since they were recruited they did not abandon him as the other disciples back in John 6 excuse me they're not ordinary believers that just had a couple of encounters with Jesus they're not the publicans and harlots on the outside they're not the Jews that stumbled in unbelief this is closest disciples so naturally these chapters are harder to understand the most because there is a target audience for these statements and teachings and the disciples had the luxury of being first-hand witnesses to everything Jesus said and did which we do not so you know very very difficult passage to understand Jesus disclaimer number two is that Jesus alludes to eternal life but he does not speak overwhelmingly about the subject as the key purpose of what he's talking about now the word life only appears twice with one of those instances referring to Jesus laying down his own life not not the giving of eternal life per se and most of the common salvation keywords that we think of do not appear in this conversation so the word eternal or everlasting never mentioned justified or justification never mentioned repent or repentance never mentioned saved salvation never mentioned faith never mentioned the closest salvation keywords that we have in this conversation are righteousness two mentions in chapter 16 but only in the context of the world's rejecting Jesus not not in the context of believers who accept Jesus and then we have believer and this word is more abundantly mentioned and very often it is addressed to the disciples themselves it's not talking about unbelievers however if you look at the reasons why Jesus says to believe in him he does not state this time that obtaining eternal life is the reason for believing him he did improve his chapters in John but not in this section the reason that he says to believe in him in this conversation is for the understanding the interchangeability of the father and the son and there's the chapters and verse number cited there for you doing greater works in his name and of course we know from Paul's writings that righteousness onto salvation is without works okay that's frequently in Romans and Galatians and again I've said this earlier but it's important to understand the disciples do not fully understand what's going on here so that the whole point of Jesus saying to believe in him is that the disciples would fully understand and have complete trust in everything Jesus is about to accomplish after this event okay so because of the these well let's say this reason these reasons we should be very suspicious of somebody who tries to use statements from John 14 and 15 as prerequisites for obtaining salvation unto eternal life when Jesus is speaking to his closest disciples not even ordinary believers for that matter he's not speaking overwhelmingly about eternal life as the key purpose of what he is even talking about and the disciples have already declared we've seen earlier in this study before this that they are sure that Jesus is the Christ they will even confirm in chapter 16 30 that they believe and understand that Jesus came from God but there's still some things that they're not fully grasped what Jesus has to to help them with so when we have clear passages about eternal life specifically where Jesus is advising people to believe in him we should be very suspicious of someone with a workspace salvation trying to use these chapters here to make other passages in the bible of no effect when getting saved it is not even really the purpose of what Jesus is even talking about here okay that being said that there are certainly sections of this passage that appear to be salvation relevant at least if we were to look at their face value without looking more carefully so important questions must be considered if a man does not abide in me sorry Jesus said if a man's not abiding me he's cast forth as a branch into the fire well if that's not hellfire then what is it superficially it sounds like hellfire it's very strong language if it doesn't mean hellfire but that's John 15 so that will have to wait to the next study I'm afraid but in chapter 14 though where Jesus will say here that has my commandments and keeps them loves me and knows me so it then raises the question can we really be saved quote unquote if we don't love God or don't know God how can we believe in him if we don't know him and surely obeying his commandment is a part of knowing him according to this chapter which is a thing that John picks up on in his epistles as well echoing a lot of the same themes from this conversation really and so even if the passage is not explicitly about getting saved these factors cannot be complete and we can't just get away with using a lazy answer such as just saying well it's about salvation it's not about discipleship a full stop and then not actually going to John 14 to prove that that's even the case now you know holistically I can think that that's a good case but you know we need to make sure that we can explain it properly using the words that Jesus actually gives us in this passage but because of these things as I go through then the next few chapters and the next videos in this series I'll do my best to answer the passages as if they are talking about salvation as well as answering from the perspective that were not so we'll cover sort of both perspectives hopefully leaving no stone unturned so you know for example when we do a study on John 15 we'll consider various interpretations of abiding in the vine and the bill of shortcomings and arguments for each interpretation but again that'll be more to do with John 15 I did all these I did a lot of these notes before I actually decided I'm going to have to do one chapter only so at the end of this study I hope you'll realize that this passage does not contradict other passages at all it establishes everything that we've been discovering so far throughout this study series and you will have a better understanding of why Jesus is saying these things so spoiler alert I will argue that the overall purpose of this conversation in John 14 16 is not to tell the disciples how to get saved and keep their salvation quote unquote but rather it's about having full confidence in their faith in who Christ is and what he is about to accomplish and then continuing in that faith not departing from the path that Christ has taught them okay so it's kind of a spoiler but that's you know what I'm going to kind of reach to a conclusion so I don't normally do things like this but for the study I came up with what I would call the four C's of John 14 16 if you like so we have confidence now that word is not used for baiting in John 14 16 but the disciples have faith in Christ but it is perhaps not a fully confident faith full assurance in Christ has not been realized Jesus needs to solidify their confidence in who he is and what he will accomplish continue so continuing or abiding the truth the foundation that Christ has laid do not drift away from this truth remain in this truth never depart from it and be not discouraged from it comfort so Christ will depart and ascending to heaven we cannot see him now but in his place he will send the Holy Spirit to be a comforter the disciples and believers will need this comfort if they are to continue and have confidence in Christ and also to keep Christ commandments which is the final word remember what Christ has taught and continue to teach it and to practice it and as brethren love one another as Christ has loved you okay we are nearly understood if you give me for rambling but just one more thing to say is that furthermore a lot of people with a workspace salvation use John 14 to 16 as some kind of dangerous warning to believers that any moment you could you know make the wrong choice and walk away from your salvation this discourages the faith of many and I find this very counter intuitive because I would actually argue that when we look at the language that Jesus uses the whole point of John 14 to 16 is supposed to be an encouragement okay not a warning or rebuke this passage is not warning believers that any given moment you could just fall away from the faith and lose salvation so you know start shaking in terror rather actually it's an exhortation by Christ to his disciples that even though he will leave them and hand over the baton to the disciples so to speak everything's going to be okay I'll leave you with the Holy Spirit to comfort you trust me continuing that trust with an unwavering faith and just as I have loved you with an unwavering faith even though that I know that you will forsake me at the death be emboldened by what I am about to accomplish at Calgary stay united love one another with that same unwavering love and I believe that that's really a good summary of what Christ is actually intending to say throughout these chapters so as we read what Jesus tells his disciples even though he knows that they are going to forsake him after this even though they are doubtful and not grasping some of the things that he was told them over and over again he still uses positive encouraging language throughout these chapters okay so you know John 14 16 is supposed to encourage the disciples not not rebuke them not what it's an encouragement and so really it ought to encourage us too and hopefully this will become more noticeably apparent as the study progresses okay that it will just be obvious that you know this is not some sheer hellfire damnation warning it is an encouragement that's the purpose of Jesus having this conversation with his disciples without further ado let's get into our study so we'll start from verse one through to verse nine so let not your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me in my father's house and many mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also and where I go and the way you know Thomas said unto him Lord we know not where you go and how can we know the way Jesus said unto him I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the father but by me if you have no me you should have known my father also and from henceforth you know him and have seen him Philip said unto him Lord show us the father and it suffices Jesus said unto him have I been so long time with you and yet you have not known me Philip he that has seen me has seen the father and how do you say then show us the father remember what I just said to you okay don't you know this is an encouragement Jesus opens up with an encouragement let not your heart be troubled so he's reaffirming his relationship with God the father that the disciples have overheard him saying to the Jews many times before okay it goes it goes without saying that the disciples believe in God but perhaps their belief or their faith in the Son it is somewhat wavering which we already had signs of in John chapter 13 in our previous study so when Jesus says believe in me in this passage it's not so much about how to gain eternal life because unlike previous chapters when Jesus was dealing with unbelieving Jews he's not repeating eternal life as the goal of believing in him in this dialogue rather it's about solidifying their confidence in their faith or in their belief if you like that the completion of their faith by fully realizing what Jesus will what is about to go and do and therefore the continuation of their faith and the hope of the sending of the comforter in Jesus's place Jesus's statements in verses 2 well 4 are somewhat cryptic because when he says I go to prepare a place for you you know I will come what what exactly does he mean because there are different ways that you could look at this does he mean I'm going to have in shortly after my death to prepare a place for you and I will come again at my resurrection this view is objectionable because there are some scriptures that indicate that Jesus went to Hades during the three days but we won't we won't explore that question in this video after my resurrection I will prepare or does he mean sorry I will prepare a place for you after my resurrection in heaven and I will come again at the second coming or does he mean that by what I am about to do in doing so it will prepare a place in heaven for you and for all those that believe and I will come again by resurrecting to you as my disciples and at the second coming for all beliefs that that's kind of a double meaning if you like or does he mean something else entirely so you know it's a little bit of a cryptic thing to understand there and for several reasons it's not entirely clear whether Jesus means specifically about his disciples or believers Jesus did come again so to speak to the disciples and many witnesses but then this doesn't apply to us as believers after that time in that context anyway however we define come again the resurrection of the second coming we're further challenged to understand by what he means I receive you unto myself that where I am you you it may also be again quite quite a difficult saying to understand that whichever interpretation we take and how exactly does Jesus go to prepare a place for you what what does this mean and how does it apply because this is a cryptic passage this is why this passage is very hard to understand and so it's important to understand that much of what I will say about this subject may some well these verses in particular anyway may be subject to my opinion and I may be wrong with a very difficult passage to understand and as we see with Philip his own disciples didn't really fully understand what he was talking about but for the same reason because it's quite cryptic and difficult to understand we should be very careful about what salvation doctrines we pluck out from this chapter because false prophets love chapters like this and they love to quote mine the later verse which will say if you love me keep my commandments you know because it's very easy to misguide people if you can use cryptic chapters that are very hard to understand otherwise but we should be we should be very careful about building our doctrine on issues on something as important on salvation as something that's a very cryptic passage very difficult passage to understand and very targeted to a very selected audience even from Jesus's perspective okay later in this same chapter verses 28 through to 25 will help us to understand what more clearly what Jesus might may mean and also in chapter 16 verses 27 to 28 so it goes on to say these things have I spoken to you being yet present within you it goes on to say peace I leave with you peace I give on to you you have heard that I say on to you I go and away and come again on to you if you love me you would rejoice because I go into the father I came forth from the father later in John 16 he'll go go and say I came forth from the father and I'm coming into the world again I leave the world and go to the father so technically speaking we obviously know in hindsight that Jesus will see the disciples before he ascends into heaven to be with the father despite this though the language that Jesus is using in these chapters appears to have a sense of finality okay he's talking to the disciples here as if he won't see them again straight away after his ascension okay unless you interpret that to be the meaning of come again but you know if he's going to the father and everything it seems to be a degree of finality that that that doesn't necessarily apply in a resurrection context now contextually this sounds very confusing but if we can understand how the resurrection ties in with this dialogue it may help us to understand why Jesus is talking like this okay now sometimes you know as human beings we're being carnally minded we try to separate the resurrection from the dead because we're very time bound in how we view the bible so we say first this happened Jesus speaks to his disciples if you will leave the world and not see them again then this happened Jesus died in the cross was buried and then this happened Jesus rose again and saw the disciples again and then this happened Jesus ended leaving the world to be with the father so the order of events where he you know seems to be a little bit confusing when we look at it like that because it seems like he's coming again in that context even though he descends to his father afterwards which seems to be the inverse of what we saw previously but if we understand the timelessness and the eternal nature of Christ I think this might make more sense to you once we can realise this week we can understand how the death and the burial and resurrection and ascension can be seen as one combined event rather than trying to sort of break it up into separate events that completes everything that Jesus is saying in John 14 through to 16 so although these scriptures below are not all about the resurrection specifically they do give us indication about the eternal nature of Christ that even before he went to the cross everything he has about to go and do in eternity already happened but it's just being manifest in earthly terms after the conversation of John 14 16 so you've got like you know the the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world you've got four ordained before the foundation of the world but manifest in these last times although the works were finished from the foundation of the world he has chosen as in him before the foundation of the world then muster he often have suffered since since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world he has appeared to put away sin and then I am the resurrection which is in the present tense not the future tense even though that happened in the past from from this point so we see them that given the eternal nature of Christ everything he is about to go and do has has really already been done in eternity it already happened from the foundation of the world long before it actually happened chronologically here so that's how you know if you've ever wondered all testament believers were able to go to heaven but as far as the disciples were concerned this is only just about to be manifest and so the next thing we will see is how Jesus speaks with finality and how how he will interact with his disciples after his resurrection so that we can understand this finality so although we haven't delved further into this conversation I'll pick out some key points from the dialogue so Jesus started off chapter 14 saying believe in me as you also believe in God okay he's going to prepare a place for them Philip asks well show us the father show us you know the god the father by which Jesus reaffirms to believe in him because he isn't the father so Jesus is asking this in response to Jesus saying you have seen the father okay and so in verse 28 through to 29 is very crucial because Jesus sort of explains why he's saying this now when he could have said it after he it comes to pass the goal of telling the disciples so it says here in verse 28 29 later in the chapter you have heard how I say onto you I go away and come again onto you if you loved me you would rejoice because I said I go on to the father for the father is greater than I and now I have told you before it comes to pass that when it is come to pass you might believe so the the goal here of telling the disciples before it comes to pass rather than waiting till after it comes to pass is that they might might believe now this there's a question here then isn't there haven't the disciples already expressed that they believe him do they not yet believe well we we explored this in the previous episode when we looked at John 13 Peter already declared on behalf of all the disciples that they believe and are sure that Jesus is the Christ sounding very certain in John 6 and Matthew 16 Peter and the disciples said that they would be willing to follow Jesus to the death but Jesus knew that they would not go through this so yes they believe but arguably don't have a fully confident belief if they don't have the boldness to go to death of the Christ when they said they did that they're probably not going to have the boldness to preach mightily as as we would actually see them doing later in the book of Acts so Jesus needs to solidify their belief so that they will be able to go and do this so it might seem a bit hard to understand for you when I might seem a bit cryptic but that's the goal he's telling them before it happens so that they believe when it happens intentionally okay it's sort of completing their belief it's solidifying their belief because at the moment they have an incomplete picture Christ hasn't yet gone to his death burial in resurrection and the disciples have struggled to grasp this idea that Jesus must go to his death so there's also when you go to verse 12 Jesus goes on to say explain in this chapter that he will believe shall do greater works but as per the previous slide the disciples need boldness to do those works okay in chapter 15 verse 16 he says that I've ordained you that you should go and bring forth through well the fruit here is not strictly defined in the verse per se but if we assume it refers to their ministry in Acts then we would further understand why Jesus needs to solidify their confidence so that they can bring forth this fruit and then just some crucial points referring to verse 26 to 29 in chapter 14 we haven't got to it yet obviously but Jesus is going to offer the Holy Ghost to come on to them but we know that this doesn't happen until after he breathes upon them and that happens after the resurrection and Jesus is going to the Father and leaving them with peace and as explained in the previous slide Jesus is telling them these things before he will resurrect and see them again rather than waiting until then to tell them so that they will have full assurance okay and so we can then consider how Jesus interacted with his disciples after his resurrection so remember that Jesus has already explained to his disciples before John 14 that he must be killed and raised again so he's already explained that he must be raised again on the third day and he's grouped them both together when when he does when it does happen when he does resurrect Mary Magdalene Johanna and Jesus Jesus mother Mary they tried to explain to the disciples what happened but they didn't believe the account of the women at first now Jesus already told them that he would rise again on the third day the women have witnessed it the disciples aren't believing yet okay that's in Luke's account in Mark's account having already told the disciples in John 14 to 16 before his death to believe in him as they do the Father and having already explained in Matthew 16 that he must go through these things Jesus upbrades their unbelief after he has risen again so Luke 24 and John 20 give a bit more insight into this but in Luke 24 Jesus has to open their understanding so he says then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures so this suggests that their understanding was closed from that perspective if we then look at how Peter preached in Acts 2 after Jesus ascension it helps us to understand some context of John 14 to 16 so in Acts chapter 2 Peter begins to preach against people who saw Jesus as miracles but still had him slain and then later in that chapter as explained earlier this video is not set out to prove whether Jesus was in heaven or hell for three days and nights but at least in this chapter his death is associated with hell not heaven whereas when Jesus unequivocally and you know inescapably ascends up to heaven this is when he is at the right hand of the Father so we can then logically conclude that when Jesus goes to the Father in the John 14 context that this is in reference to his ascension rather than the three days and nights okay and as a side note in Luke 23 the Jesus told the thief on the cross that today he would be with Jesus in paradise which if the above is true this does not really consider the three days gap between his death and resurrection but this also lends itself to the bible kind of combining the death and resurrection as one thing in the scope of eternity rather than two separate events that we typically split in the temporal world okay so I understand that I've gone on some really long tangents there and it seems like I'm bombarding you with irrelevant information but the point I'm trying to explain to you is that if we take kind of a double meaning to this passage yes there is an immediate application to the disciples here that as per John 14 28 Jesus will go away and come again at least to the disciples by resurrecting okay but remember that this conversation is also preserved in the bible for us today so that wouldn't really mean very much to us if it really only applied to the disciples however he will also go away by leaving the disciples behind to go on and do the great commission and will come again at the second coming which the disciples must also preach and they question Jesus about this that in Acts chapter one to which Jesus cannot reveal any information concerning that time so they did seem to understand that Jesus must come again in a second coming context okay so a lot of this what we have delved so far is not so much about how to be saved but it's just very important in understanding the scope of John 14 to 16 as we explore the topic of salvation okay and so the key point here is that throughout John 14 to 16 Jesus is talking about a lot of different things pertaining to the disciples from the point of view after he has ascended so this is not merely about helping them to you know get through the next three days and just hang in there until it's all over in three days time he needs to give them comfort for when they will be without Christ's physical presence after the ascension and we need to borrow lessons from this okay we need we need to understand this if we're going to grasp an understanding of abiding in him and why Jesus is trying to solidify their confidence in their faith in this conversation so that they will not be discouraged Jesus is telling his disciples what must come to pass before it comes to pass rather than waiting until afterwards because there'll be much more impact to his teaching for the purpose of why he is telling them all this okay and you might wonder then how does this apply to us today well well Christians today don't really tend to stumble at the idea of Jesus dying and being raised you know from the dead that seem you know most Christians don't really struggle with that teaching the disciples were seemingly discouraged by his death and did not fully believe that he had risen again at first you know they didn't believe the women's testimony and then in particular in here we have the story of who we know is doubting Thomas so we don't tend to struggle with this because we have the hindsight to know that it has already happened we already know that Jesus rose again so our confidence in this aspect is not lacking Jesus doesn't need to solidify our confidence in something that we already know for sure happened but today though there are many Christian there are many things that Christians still have doubts about and one of the key doubts that many Christians have is am I going to heaven okay and even Christians who believe in faith alone and eternal security of the believer still struggle to have full confidence in their faith to make it to heaven and so you know and it's not like Jesus is here for us to personally ask him as the disciples could have done okay well why do Christians today struggle to know whether they're truly safe well reason number one just like the disciples couldn't see a far off in this chapter failing to understand that Jesus must go to his death and be raised again you know we cannot see our afterlife in heaven or hell i'm sure many of you wish that you could just have the foresight to know who is in heaven who is in hell or to be able to ask questions to those who made it to heaven just so that you would you know know for sure what to do to get in for those in hell it's obviously it's already too late they cannot change what they believe at this point yet they're so blind at this side of eternity and this is why it can be very traumatic and terrifying for for many Christians but we're not sure what was supposed to do to get in you know we have all these verses about believing on him but then you know we do have these other verses about this that and such one of them being here in john chapter 14 if you love me keep my commandments and just as the disciples struggle with their belief in what Jesus was going to you know we like why struggle with our belief in what he has done to get us where we want to be eternally reason number two is that following the first reason you know there are just so many things going against us that we have to wave through it wave through an absolute tide of contrary information that looking for the truth sometimes feels like a needle in a haystack you know the work salvation is to throwing all their doctrine's life right in center you know and even among them we don't know which way is up you know the Calvinists telling us one thing the Arminianists telling us another thing Catholics telling us something else and even among the above you know they can subdivide these groups into many other different things is repentance a work is it not a work how do we know we're doing enough work so walking enough obedience when does that seem become a quote and quote sinful lifestyle you know they all have their storehouses of verses that they quote to justify their various positions the atheists are out there saying that science doesn't back up the Bible and that the resurrection of Christ didn't really happen and we have all this prove and so-called that many things in the Bible it didn't happen or can't happen the Muslims are saying that if we believe there is a son of God we'll go to hell because God is above having a son and so on and so on and so on so you know it's just there's so much stuff being thrown up against Christians all the time that you know we someone just wants to know what is truth okay so you might ask them well why doesn't Jesus just come down from heaven right now and personally tell me what I have to do to make it heaven well the thing is he already personally came down from heaven and told his closest disciples that he must go to his death and three days later rise again they still didn't get it okay and they're not grasping some of this stuff in John chapter 14 either he also personally came down from heaven and said who so ever believes a mission not perishable have everlasting life and many Christians today somehow managed to make that complicated and a lot of people on youtube you can see these videos about sharing their testimonies of visions of hell or visions of heaven and visions of good and visions of evil visions of Jesus and these various near-death experiences but they don't all agree docturally on the path to heaven or even who God is and actually if you look at the testimonies of some of those people some of them it's really pointed them more towards daism rather than Christianity the idea that there's something and some kind of good and evil and some kind of choice but not really Christian Christianity specifically and many of their visions actually when they are Christian visions don't even correspond with the Bible a lot of them have these visions that Satan is ruling and reigning in hell but this is fiction it comes from damn days inferno doesn't come from the Bible so so this question of you know why doesn't Jesus come down in person they tell me well a more substantial answer is that eternal life is a hope okay something that we do not yet see but but we hope for it okay we don't today hope that Jesus will rise from the dead that already happened the disciples hoped for it arguably but it's already happened for us but we do need to hope though that Christ will help us make it into heaven right now Hebrews does talk about this in some detail I'm not going to read them out but you can see them on the screen they're like Hebrews 10 the writer explains that we have a hope in heaven and although this has cost the recipients in earthly gods our goods are in heaven are much better in an enduring substance because we have this better hope he exhausts us to have patience and to keep our confidence quote unquote so as to receive this promise after having done the will of God which in in this context we can interpret that as has kept the faith given you know given the upcoming verses and so then when we're called to live by faith trusting in what Jesus accomplished to obtain the eternal promise and and not be those who draw back you know those who kind of believe for a while and fall away but because we have this hope and we have this promise we endure in our belief to the saving of the soul holding on to our confidence and then Hebrews will go on to explain what faith is it's the substance of things hope for the evidence of things not yet see we have seen Jesus resurrection in hindsight we we know it happened from the Bible but we have not seen the manifestation of our eternal life yet so likewise the disciples in John 14 through 16 have not yet seen the resurrection and there they are doubtful as Jesus's dialogue to them indicates okay so I know we've digressed quite a lot from John 14 but I hope that will kind of help give you a more substantial overview of what needs to happen here so you could argue yes there is an immediate context to John 14 2 and 3 that Jesus will come again to the disciples specifically they are witnesses of you know the resurrection but there is a wider application to all believers when when so when Jesus goes to prepare a place for them this is accomplished in what he is about to go and do he will go to the cross he will rise again so that believers can access heaven to begin with and then he returns to the Father where he will prepare the heavenly rewards and the thrones for the disciples and so on and so forth now between verses four and six in John 14 Jesus explains that the disciples know the way and then so you might ask well the way to where after all that that is how Thomas replied Lord we don't know where you go how do we know the way Jesus explained in the previous verses and we'll explain later he goes to the Father that's where he's going okay you know they ought to know this so Thomas ought to know the way to the Father because this is something that Jesus explained in John's Gospel previously when he was explaining to the Jews how to have eternal life but so while these statements would not have been directed at Thomas he would have presumably been there to hear hear them in most cases so to an extent coming from Thomas this is a rather silly question but as as we've been exploring you know the disciples aren't fully understanding what Jesus is trying to tell them okay but I've really you know bumped I mean some of these argue from unsaved people rather than saved people but I have bumped into similar problems when trying to put material together for this series and various other things that I've done like the the documentary when discussing these matters with various people so for example you know I try to explain to people the concepts of faith alone and eternal security and they get some kind of question like well what but what about if somebody uses this as a license to sin well that's got nothing to do with whether these doctrines are true or not really it's completely irrelevant it's an irrelevant question and the chastisement of believers deals with that issue or you know if someone who sins um or I try to explain to you know the bible does not say repent of your sins to be saved and then what do they do well they either point to a verse that doesn't say this phrase or they point to a verse that says repent but does not say of your sins or they point to a verse that's not even about salvation and then uh that there's been another example where somebody once used a passage to try and make an assertion that Revelation 20 shows that Christians will be judged according to their works but I just proved that by demonstrating that it specifically says the dead are judged according to their works not not those in the book of life and then the person who confronted them with that all I got from him is just what aboutry on some other passage somewhere else instead of going back to Revelation 20 and telling me why I was wrong about Revelation 20 but then would also refuse to repent of lying about Revelation 20 and so the the I mean these are more extreme examples because you know these unregenerate people but this is just examples of people not grasping basic teaching okay and the disciple you know they're they're struggling on basic teaching at least the disciples struggling on something a bit more advanced and then between uh verses seven through to nine um you might ask the question why why does Jesus say this phrase if you had known me didn't the disciples know Jesus better than anyone okay well if you sort of read what he's saying here that the point isn't so much that they haven't known him up to this point rather Jesus point is that supposing that they have known him and obviously they they have they should have known the father also okay but based on their questioning and the kind of question that Philip asks it would seem that the disciples are not grasping that Jesus is of the father they know he is the Christ but perhaps they don't know what this means and so following Philip's question you can easily visualize Jesus frustration that he's trying to explain something seemingly so basic and his disciples are not grasping it but by seeing in the Jesus in the flesh they have seen God it's that simple that you know that there's somehow making it sound like it's profound or complicated it's really not that profound they've seen Jesus in the flesh they've seen God it's that simple um and so if you want to visualize what God is like well we can do that according to Jesus's behavior and his statements okay so uh carrying on our reading in John 14 then verses 10 through to 16 do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me the words that I speak onto you I speak not of myself but the father that dwells in me he does the works believe me the time in the father and the father in me or else believe me for the very work sake truly truly I say unto you he that believes on me the works that I shall do he shall do also and greater works than these he shall do because I go on to my father and whatsoever you ask in my name that shall I do uh will I do sorry and that the father may be glorified in the sun if you shall ask anything in my name I will do it if you love me keep my commandments and I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever so following Philip's doubtful question then Jesus re-emphasizes to his disciples what he what he has expressed to unsaved Jews in previously in John's Gospel particularly in chapter 10 he told Jews to believe in the works that he does he told Jews that he is one with the father and the father dwelling in him does the works okay there you first references there so it seems as if Jesus is having to go back to the basics with his disciples here he's already explained all of this in front of them before and yet here he finds himself explaining again but since he keeps telling them to believe in this chapter he needs to reaffirm important truth with them so that they will stay confident in this belief okay now let's let's liken this today to us as believers what you know because we have seasons of and periods of doubt in our lives right and sometimes sometimes those doubts may be about salvation but oftentimes doubts may be about even other of the most basic things Jesus said such as a classic example would be Jesus's discourse about worrying okay so you obviously you've got the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 but you've also got this in Matthew 12 I'm not going to read it all out but you know you're probably very familiar with this passage okay the chances are and so you know Jesus gives his discourse about not worrying about these things okay and just as the disciples in John 14 appear to be somewhat doubtful Jesus predicts our lack of faith in the conversation where he talks about worrying so you know what what does he have to say about people who worry in Luke 12 well it's you of little faith you have a doubtful mind that that's the problem okay so he associates worrying about life's basic necessities with having little faith or having a doubtful mind now he's teaching in Luke 12 is very simple it's not profoundly complicated or difficult to be understood Jesus uses analogies but he doesn't really speak in parables it's such basic teaching in a way okay so there are some things where the Bible takes a more balance for you on certain issues like you know there's a bit of that one way and a bit of that the other way but this issue really of not worrying it's very one-sided okay it's not well don't worry but then you know worry about it there's a very one-sided dialogue here and that you know that we're told quite dogmatically do not worry about these things and yet many of us repeatedly do if somebody came up to you and said hey maybe this Jesus you believe in isn't all he's meant to be you know maybe consider Christian or other teachings and Muhammad you would immediately and confidently say no get out you know that that wouldn't even be put into question we don't second guess as Christians that Jesus is the Son of God or that he died and rose again yet a teaching so simple as you know do not worry about your your needs it sounds lovely when we read it in church but then we second guess what Jesus said when it actually comes to application why well it's the little faith of a doubtful mind and so likewise then we can somewhat understand why the disciples are stumbling on some of the basic teachings that Jesus has given in front of them several times before okay that you know he's in the Father the Father isn't him believing for the works and so we see then that the believe me in this context it is not actually about giving the gospel to tell unsaved people how to be saved but rather it's to exhort his closest disciples and by extension of that Christian today if you like and increase their confidence in their faith in him and what he is about to go and do after this conversation will solidify their faith when they realize that Jesus can defeat even death itself you know when they actually see him resurrected when they already saw him crucified okay so returning to John 14 then we see through verses 11 while 14 that the further building on this Christ is exhorting them to believe him because he has proven himself by his works he then encourages the disciples likewise that he has done many works before them those that believe will go on to do greater works than these because Jesus is returning to the Father so it's going to be up to the disciples from that you know from now on the Father will excuse me support them in this work and they can ask things in Jesus's name and what sort of things they want or need for the glorification of the Father it shall be done unto them okay and lots of Christians may struggle with these verses particularly in verse 12 because it sounds like if we truly have faith in Christ you know we should be doing miracles abundantly or works abundantly left right and center because Jesus did these things abundantly without hindrance and obviously it said that we had gone to do greater works than than he did and they were examples of the works that he did right so you know a lot of people would struggle with that well we won't spend too much time on this because it will digress off topic but we can summarize some points and then consider a few things to understand this in scope if we compare John's gospel to Matthew Mark and Luke Jesus did indeed do many miracles and John but John's gospel overall we know with the odd exceptions overall it has less emphasis on his miracles than other gospels do John's account has much more emphasis on the preaching of eternal life which bearing in mind is the purpose for which is written and so it's arguably you know more important than the other gospels in setting the premise for works here in John 14 when John wrote this account it was not necessarily considering other gospel accounts in mind which may or may not have even been written or distributed widely yet so we need to write a gospel account that's self-sufficient so within his self-sufficient gospel he's emphasized Christ preaching eternal life to various people far more than miracles now miracles yes but they're not featured in John's gospel anywhere near as much as they were in the other gospel accounts okay now miracles themselves don't amount to salvation because Jesus braided many cities for not believing in him despite miracles being seen there so even if we could do miracles left right and center that doesn't mean that the whole world around Jesus is going to get saved and that's a trap that Pentecostals and people in the charismatic movement and the new apostolic reformation tend to fall in that you know if we can be demonstrated to be doing these mighty things you know the world will just kneel before Jesus and you know dominionism and all that kind of stuff but really though there were plenty of people who saw Jesus miracles and didn't believe on him okay and even if the whole world were more Christian and less atheist or less Muslim that that still doesn't automatically equate to people getting saved you know lots of people believe in a sort of Jesus what the Bible calls another Jesus and lots of people believe he could do miracles but that that does not mean that they were all saved so you know ultimately many of them still trust in their works to save them to to some extent so you know don't don't get too wrapped up in miracles in that regard and so you know should believers be performing miracles well you know the Pentecostal and the charismatic movements often emphasize miracles as being intrinsically part of the the Christian package with some even believing or many believing that these miracles must accompany salvation or the salvation is not valid but you know they have to stretch that to tongue speak and I guess because at least that's something you can kind of fake but you know most if not all people who talk constantly about miracles such as these health and wealth teachers and word of faith movements they're all frauds so you know that really tell you a lot about that and many many standalone preachers on social media who are not part of these groups and would even acknowledge that these groups are fraudulent that there are people on YouTube who claim to have seen many miracles and they're trying to use that to justify their gospel message and you know but the thing is that again these are never publicly verifiable so I've seen miracles in my life so you know I know that conditional security is true or I know that this doctrine is true but remember that Jesus did his works publicly and it was the public who told the rest of the public what they saw that's why Jesus did not directly write the gospels about himself now just in case anybody's wondered I do not believe in cessationism but here are some important points regarding believers doing miracles and works in Jesus's name that the primary goal of Jesus doing his works is that people would believe that he is the Christ and his works pointed to himself we however point others to him as Christ you know we don't point others to ourselves as the Christ remember also that in order to cast out devils and work miracles the disciples had to be given specific authority in the book of acts we see the disciples giving the Holy Spirit but we do not specifically see them passing on the authority to do miracles per se it seems that authority was generally concentrated on people who actually saw Christ while on earth with the exception of Paul who saw Christ in a vision vision after Christ had ascended to the father but but this was acknowledged by the other disciples and then this is quite important the performing of miracles is not really widely emphasised as a subject matter in the epistles so you know we have a lot of miracles in the gospels we have a lot of miracles in acts but then it's not it's not a big topic really when you look at the epistles when the epistles talk about the works quote unquote that believers should do they're generally more about easily everyday conceivable things that aren't really in any way miraculous or supernatural like you know abstain from a sin or love one another in such a way or conduct church in such a manner okay you know a lot of the works in the epistles aren't really about miracles that's not really what the disciples emphasised as the works that believers should be doing and so excluding miracles then what about works generally doing works generally is Jesus insisting that a true saved believer will have works to accompany their faith well the thing is you have to ask the question what kind of works is Jesus talking about here what works could possibly what works could we possibly do sorry I think I've done a spelling mistake there that that could in any way be greater than the works that that Jesus did okay that's a good question well consider the various works that Jesus did and how a believer could possibly do greater works than Jesus how is this in any way possible well doing miracles you'll be very hard pressed to find anybody in this world who's doing anywhere near as many miracles as Jesus did and if you see somebody who claims that they do so they're probably a fraud you know doing the old leg lengthening trick or something like that if it's about obedience and living righteously well he was the only one who was tempted at all points as we are yet without sin he said there is no none good but God to the rich man and of course we know that Jesus is good so again trying to do more works in that regard than Jesus is very problematic suffering unjustly for walking up right well the bible said even if you do suffer unjustly for walking up right the bible says he was marred more than any other man no other suffering described by the saints in the bible comes anywhere near close to how Jesus suffered so you know non-amounted to Jesus level of righteousness and so really then what else is left and I can personally only really think of one thing and that's the preaching of the kingdom or the gospel of eternal life to the masses because Jesus mostly preached to Jewish audiences with some exceptions and many of the Jews that listened to him rejected it anyway as far as we know Jesus didn't venture very far from Judea sorry another spelling mistake there in any of his frequent travels it is likely that the furthest he ever traveled from Judea was probably when his parents fled to Egypt long before Jesus even started any his ministry did the works that are documented in the gospel accounts and he maybe reached a few thousand people at first in his lifetime he's almost absent from secular historical sources most of our reliable information about Jesus comes from the bible however the the apostles reached the masses in acts and traveled far and wide spreading the gospel abroad to the Gentiles as well as the Jews many of their converts went to spread the gospel in their native homelands the gospel was issued to many different languages and peoples in Acts chapter 2 Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the kingdom at the doorsteps we don't know for certain that he went with them to do this because if he has 12 disciples and he sends them out two by two that would leave Jesus without a companion okay and while Jesus dealt with many hard-hearted Jews in Acts chapter 3 Jesus admonishes a Jewish audience for rejecting and killing Christ and about five thousand people were converted just following that one conversation okay and so you know if you think about it there's an endless supply of doors for door to door evangelism the internet provides an easy way to distribute the gospel to almost anywhere in the world and so as a result of the legacy left by the apostles the name of Jesus has spread far and wide to most of the civilized world Jesus became far more famous after his death resurrection and ascension than during his lifetime okay but given what I have said though I have to then answer this question what if I don't have all of you know these need to be careful about not using this passage to assist insist that believers will do more works than Jesus because that's really a very high bar to me okay that's a very high standard anyway because really Jesus's works are hard to quantify we don't even know everything that Jesus even did okay so you know I'm very suspicious of people who want to take that verse to insist that believers will have works because that's that's really an understatement of what it says it says he that believes on me will do greater works okay Romans 4 5 is very clear that to him that does not work but believes on him which justifies him godly his faith is countered for righteousness okay it's not well it could be it is we have examples of people in the bible who were believers but their works could not really be demonstrated such as the the thief on the cross or Lazarus in Luke 16 and Jesus said this is an encouragement Jesus said this in John 14 as an encouragement to the disciples it's not a doctrinal statement if it's so important that believers should do greater works than Jesus and that is a very high bar well than the disciples or the apostles should have re-emphasized this in their epistles but they didn't okay so you know Jesus is saying it as an encouragement not as like a demand that you must do this in order to be saved okay you know the contextual we can demonstrate that that's consistent with what he's talking about here and it's consistent with what follows later in the bible so now we have arrived at what is probably one of the most important verses in in John 14 for our study if you love me keep my commandments this verse is very widely quoted or misquoted and misapplied to teach a hard line workspace salvation so we need to spend a lot of time exploring this issue so that we're not thrown off by this and understand it in the wider context of the bible so what we're going to explore is what are his commandments that we are supposed to keep in this verse is it anything to do with eternal life and what are the implications of not loving God if we want to make it to heaven okay so first and foremost I think it helps to read until the end of the chapters this will help the context by understanding the wider conversation taking place so starting from verse 15 if you love me keep my commandments and I will pray father and he shall give you another converter that he may abide with you forever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not neither knows him but you know him for he dwells with you and shall be in you I will not leave you comfortless I will come to you yet a little while and the world sees me no more but you see me because I live you shall live also at that day you shall know the time in my father and you in me and I knew he that has my commandments and keeps them he it is that loves me and he that loves me shall be loved of my father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him Judas said on to him not to scare it Lord how is it that you will manifest yourself onto us and not onto the world Jesus answered and said on to them if a man love me he will keep my words and my father will love him and we will come on to him and make our abode with him he that loves me not keeps not my sayings and the word which you hear is not mine but the fathers which has sent me these things have I spoken on to you being yet present with you but the converter which is the holy ghost to whom the father will send in my name he should teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said on to you peace I leave with you my peace I give on to you not as the world gives give I on to you let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid you have heard how I said on to you I go away and come again on to you if you loved me you would rejoice because I said I go on to the father for my father is greater than I and now I have told you before it come to pass that when it is come to pass you might believe hereafter I will not talk much with you for the prince of this world comes and has nothing in me but that the world may know that I love the father as the father gave me commandment even so do I arise let us go hence so there are a few things going on here firstly we do see a clear association between loving God and keeping the commandments which appears to be a mutual albeit conditional love now normally this is the part of the study where I would point out to you you know it does not say if thou shalt have eternal life keep my commandments and instead you know it says if you love me keep my commandments it's more difficult to get away with it on this particular passage though because a lot of Christians wherever they are in the faith or work spectrum would have some difficulty accepting a separation between eternal life and loving Jesus so the idea of having eternal life while not loving Jesus kind of sounds strange to us encounter intuitive to the Bible which is perhaps why some people struggle with this passage and would be uncomfortable decoupling it from eternal life and secondly while we're not studying the Holy Spirit in this video we do see that the giving of the Holy Spirit as a comforter is interchangeable with the keeping of the commandments here being blended into the same passage and so what we can take from the interchangeable mention of the Holy Spirit with keeping the commandments is that this is really very encouraging language Christ is going to comfort his disciples he's not really warning his disciples if thou shalt not do this then hell fire and damnation will happen instead he's exhorting them saying keep my commandments and I will manifest myself unto you and I will send you the comforter so he's telling this for their comfort not for their discomfort okay so you see here very quickly how people misappropriate this first using it as some kind of a dire warning to discourage you by gaslighting your salvation when actually Jesus is using it as an encouragement you know that the guy who screams or believes in work salvation you know if Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments if you're not on your knees every day seeking the Lord and obeying his commandments and changing your ways you know you will lose your salvation and perish for eternity so this this guy is using John 14 to like tear you down and discomfort you when actually look at the language that Jesus actually uses the comforter shall come to you the comfort shall teach you Jesus is trying to edify your faith and actually give you comfort here that's what's actually going on in this chapter okay so there are a few things that we need to explore from this first and this is really going to dominate our study of John 14 15 what exactly does it mean to love Jesus in this context and is this a necessary requirement for salvation and is it imperative I it's an instruction so do you love me yes keep my commandments or is it indicative you know an evidence of in other words if you love me this will be shown by the fact that you keep my commandments so we need to look at that and then finally what are the commandments that must be kept in this context what what kind of commandments is Jesus even talking about here because often you know people read words like commandment and obey and they automatically think turn from all of your sins when there are other types of commandments that aren't necessarily to do with sin itself or sins of the flesh at least okay so first let's look at whether it's an instruction or an indication of evidence there is potential for confusion here because of you know how translations of this first very so you know I normally use the King James not not really apologetic about that but the King James makes it look imperative I do you love me if yes then I instruct you to keep my commandments whereas if you look at something like the ESV this the English standard version makes it look more indicative I if you truly love me this will be proven by the evidence that you will keep my commandments now perhaps the issue is from translation because Greek has a wider variety of verb forms to express indicative and imperative and present future tense whereas English would instead require a wider vocabulary of words to express the tense or the mood of the verb so how exactly you translate this is perhaps somewhat problematic I don't you know I don't read Greek but um you know you can sort of find this information out so as I've explained before in this chart I don't speak Greek but we don't really need to know Greek to to figure this out because in a way our English Bible even in the King James Bible here already really answers this question because later on in the same chapter Jesus says he so that's whosoever he happens to be that has my commandments and keeps them he it is that that loves me so and then it goes on to say you know if a man loves me he will keep my words even in the King James and so it seems to be very evident from the text that this is indicative that the keeping of Jesus commandments here whatever those commandments happen to be is evident of having love for him so in verse 15 Jesus addresses you with the disciples but then he'll elevate it to he or if a man you know whosoever he happens to be so this passage seems to imply that keeping Jesus commandments is a fundamental part of loving him or loving God and this also seems to be how the disciple John understood it from this conversation because he then echoes these themes in his epistles particularly in one John 3 and 5 and second John as well now don't don't panic before anybody starts panicking this is not teaching workspace salvation we will understand this as we continue our study by understanding what Jesus actually saying here in its full context with a wider understanding of the Bible we will see that this does not contradict faith without works in any way actually if anything it establishes faith without works and we will explore this in our study and hopefully leave no stone unturned so giving that the surrounding language and John's similar writings in his epistles suggest that keeping Jesus commandments in this context is indicative of those who love him this leads us onto the next question do we need to love Jesus or love God to have eternal life is it possible to get into heaven without loving God well the question obviously especially the latter half almost sounds strange regardless of whether you believe in faith alone or faith plus works it's hard to us for imagine that somebody could hate God quote unquote or not love God at least and somehow still go to heaven this obviously seems like a strange and counterintuitive idea well perhaps all this confusion here lies from the distinction or rather our inability to distinguish between love as an emotion a state of mind and love as an action you know actually doing something for love and so with this mind should be careful not to confuse not loving God sufficiently with hating God though they shouldn't exactly be confused as being the same thing you know they're not directly equatable and failing to put our love for God into action is not the same as a willful intense contempt for God that say you know an extreme atheist might express or someone like that and furthermore we must also understand the difference between what we must do and things that we ought to do okay so um first and foremost we must understand how the love of God actually works in relation to salvation and we would understand very quickly that the transaction that happens is really God loving us it's not us loving God really so these are just some examples on the screen so you know famous one John 3 16 for God so loved the world it's not that the world love God that you know whoever believes in him should have eternal life and so on you've got like Romans 5 8 God commended his love towards us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us um second Thessalonians 2 16 our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our father which has loved us and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace and then Revelation 1 5 unto him that loved us and washed out washed us from our sins in his own blood so notice how salvation or things that apply to it such as the blood of Jesus is according to God loving us it's not according to the other way around okay and moreover aside from John 3 16 we can find an abundance of verses at plenty of scriptures to the effect of believe on him have eternal life okay we don't have an abundance of scriptures to the effect of love God have eternal life and and additionally notice how the love is described as happening in the past God did the work in the past because salvation was a one-time event when we first believe not not an ongoing journey as the work salvation crowd like to suppose now there's obviously the issue of the greatest commandment in the in the Bible love the Lord your God we'll probably talk about that a little bit later in in the study okay so um I think one John 4 might help us to understand this in more scope given that John repeats a lot of the same things from the conversation with Jesus in John 14 you know abide love one another commandments all that kind of thing this helps us to understand how John himself interpreted what Jesus said in that conversation so in in one John 4 in verse 8 John associates loving God with knowing God or rather you know if you don't love you you don't know God so these two things appear to be interchangeable and it then goes on to say in verses 9 10 and 19 these are very important contextually just like we saw with the verses on the previous slide John says it's it's not that we loved God instead he loved us and so you know to send this propitiation for our sins so in other words we don't have the propitiation for our sins on the account of we loved God rather it's on the account that God loved us okay you know perfectly consistent and further reinforces the verses on the previous slide and it's no accident that John is telling us this okay and then in this same passage in verses 11 and 12 John then gives us a cause for loving one another you know he doesn't say love one another that thou shalt be saved but rather God loved us and that's in the past tense okay we also so we who are born of God ought to love one another present tense so it's not that no man has seen God at any time but if we love one another God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us and so he gives us a reason here for loving one another just as God loved us and that makes us born of God we therefore ought to love the other people who have been born of this same God because they're our brothers and sisters in Christ okay and then when you get to the end of the chapter and on to John 5 John repeats the love commandments theme from John 14 with loving the brethren as being a very key theme a very key commandment there okay and if you're familiar with John's epistle you'll notice that he talks about keeping his commandments frequently but he does not really talk about the sins of the flesh as other writers would you know for instance Paul in Romans 13 1 Corinthians 6 Colossians 5 rather John tends to deal with doctrinal issues primarily so now don't get me wrong John does talk about sin particularly in the third chapter is a epistle and a little bit at the end of the first you know first chapter and second chapter sorry I had a brain went for a moment there but if we take the letter as a whole to provide context as to what kinds of sin he's talking about you know he doesn't talk about drunkenness or fornication or adultery or murder or theft or covetousness or bitterness or you know the typical fleshly sins and wantings things that behavior or not doctrinal John's epistle doesn't really talk about those things except for one fairly understated ending verse about idolatry you know the very last verse in the epistle instead really in the totality of his epistle he talks about loving those who were born of God that we you know that that we love and who first love loved us and he talks about believing the record and the witness of his son and the father and acknowledging the account of the son you know confessing him and abiding in him being aware of antichrists who deny important truth about Jesus and the record of him that is essential to being born of God as per the the second point and etc etc so as far as salvation is concerned you know going by John's epistles to explain to us how John interpreted John 14 it really is the commandments in his epistles have far more to do with faith in the record of the son and loving other people who believe that same record rather than the thou shalt do's in the thou shalt do not's and so then following this because we now have salvation as a result of God's love for us therefore also loving the brethren because they're born of the same God that loves us that appears to be the kind of commandments that John's actually talking about in his epistle okay and so this will be very important in helping us to understand that the commandments that John 14 is talking about and now that we understand how John himself interpreted this conversation with Jesus so we will delve into this further but just park it for now because there's more to be addressed once still on the subject of loving God and so the next point to explain then is where the commandment to love God comes from because you know Jesus says it almost as if it's a new commandment really but it's not some radical new controversial crazy or you know revolutionary idea in the New Testament it was already there in the Old Testament law but Jesus reestablishes it with a with New Testament principles and it now applies to himself as the son of God the Messiah who was not fully known or manifested in the Old Testament so you know if you go back to Deuteronomy 6 an Old Testament law was to love the Lord thy God with you know with all your heart and all your soul and all your might okay but then you go to the next chapter and Deuteronomy then explains that loving God is not merely emotional or a state of mind but it's tied with action and it's tied with keeping the commandments that he's given that's a fundamental part of loving God which is a similar theme that Jesus echoes in in John 40 that if you love me you know keep my commandments now you're probably very familiar with what Jesus said about this so I mentioned I would address this so scribes asked him which is the first commandment of all of all you know what's the greatest commandment essentially and this act this you know Jesus actually answered this on more than one occasion actually in the Bible so loving God then we see is the greatest of all commandments followed by loving your neighbor as yourself essentially you know these are the you know you're very familiar with this I'm sure and he also said this to the lawyer that was attempting to test him in Matthew 22 and said all the law and the prophets hangs on these two commandments however those are commandments from the Old Testament law and we also know from the New Testament very clearly that nobody can be justified at least not for righteousness in any case by the works of the law as as the New Testament you know extensively explained so you only have to go to Romans on you know every other page Paul explained that to be justified by the law you have to do it you have to obey it you can't just hear it you've got to obey the law he then goes on to explain in the next chapter nobody does obey the law all have sinned all come you know all fall foul of the the law so we cannot be justified by it for that very reason he then goes on to explain that justification for righteousness in context is without the law because we're incapable of meeting the requirement and even in James 2 you know people love to quote James 2 about being justified by works but the thing is James writes that justification is for the prophet of the brethren not for righteousness and explains that we can't meet the requirements of the law for the very same reason that Paul does you know if you keep the whole law and yet fend in one point you are guilty of the whole law so really what James says there is consistent with what what Paul himself says so I think all of that probably answers the question about loving God but but what about knowing God because you might ask well surely it's not possible to believe in God without really knowing him and although no verse in John 14 directly couples knowing God with keeping his commandments that the concept of knowing God is sandwiched between the verses about loving God and the keeping of commandments even in John 14 they appear to be interchangeable even if no single verse couples those two things together and so when John picks up on this same theme as epistles he makes it quite clear that keeping his commandments whatever this means is equated with knowing him so you know those two things can't really be isolated and knowing God and loving God seem to be synonymous in John's epistle but actually you know if you study other parts of the Bible really just the same as loving God the concept even exploring the concept of knowing God salvation and eternal life has really more to do with God knowing you rather than knowing God so for example the you know the famously quoted passage about you know Matthew 7 not everyone that says unto me Lord Lord and then I will profess onto them and notice what it says I never knew you so what was the problem with the Lord Lord people you know was it that they didn't know Jesus well enough because of their works well no the problem is that Jesus didn't know then that that's what the problem was and then John 1 John 4 16 and we have known and believed the love that God has to us so you know knowing God is in this context at least is related to believing in the love that God has for us not in our love for God rather than commandments at least in this particular context or at least that's defining the kind of commandments that he's talking about and then Galatians is interesting here because Paul describes the recipients as have you have known God in the past in contrast to previous verses where they served false gods but then in the same verse he then he then corrects his own terminology as if to say you know you have no God or rather so in other words let me correct what I've just said or use more appropriate terminology is it you know is if to say it's not wrong to say that you have known God when you believed God but it's more appropriate to say you are known of God this is more doctrinally appropriate and so you know and you can also consider Paul's writings about predestination too and so yes in a manner of speaking when you believed on God yes you have known God since that point but but rather it's more correct to say that God has known you at least in a salvation context okay and one more minor point to say about this issue is that the concept of knowing God isn't really one fixed thing it's a fairly fluid thing because it means different things in different places so in in some verses those that don't believe or you know the perishing world as described as those who don't know God for example 1 Corinthians 121 1 John 3 1 whereas in other verses actually the wicked world is described as knowing God at least to a sufficient extent of having accountability for example Romans 121 so because knowing God has a somewhat loose and fluid definition in various contexts in the Bible we should be careful about building our salvation doctrine around a fluid concept because knowing God in one sense is not the same as loving him in another sense you know you can know somebody's acquaintance you can know somebody you know is your wife you can know somebody's best friend there are different ways of knowing and even you know knowing people in the Bible sometimes that refers to like when Adam knew Eve for example so you know it is a bit of a fluid concept it doesn't automatically mean one thing every time we see it okay and so in conclusion then we cannot use John 14 to justify loving God for our salvation or knowing God for our salvation it falls apart for the really the very same reason that salvation by the law falls apart that your loving or your knowing isn't sufficient that's why it's God that loved you and it's God that knew you but we we do need to study the meaning of commandments in this verse so that we will understand the purpose of why Jesus is saying this and in regards to salvation really our study will only further establish that we still can't get to heaven by loving God and obeying his commandments okay because even Jesus closest disciples did not meet this criteria and we will see this okay so our last part on John on verse 15 then is to understand what Jesus means by my commandments because there are different things that this could mean you know does he mean my laws and statutes like moral laws does he mean my doctrines and foundations does he mean anything I have ever commanded in any of the four gospels or does he mean anything the bible has ever commanded in the old or the new testament and or anything that the new testament has ever commanded does he mean anything I have ever commanded to my 12 disciples specifically does he mean anything I have commanded to all believers or instead he's talking about the things I command in this conversation in John 13 to 16 specifically so you can understand there are different ways of interpreting this and we need to understand which is the most appropriate one okay so reading it on the surface Jesus brings forward an Old Testament principle into a new testament once when the Old Testament believers were commanded to love the Lord your God and obey the commandments but the name of Jesus the Son of God he was not yet known okay but we know that there is no salvation or no righteousness by the law they were also commanded to love your neighbor as yourself nevertheless in the new testament believers are commanded to love Jesus and keep his commandments and a lot of Jesus commandments are built on the Old Testament law which points to Christ anyway so there's still no can't really be any salvation by works in the New Testament either because a lot of those are really founded on Old Testament laws and Jesus commands his disciples to love one another this is important to understand because a lot of work salvation advocates will dance around Paul's teaching by stating that we're not justified by Old Testament law but we need to be justified by New Testament law of love or something like that you know I mean people word it in different ways but I have seen that before but as we've already seen love is not a concept that's new in the New Testament okay it's part of the law and we can't be justified by the law so what Jesus is really doing here is taking an Old Testament principle and bringing it into a New Testament application so hopefully this chart will help to visualize this so we have our Old Testament principle love God and obey his commandments this then translates into the New Testament application love the Son of God and obey his commandments we have the Old Testament principle of love your neighbor as defined by blood relation or the nation of Israel or society that then is carried forward as love one another but now it's not defined by you as a neighbor or you as a citizen of the same country but rather it's defined by your love for Christ and Christ's love for you so there's the principles but there's the application okay so think about the following if we asked somebody who believes in a works based salvation of some kind or insists that works must be produced if the faith is genuine what we need to ask them what commandments we must obey in this context and we need to consider what kind of list would they come up with okay we then need to consider from the point of view of the disciples what commandments was Jesus telling them to obey and and how would they have interpreted this statement and then you know if we look at various interpretations of this verse what are their merits and shortcomings okay so you know as we saw from a few slides ago that there are various different ways of interpreting Jesus commandments you know what which one of these kind of things does he mean so let's start with the interpretation of obeying anything and everything that Jesus said you know either that the New Testament says or that Jesus specifically says in the red letters because although not everybody says it this way this is generally how a lot of people read it and so you know Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments in in this verse over here while then over here in this verse Jesus said not to commit adultery and then over here in this verse Jesus said sin no more and then over here in this verse Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize and then over here in this verse the disciples commanded people to get baptized and then over here in this verse Jesus told Jezebel to repent of her fornication and then following that you know Jesus commands these things but then other the disciples themselves command things like you know James says that faith must be justified by works and so you know it's kind of like a conspiracy theory board with all these strings going across to all these different places this is sort of how a lot of people interpret that they okay well it says keep my commandments so they just pluck out any sort of random commandments they can find and join all that together okay so then many Christians if you ask them what what commandments is Jesus referring to if the lazy answer is they might say all of them because then they don't have to pick an arbitrary list and they don't have to leave no stone unturned with any commandment because if they say if they gave you a specific list you might ask well how do you know that he meant those and not this other commandment you know what I mean so but that being said though even though they might say all of them they do have their cherry picked examples so they like to cherry pick you know that the deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me verse they like to cherry pick the go and sin no more verse and they like to cherry pick the pluck out your eye and cut off your hand verse they like to cherry pick the the lukewarm verse as well so then it is true that because Jesus did command me these things they will wrap all of that up in John 14 15 if you love me keep my commandments so they'll say no we'll see if you love me keep my commandments you have to be doing these things Jesus commanded otherwise you don't love him and you won't get to heaven okay the problem with that though is it if people who say we must obey all of his commandments that the problem is they don't obey all of Jesus commandments and this is not really difficult to demonstrate for example one of Jesus commandments in John 9 7 is to go wash at the pool in Silo Jesus quite clearly commanded go wash your eyes in the pool of Silo and later in that passage Jesus relates to his physical blindness with spiritual blindness of the Pharisees and you could say well if you haven't obeyed that commandment you are spiritually blind quote quote but then only a few verses before Jesus said cut off your hand and pluck out your eyes you know in this same passage in Matthew 5 he quite clearly commanded listeners to offer your gift at the altar so again the people who say we must obey the commandments when did they off you know give their offering at the altar Jesus quite clearly commanded Thomas to reach your finger in the holes of my hands well again how many work salvationists have obeyed that commandment you know and then in Mark 10 21 Jesus quite clearly commanded the rich young man to sell whatsoever you have in gift to the poor well again how many work salvationists own their own house and own a car some of them even in houses I've demonstrated on my channel before so you know that have they all obeyed that will not necessarily but Jesus quite clearly commanded these things okay so whenever you hear somebody parrot John 14 15 and then pluck out a load of random commands you know if you love me keep my commands tonight so pick up me cross Jesus said say no more you know these are all the things that they constantly repeat and parrot all the time these are really the kinds of questions that ought to be asked you know when did you take a flight to Israel and wash your hands in the pool of Siloam and offer your gift at the altar because Jesus quite clearly commanded you to do that okay when did you sell whatsoever possession you have and give it to the poor when did you and here's a good one when did you pluck out your own eye because the people who love to quote it always have two eyes and two hands for some reason okay now if you were to ask those questions and confront them with that I mean you probably won't get an answer if it's on social media they'll probably just ignore you but if you do get an answer don't expect a very good one you'll get something like yeah he didn't mean those commandments you know that the cherry picking okay I cherry pick which commandments I like and which ones I don't like or you'll get you know well those commandments don't apply to me I'm not rich so I don't have to sell anything what you know this is the exceptions for my own disobedience well yes Jesus command those things but I've got an excuse as to why I don't need to do it you know it's sort of like the people on YouTube who love to go around quoting James too you know we have to have works for our salvation we have to obey our commandments you click on their channel and it's existed for eight years no videos about the gospel you know well what are you doing for your faith then if you say that it needs works do you know what I mean but they always have exemptions for their disobedience or you know they'll come up with there's no temple anymore so I can't offer a gift at the altar bingo we'll find the getting somewhere you see that's now an impossible commandment right or you know they might say it well those commandments were just for certain people in certain situations well again bingo okay now we're getting somewhere folks we have a context to the commandment okay so then you know someone recently urged a bit of an anecdote somebody recently commented on my repentance documentary and spent quite a long time writing it was a very detailed comment because he was explaining he was trying to explain the will of God for entering the kingdom based on Matthew 7 and he did a good job of pointing out all of these random verses in the New Testament you know this is the will of God that you abstain from fornication this is the will of God here and all this kind of stuff so basically that you have to do works for the wood to do the will of God for salvation so excuse me so I asked him a simple question okay all I asked him in my reply was and do you do all of the things in that list that you've just quoted or are you a worker of iniquity as well and then instead of answering me he deleted his comment all right so he just it just never answered the question so so all of this stuff here then and you know the questions that we asked in the previous slide that we have for these legalists and kind of brings us on to other problems if we're just going to say that it means all commandments okay following what we've just seen it technically it's impossible to obey all of Jesus commandments even for the most upright person just manner is you cannot obey the commandments to go wash in the pool of Silo and give your gift at the altar and really you can end up with a circular problem with it so for example Jesus commanded his disciples how to pray saying give us our daily bread and forgive us our sins but he also said sin no more right so to obey this commandment to sin no more you must presumably not to be following Christ's model prayer but then if you are praying in the way that Christ commanded well then you must not you know be obeying the commandment to sin no more if you were to take that as to mean all in anything okay so you see a fundamental problem with that with trying to obey either commandment so by extension if this if we were to widen our interpretation of my commandments in John 14 15 to all the commandments in the New Testament and not just the ones that Jesus himself directly gave well if we can't even obey some of the commands that came directly out of the mouth of Jesus then you know following his specific commandments fall apart by extension of this we can then assume that following all the commandments in the New Testament for salvation falls apart as well because it must ultimately obviously include all of the things that Jesus said an additional point is that many people say that some of Jesus commandments such as go wash in the pool of Silo are very specific to people whom Jesus gave them are not applicable to us today but then the problem with this claim is that the same people are not very consistent about which commandments they apply this this rule to okay but it's technically impossible to obey all of the commandments you know Jesus gave even for the most just man in the world apart from Jesus himself because realistically it's not possible anymore to go wash in the pool of Silo as far as I'm aware it was destroyed and filled in you know you can't offer your gift upon the altar the temple was destroyed you can't place your fingers in the holes Jesus hand is not physically here so remember as well as we looked at the model prayer some of his examples so sorry some of his commandments exist purely because of the fact that you don't perfectly obey his commandment so if the model prayer is saying forgive us Lord our sins well unless you didn't sin there would be no point you know giving that prayer right so that that's a command that exists to deal with the fact that you don't obey all of the commandments now some people will dismiss the model prayer because that's only how we should pray not what we should pray but that doesn't change the fact that this is how Jesus taught us to pray so you know it would still be a redundant way to teach you how to pray if we didn't need to pray this way so then we can't to the next point someone might say well okay fine it's impossible to obey all of the commandments for some of the reasons listed above but but what about the commandments that we can technically obey and obviously that's that's a good question so you know we understand some of the commandments are technically impossible what about the ones that are not impossible we because because we can't just brush them under the carpet right we've got to address them we've got to answer them so for example Jesus commanded his disciples of going to his death on the cross he said if any man shall come after me let him deny himself take up his cross and follow me well you know you ask the question is it possible to obey this well Stephen in the Bible is an example of somebody who was faithful to his own death just as Jesus was what about when Jesus commanded pluck out your eye and cut off your hand well again indisputably it is technically possible to obey this commandment I mean you can at least cut off one of your hands I don't know how you'll do it without the other hand you know to do both hands but you will notice though that every single person who loves to quote this always has two hands and two eyes himself you know I'm sure there's some reason behind that you know but and then when Jesus you know commander commanded sorry put commended there commanded sin no more people will ask the question why would he say this if he were not if it were not possible to to sin no more in quite a literal sense of the word you know he also emphasized preaching against in multiple times throughout his ministry right well the first problem is that the work salvation I'm just gonna call them legally I don't know why I don't just use that term more often really but the legalists will arbitrarily pick and choose which commandments they decide you should be following okay you see they will take it upon themselves to to say that well you don't need to obey the commandment to go wash in the pool of Siloam they may also say that this is a commandment only to the healed blind man in John 9 it's not meant for you but then they will arbitrarily decide that you do need to obey the commandment to go and sin no more but but this really blatantly exposes their inconsistency because this commandment was also specific to the woman caught adultery in Johnny and to the healed man in John 5 it's not something verbatim anyway Jesus didn't go around saying this to you know every anybody and everybody you know he did not direct this phrase towards his disciples or all the multitudes and you ought to ask yourself what right really or what authority do they have to arbitrarily pick and choose which commandment they decide you need to be obeying because you know if we look at the different denominations that are out there you Catholics you seventy-eight Adventists each other's witnesses and your different satiriological groups you Calvinist you are Minionist sinless perfectionist you know all across the spectrum they all agree to some extent at least that obeying Jesus commandment is an intrinsic part of the salvation package in some way but they all have different opinions and different lists as to the kind of things we ought to you know be doing for obeying the Catholics have their list of go-to verses for the sacraments the Protestants evangelicals and JWs have their list of go-to verse that changed life or you know not making a lifestyle practice of sin or whatever they say the SDAs have their Sabbath go-to verses the Mormons have their go-to verses about having lots of children and all that stuff and of course that you know that the seamless perfectionists have their quote mind verses from one John 3 memorized now please don't understand me because I'm you know I do believe that we should obey Jesus various commandments such as do this did not you know do not do that to the extent that it's possible to obey them and I believe that to some extent at least that's that's what Jesus teaching his own disciples as we will revel later however what I'm saying is that these do's and don'ts these various ones are not necessary requirements to be saved on to eternal life okay you know the only commandment I preach for eternal life is to believe on him because that's what the Bible tells us over and over again to do for eternal life and this is an important distinction because if we believe the same gospel we can to some extent agree to disagree on you know whether Christians should abstain wholly from alcohol or not or you know whether we should attend church or not or whether we should do you know how we should do communion but when it comes to the gospel itself we can't really be at odds about how to get to heaven because the difference between going to heaven and hell it's too important and the context you know sorry that the outcome is to dire if we get it wrong so that there's too much at stake to be wrong about this okay and then well the second problem with this is that even the disciples themselves did not follow all of the commandments okay and you know are we really better than Jesus's closest disciples were so you know I mentioned this example earlier Matthew 16 Jesus told his disciples about going to his death Peter tried to stop him at first and Jesus quite clearly told them to deny themselves pick up their cross etc you know following him or following where well he was telling them you know he's going to his death on the cross but then as we explored in the previous study when I did a video on John 13 in the final hours before Jesus death Peter commits to following him and even lay down his life then but but we know that he won't follow this through and Jesus knew that Peter wouldn't follow it this through because it's documented later his closest disciples for sucking that they did not deny themselves and pick up their cross and follow him at least in the context of going to his death so if his closest disciples didn't even follow Jesus according to the passage that legalists love to quote okay you know why do you why should you think that you're better than they are false and so you know following Jesus's various commandments of do this do that beyond that of believing on him for salvation doesn't work okay now you can imagine how these street screaming bozos would have dealt with the disciples and their failure to deny themselves like wash your hands you filthy sinners you know Jesus warned you to deny yourself and pick up your cross you're going to perish in hell because you wouldn't follow Jesus to the bitter end you just love your sin too much and you fear men Jesus will spew you out you know that's how they deal with the disciples but really this is not how we see Jesus dealing with his disciples rather you know what's he doing throughout John 14 he's comforting them okay he's exerting them and this is despite the fact that he already knows their failures we saw this in the study of John 13 Jesus already knows that the disciples are not going to fulfill his commandments to the bitter end okay but he comforts them he says don't let your heart be troubled I will not leave you comfortless you know I go to prepare a place for you in my father's house ask anything in my name and I will do it that the comforter you know the father will send in my name and teach you all things peace I leave with you this is all very very comforting statements you know to say that Jesus already knows that the disciples didn't obey the commandment to deny themselves okay and you know loss of salvation crowd like to turn John 14 into a dire warning it's not a dire warning it's quite clearly a comfort because of the comforting language that Jesus is using here okay oh you know just to conclude what we've seen then the disciples themselves didn't obey the commandments to deny themselves pick up their cross and follow Jesus Jesus already knows about them and knows they will forsake him he is comforting them regardless in this chapter throughout John 15 and 16 as well he said even in the previous chapter to Peter you shall follow me afterwards and actually he ensured the lives of his 11 disciples would be protected which he does in John 1889 so as to fulfill his saying then which you gave me I have lost none Jesus protected his disciples from going to their death okay and actually in John 21 Jesus implies to Peter that Peter will have a long life because you know a lot of church tradition and you know Catholic hearsay says that Peter was martyred and then all the disciples were martyred at some point actually Jesus seems to be committing that Peter will have quite a long life according to John 21 and he will glory God in that kind of life so even though Jesus knows that they didn't deny themselves pick up their cross he comforts them anyway and even promises them a long life as well so unless you think that you're better than the disciples who spent lengths of time with Jesus in person but you didn't you can very quickly see why trying to obey all of Jesus as various rules and statutes doesn't work for salvation and how mercy warrants that Jesus will save us despite failing to obey all of his commandments okay and another problem as well going back to those problems that was mentioned is when we think of obeying Jesus as commandments particularly in a salvation context most people and the legalists particularly only really focus on what Jesus said well Jesus said sin no more Jesus had denied itself but they don't really ever consider why Jesus actually commanded that or all the intended audience that he was actually commanding what you know what why did he tell us that and who was he talking to what's the point okay but let's just go through a few handful of verses small handful and just look at the purpose okay so we have John 640 great verse and this is the will of him that sent me which ever the everyone which sees the son and believes on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day so who is this verse addressed to well it's everyone so each individual which you know completes this action sees the son and believes on him okay what's the action required what is the commandment you know if we're gonna love Jesus and obeys commandments well what's the commandment here it's believe on the son that you have seen okay what's why why follow this command what's the point of commanding this well it's everlasting life that's the reason that's given for this commandment so if you love Jesus and you have to follow his commandments to love him well follow his commandments for the reason why he commanded them and he gave this commandment that you would have everlasting life that's why he commanded it okay now let's look at another verse John 8 10 11 the woman caught in adultery so when Jesus lifted up himself and saw none but the woman he said unto her woman where are your accusers has no man condemned you she said no man Lord and Jesus said unto her neither do I condemn you go and sin no more so you know who is it addressed to well very specifically it's the woman caught in adultery that this is not if any man come after me or you know he that believers on me very very specific person that he's talking to here okay this is a very situational commandment what's the action required sin no more now people will say well why would Jesus say this if it weren't possible to sin no more but but they read that word sin and they apply it to all sins but really adultery is the only context of the same because that that was the specific reason why this woman was being confronted here okay we don't know what kind of a lifestyle she lived other than this particular act of adultery now why why does Jesus command to go and sin no more that thou shalt have everlasting life not what Jesus said that thou shall not be condemned in hellfire not what Jesus said her condemnation here was before in a physical death she could have been stoned to death okay that that's the condemnation that Jesus is talking about here and so that's the purpose of why Jesus says sin no more you know people love to quote this in a salvific context eternal life is not mentioned here salvation is not mentioned here it's simply not addressed in this conversation okay we don't know the specific status of this woman the passage doesn't tell us okay so salvation has got nothing to do with go and sin no more here's another one so if we take John 13 26 to 27 this is when Jesus tells his disciples of his betray so Jesus says he it is to whom I shall give a sop and when I am dipped it and he dipped the sop and he gave it to Judas Iscariot the son of Simon and after the sop Satan entered into him then said Jesus unto him do quickly so who is being commanded here Judas Iscariot is the one being this is a commandment addressed to Judas okay it's not addressed to all the disciples Jesus is commanding Judas what does Jesus command what's the commandment addressed to Judas that which you have premeditated go do go do that thing now is that a commandment that all believers should be following not really know it shouldn't be betraying Jesus but did Jesus command according to this scripture yes he did why because he commanded it to Simon and there's a reason sorry Judas not Simon Judas Iscariot and why there's a now it's not clearly explained from this verse itself but holistically as we saw from the previous study Judas must betray Jesus to fulfill scripture obviously you know other believers do not fulfill scripture in this context so that's why Jesus commanding it so you wouldn't say to someone well you know this betrayal of Jesus go do it quickly because you know he quite clearly commanded it and you've got to obey his commandments if you love him no actually you don't want to obey this commandment this was a commandment for Judas for the purpose of what Judas was going to do okay and then let's look at one more so Matthew 6 one take heed that you do not your arms before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven so who is being addressed well it's you plural so we could apply that to whoever you are every one of you or at least believers because Jesus is a sermon on the Mount he's talking to his disciples and a multitude of other people so you whoever you are all of you what's the action while the other commandment is don't do your arms before men to be seen of them right okay so we understand the commandment why why is Jesus telling us this it's quite simple if you if you do broadcast your arms before need to be seen of men you'll have no reward of your father which is in heaven and so again you can't just say well if you love me keep my commandments you've got to be doing all of Jesus commandments to be safe because being saved is not always the reason of his commandments so if you're going to take non-salvation passages and make them a requirement for salvation you see very quickly then that you're not obeying Jesus commandments because you're not doing them for the reason why Jesus said to do them okay and so reviewing all of our possible interpretations of my commandment so far then well we see very quickly it can't be obeying all of Jesus commandments that he verbally gave in the gospel account this falls apart because some commandments are technically impossible obeying all of the Bible or at least the New Testament commandments fall apart for the same reason because it includes all of these anyway obeying all of the commandments that Jesus gave specifically to his disciples falls apart because the disciples themselves didn't carry this out obeying a specific list of commands falls apart because the reasoning behind the list is completely arbitrary and everybody keeps their own different lists to the things they say you should be obeying to to be safe so they own it by process of elimination we're left with a couple of interpretations we could go with anything that Jesus commanded specifically in John 13 to 16 or we could also say is he being generalized rather than something specific you know is he just generally saying keep my commandments it's not about every specific thing okay and so we've spent a lot of time in this study going through what John 14 15 doesn't mean or rather can't mean in regards to his commandments well now we must answer what it does mean okay so we need to consider what is the purpose of Jesus saying if you love me keep my commandments what kind of commandments is Jesus referring to and what is and this might seem like a silly question at first but what is meant by commandment in the first place and this is important how would the disciples themselves interpret what Jesus meant by this and how did they perpetuate this teaching in their epistles and the apostle or you know the disciple John gives us the best clues on this because as far as we know he wrote the gospel account that contains this conversation and his epistles echo much of the same themes and terminology keyword such as abide love keep commandments etc etc so you know his epistles are very similar to what Jesus is talking about in John 14 okay so let's spend a bit of time thinking about this from the disciples perspective and particularly from John's perspective okay now when you read the Bible you're reading with a lot of history compressed into four very short somewhat repetitive accounts okay you know the gospel of Matthew Mark Luke and John sorry I think me taskbar has cut off the text but what that saying is this timeline is perfectly accurate you know don't quote me on these dates it's just for illustration purposes so you know we anticipate that Jesus started his ministry probably AD 31 if you know if all the dates tie up with when he was actually born we don't know for sure if you know how exactly he did ties up so long before that you know you got the birth and the childhood of Jesus and sometime after he starts his ministry recruits John that we've then got you know he gives the sermon on the mountain he tells his disciples about his death he heads up to Jerusalem so that Jesus can be betrayed Christ is put to death on the Passover so there were a few years or at least a few months between some of these different events but they're all compressed into you know short gospel accounts right so when you hear the words you know keep my commandments you you personally you might immediately think of some random passages in the gospels where where Jesus commanded things and apply that to the context because from your perspective those things only happened a few you know pages ago you know it said follow me be fishes men you flip the page it says pluck out your eye flip the page it says deny itself you flip a few more pages it says no more you flip a few pages and it says if you love me keep my commands in your Bible you know these are all very close together all of these things I've popped on there okay but this is it's not really fair to apply that perspective to the disciples perspective because remember that for them these conversations were separated by months seasons and years okay so from John's perspective or the disciples perspective when Jesus says keep my commandments a lot of time has passed between these various other commandments you know from the perspective of the disciples so many other things happened between these events that are not documented John himself said that the earth could not contain all the books if everything were written about Jesus so now imagine then that you were one of the disciples in the intimate setting of John 14 you're in a very small intimate setting with only 10 other of Jesus as closest disciples because Judas is already left by this point this conversation is you know it's not open to the masses Jesus isn't preaching to the multitude Christ's conversation with you is somewhat very personal it's very precious to you you hear these words if you love me keep my commandments and naturally you ponder what this means okay well your first reaction is probably not to think about some commandments that Jesus said over two or three years ago okay so it's a large group of people as well in a completely different location in a setting which is not very intimate and personal to you for example the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount you're probably not going to think about what Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery when this probably happened several months or years ago Jesus said it very specifically to that person in a very uncomfortable public setting you probably not going to think about what Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees who rejected him because the way that Jesus dealt with the Pharisees is very different to how Jesus deals with you as a disciple and he constantly upbraided them left right and center and his rebukings don't really apply to you as one of his loyal disciples instead given the close quiet intimate personal setting between you Jesus and the other ten of the closest disciples he first thoughts regarding his commandments would would probably be something like these so what is Jesus saying to me or in front of me right now during this conversation oh you know after the Last Supper prior to his betrayal and again you know you're reading it in a couple of chapters but for them you know this a couple of hours pass during this whole event at least in summary John 13 to 17 and also the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper essentially this is all one event so that's probably one of the first things that springs to your mind and a stretch you may also think well what has Jesus said recently to only the 12 of us if you include Judas when we came up to Jerusalem because since we've come to Jerusalem so that Jesus can be betrayed Jesus has no longer been speaking to the masses he's no longer taught in the synagogues or in public places and is no longer preaching to non-disciples so you've been sitting on the Mount of Olives discussing the fall down of the temple and the signs of the end you've been coming up to Jerusalem to be betrayed sorry Jesus has staying in Bethany in the house of sign of the leper and preparing that the Passover meal that's the most recent stuff that you would really think about if you know if you were pondering this so why would you think that as one of his 11 disciples well these recent conversations settings and commandments are fresh in your memory Jesus is only speaking to you in his closest other disciples all these events are leading up to the final hours of Jesus's life and this is the last chance that Jesus has to for you to receive some of his most important teachings you need to be confident and exalted while Jesus goes to his death because perhaps you're not really ready in your heart to accept this year okay the Passover is at hand everybody's getting ready or staying at home you are going to Jerusalem with Jesus so there's a very specific purpose can be carried out this is no longer an appropriate time to be preaching to the masses about various commandments such as in the Sermon on the Mount okay now that we've imagined being one of Jesus disciples let's take off our imagined being a disciple hat and now think about your perspective as a believer who because you weren't a first-hand witness to this conversation so all you've got to go on is what John and the disciples have handed down to you that's all you know about this conversation so how has John the disciple equipped you and taught you regarding his intimate conversation with Jesus because he was a first-hand witness by documenting this conversation in his written account John assumes the responsibility to pass on what Christ taught him to you as a non-witness okay if John didn't pass something down to you in his Gospel account he may not consider it important enough to fulfill his obligations all right so following that then can consider that John recorded this conversation in his Gospel account so you only know that Jesus said keep my commandments because it was John who made the effort to write this down in his Gospel account for you so John needs to take the responsibility to ensure that you can sufficiently understand this conversation consider what else did John tell you in his Gospel before this conversation will repeatedly throughout his Gospel John has emphasized conversations that Jesus had with unsaved people to tell them how to be saved on to eternal life John has taken it upon himself to write down conversations where Jesus is telling people what to do for to have eternal life John even writes that the overall purpose of his book is that you would believe and have everlasting life if it doesn't sufficiently meet this requirement well well John didn't meet the goal that he set out to achieve now John's Gospel frequently repeats the same theme over and over again believe have eternal life believe have eternal life believe have eternal life or worse that effect and this is what he's been setting us up for okay now consider what John did not record in his Gospel account though he didn't find it necessary to record many of Jesus's key teachings on moral issues now Jesus gave plenty of commandments about the do's and the don'ts and yet John's Gospel is noticeably absent on those teachings compared to Matthew, Mark and Luke okay Jesus did not sorry John did not deem it necessary in his gospel to record the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus delves into many moral teachings and issues new many commandments he didn't deem it necessary to record the sending out of the 12 where Jesus gives several commandments even specifically to the disciples present in the meeting at John 14 because you know that that's who we was giving that that kind of stuff to many of the parables that Jesus gave now now John's recording of parables are fairly minimal and really a lot of what we might call parables in John's Gospel are actually more like analogies sorry analogies and allegories rather than parables and Jesus is teaching on the greatest commandments on the Old Testament law again noticeably absent from John's Gospel and even teachings on the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God which does have strong overlaps with eternal life that even that's fairly minimal in John's Gospel if you look at the word kingdom and the concordance there's very very few mentions in John's Gospel even though it does have overlap with eternal life and so the most succinct teaching in John's Gospel concerning moral issues are sin no more which in John 5 we don't even really know what the sin was anyway and in John 8 it was very specific to one person okay so you might then think well what about Matthew leave out you know leave out because he was one of the disciples present and it's reckoned that he wrote the Gospel of Matthew well unlike John Matthew does go into great detail in his Gospel account about all of these issues which John's Gospel declines to and he was present in the conversation of John 13 16 presumably so would Matthew have interpreted keep my commandments as concerning all of these things that he writes about well quite possibly we cannot ignore this however it's important to point out that Matthew did not seem it necessary to record this conversation of John 13 16 in his Gospel account Matthew's Gospel skips from the last supper and the foretelling of G sorry Peter's denial straight to get seminary he did not record Jesus saying if you love me keep my commandments and so Matthew hasn't really set us up for that saying whereas John's Gospel has like all the responsibility has stayed with John to set us up for what Jesus means by this statement because only he makes the effort to record Jesus as saying it some of Matthew Matthew's details lead up to this saying but he doesn't set us up for it deliberately as John does now you might think well yeah but so what if John doesn't mention his gospel it's still mentioned in the other gospels anyway but remember that the Bible didn't just spring up out of thin air with the New Testament as a whole book ready in what go okay different letters were compiled at different times independently by different people in different places and they all gradually had to be joined together so you know we can't really necessarily say that John and Levi were both in lockstep when they wrote their gospel accounts you know they probably very independently written not entirely aware of each other's accounts yet with very different views in mind okay so in conclusion John has not given us the foresight in his own gospel accounts to make a direct connection between the various moral statutes of Jesus and the keeping of his commandments in John 14 he hasn't married those two things up so we must ask ourselves as we try to interpret this should we make a connection between the keeping of the commandments in John 14 and any commandments in the Bible or you know in other words any time the Bible uses the word commandment should we bridge such verses and even though John doesn't make a connection between moral commandments in John 14 15 in foresight do we have it in hindsight should we look at the epistles and see how the disciples pointed back to John 14 15 does Jesus give us any helpful clues in John 13 16 as to what commandments he is even referring to normally if you wanted to know how a word in the Bible is used it does help to go through the concordance and look at it in different contexts like the word repentance for instance the problem is though if we look up every instance of the word commandment make a connection that there will be a few problems by doing this first of all the specific word commandment alone appears more than 160 times in the King James at least and that's that count is not including commanded or command and it's in many different contexts and many of them actually do have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus command because it might be one man commanded another man such and such it's a very generic verb it has lots of different applications where it's used so it's not really salvific terminology like salvation or justification or repentance or faith um there are many other words that are synonymous with the word commandment such as law statute so trying to extend our search to these passages as well that just becomes messy and sends us off in all kinds of different directions really and anytime Jesus tells somebody to do something this is a commandment because that's what the word means even if the Bible doesn't have to use the word for a commandment and finally we know we've already seen in this in the study so far some of Jesus commandments are at this point literally impossible or very specific to certain persons and so unfortunately while looking up the concordance is usually very helpful in defining words or concepts of commandment it's so abundant really though it doesn't really help us define it specifically for John 14 15 we need something more specific so let's review again the the words that Jesus used in the wider conversation and then later we'll pick up on John's writings in the epistles as the closest match to the terminology used in John 14 so in John 14 if you look between verses 21 24 notice the interchangeability between my commandments and my words or my sayings he doesn't use terminology such as my laws or my statutes and it's important he also doesn't mention sin or trespassers as being the context of what he is commanding here okay and herein lies a fundamental problem if the legalists insist that keeping his commandments is all about turning from sin and walking in righteousness and not sinning well then why is sin not mentioned as the immediate context surrounding this statement if you look at the conversation in John 13 16 where is Jesus warning the disciples about falling into the routine sins of the flesh here there are no warnings against alcohol the adultery the fornication the idolatry why isn't Jesus warning his disciples about these things in this chapter if that's what's really meant by it okay and actually pushing on that further where is Jesus even warning about false doctrine see now there is an application to doctrine we will explore that later but it's not immediately obvious though and he will warn them about being persecuted in John 15 by the world that does not know him or the father but we don't really it doesn't really delve into their erroneous teachings or their fables though and where is Jesus warning about loving the things of this world here again no no warning against the love of money or political affairs of the world or being too focused about their worldly reputation again Jesus is not discussing these things in this dialogue he's not using this stuff to surround the context of King Mike commandments now Jesus does mention sin later in chapter 15 and 16 but not in reference to the disciples falling back into sin but rather people who reject Christ now why did they sin well it's because they saw Jesus's works but didn't believe him sins of the flesh are not mentioned here so notice why they those who rejected Christ had sin because it's well it's because they saw Jesus's works and yet still and particularly the Pharisees hated him and sought to kill him without a cause okay so that you know you want to apply that to all sin but there's a very specific reason why they're being condemned by sin okay it's not because of a lack of repentance over those sins being mentioned here and then you fast forward carry on reading and you get down to John 16 in verse 9 that the Holy Spirit will reprove the world of sin and why does he do it well it's because they believe not on me it's not because they won't put down the alcohol or put the pornography on the fire the very reason they're being reproved of sin is for not believing okay that that's the reason why or it's not you know their failure to turn their life around or something like that so borrowing what we have just seen from John 14 sorry if John 15 and 16 helps us to understand with a bit more clarity about John 14 notice some some important things here so number one in John 14 21 we see that loving Jesus is equated with those who keep his commandments now there's a bit of a problem when you say the opposite of loving Jesus because you could say the opposite is not loving Jesus or you could say that the opposite is hating Jesus but they're two very different opposites though and so those who hate Jesus according to John 15 24 it's applied to those who saw Jesus's works and hates him without a cause and earlier verses would suggest that Jesus groups these persecutors as being the world so you know this in this context those who hate Jesus it's not those who believe in Jesus but just won't turn from their habitual sins that's not the context that Jesus gives us Jesus gives us those who hate Jesus without a cause and seek to put into death when they have seen his works those are the types of people that hate Jesus and so those are the types of people in opposition to those who love Jesus okay and there well third point is just that we see that the world at the same types of people who discussed in the latter half of John 15 they will be reproved of sin very specifically for not believing on Jesus it's not that they would believe but wouldn't turn their lives around and clean up their act it's because they didn't believe on Jesus that's why they're being reproved of their sin okay so just to just to help illustrate this with with kind of a chart we have a very specific dichotomy here in John 14 16 on the one hand we have those who love Christ those who love Christ and keep his commandments and on the opposite side we have those who hate Christ which are those who see Christ's works hates him without a cause and do not believe on him okay the idea of if you're trying to fit somewhere in like false believers so-called who sort of believe Christ but won't obey all of his commandments which means to turn from sins apparently well we can't really fit this person in the dichotomy because we don't really have an example in this dialogue of somebody who does believe the gospel but is laden with unrepentant sins now I know some would argue that the early half of John 15 answers that issue but the problem with saying that his sin is still not directly mentioned as the main teaching of keeping his commandments anyhow and it's problematic to say that somebody who does not abide in Christ is counter to believer but that will have to you know John 15 is going to have to wait to the next video unfortunately just because you know there's so much material covered on John 14 in this video so we see the flawed logic here in making keep my commandments all about turning from sin and not falling back into sin and obeying all of these various morals do not do's and do nots when sin is not a fundamental part of this discussion and if we consider the lives and shortcomings of the 11 disciples in the four gospels we see examples of their fiery tempers we see examples of their lack of bravery we see examples of their lack of understanding particularly here in John 13 to 16 we see examples of their weak faith we see examples of their desire to be great and to sit beside Jesus throne we see the examples of their lacking mercy and patience on children and the sick by keeping them away from Jesus we see examples of Peter clinging on to Jesus's physical presence not wanting to let him go to his death on the cross but we don't have examples of the disciples being addicted to much wine or their penchant for prostitutes or kleptomania or murder or envies or you know eating meat sacrifice onto idols and engaging in witchcraft we don't see examples of the disciples struggling with this kind of thing so it doesn't make sense why Jesus would tell the disciples to remain in his love by abstaining from these various sins of the flesh when these not only not being spoken about in this dialogue but they're not what the disciples are obviously in danger of falling into when Jesus was about to go onto his death in the cross his disciples are in danger of falling away from their confidence in him and what he would accomplish being discouraged by his death and not understanding why he must go and do this you know even after his resurrection we have the story of doubting Thomas they're in danger of not being willing to risk the persecution that might overtake them if they preach Christ and this was manifest as they denied and for suck Christ as he was put to death they're in danger of failing to grasp the interchangeable relationship between the Father and the Son and so when you understand all of this it really helps us to understand what is even meant by abiding me in John 15 when we do our next study and in fact many of the things that Jesus is speaking about here to his disciples where they were in danger of these things there were many Jews before them that did stumble on these things many Jews started their initial faith but then did not continue in him because they they lost their first confidence an example for example you could say see the disciples who walk no more with him in John chapter 6 many Jews did not want to face persecution so they either didn't go all the way to believe in Christ or they believe but not did they did not confess in publicly as for example John chapter 12 many Jews did not grasp the relationship between Jesus as the Son and God the Father which Jesus spoke about many times and many Jews did not understand the significance behind Jesus going to his death for example John 822 and so these are the kinds of things where Jesus needs to insist to his disciples that they continue in his love and abiding him because these are ultimately the kind of things where people actually stumbled in regards to their faith in Christ and here's something interesting because remember earlier I posed the question what what does Jesus even mean by commandment well here's something else to notice from our brief look at John 15 notice how Jesus uses the word law and how this can apply to the word commandment so in John 15 25 it says but this comes to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law they hated me without a course so notice what Jesus does not say he doesn't say it's written in their prophecies or as it is written by the prophets he doesn't say it is written in God's law or it is written in the law instead he says it is written in their law now what Jesus is quoting here is not really a law in the conventional biblical sense of the word saying it it is their law implies that this verse either belongs to them or it is about or towards them not belonging to or speaking to what's Christ and he uses the word law for what is actually prophetic rather than legal which suggests a wider application to the meaning of law and so by extension commandments and a good example of this in our own vernacular is you know a practical example we can see today when thinking of judicial law we think of moral law just as we see in the bible there is a law in place and if you break this law and you can choose to break this law then there is a punishment or a consequence associated with breaking this law right whereas if we think about the laws of physics we don't think of law in this same way the laws of physics are actually unbreakable you cannot choose to create unlimited energy and then suffer the consequences for it the only consequences in physical laws still obey the laws of physics for example you know mix this chemical with that chemical and get a dangerous explosion so although the laws of physics can be used for immoral purposes according to judicial law the laws of physics themselves are not they're morally neutral okay they're not really a matter of right and wrong it's just a matter of that which must be obeyed and come to pass so this is appears to be how we see Jesus using the word law here something that is not a moral command to do this or to do that but rather something is written and must be fulfilled and it can't be broken any more than physical laws otherwise the scripture would be broken so in theory this could apply to commandments now as i mentioned earlier this word appears abundantly in the bible in various forms and most of the time it does mean a directive but there is is an odd occasion where it's actually declarative mostly in the Psalms and i hope not to labour this point you know we don't want to sort of go off on a tangent here but there's just a couple of Psalms that you can see on the screen here where the context is declarative it's not really anything to do with things you must do or right from wrong you know like for example it says your testimonies that you have commanded well a testimony is a witness declaration rather than a commandment in in its original sense and yet it says you have commanded okay and and so on and so on you know when god declared creation there was nothing before creation so there's no direct object of his commandment it's just god spoke and nothing became something essentially he spoke things into existence he commanded and they were created so the point that i'm trying to get across here is that jesus jesus commandments here are not just about thou shalt do's and thou shalt nots it's really every bit if not more so to do with his teachings and his doctrines and other instructions that are not moral issues or fleshly sin issues and we can see that from john 14 itself so for example in verse 21 we see that keeping christ commandments are interchangeable with keeping his words and keeping his sayings he doesn't use the phraseology keeping my laws or keeping my instructions and so his commandments here have everything to do with as much as what he says and the words that he has spoken and so keeping them in that regard is equivalent to holding on to them and remembering them which is exactly what the holy ghost is explained to help them do in verse 26 so you know we flip we flip we go to verses 25 and 26 this is important here because jesus points out that these things jesus has spoken on to them while yet being present and so verse 25 seems to suggest that the commandments here that jesus is talking about are somewhat specific to this conversation and not inclusive of everything he ever said throughout his ministry however eventually the holy spirit will bring all things to remembrance whatsoever christ has said to them and of course the holy spirit will come after jesus when he resurrects and breathes on them and then leaves them okay so for those of you that like visuals here's a visual illustration of how you could interpret verses 25 and 26 so this particular conversation in john 13 to 16 and maybe some of the final things leading up to it before jesus goes to his death on the cross these are the things that i have spoken on to you being yet present with you you know yet because he's almost not going to be once we get after his resurrection christ is no longer present so he sends the holy ghost in his place and he shall teach you all things and bring all things to remembrance whatsoever i've said on to you and obviously that would presumably include things that jesus said to the disciples spanning over several years that at this point they may not remember all of that yet okay so hopefully that's a good illustration that helps you to make sense of what that means so let's review then what jesus has been talking about in this conversation and goes on to say as the context of jesus's commandments is saying his words in other words what are the commandments in this conversation that he's saying the disciples must keep well in the previous chapter in verse 14 the commandment was to wash one another's feet and so notice how this is nothing to do with sins of the flesh and the like and this ties in with verse 34 as well and later then a few verses later in verse 19 he says you may believe that i am he so again what's the commandment believe that i am he nothing to do with sins the flesh of the like this commandment is about solidifying their confidence in their belief in christ and then a few verses later in 34 to 35 that the new commandment that i give on to you is that you love one another as i have loved you and so again there's the commandment now this is arguably a moral command of sorts but it's very specific in scope it's referring to how the disciples treat each other in the absence of christ to unite them and then notice how a particular reason for this commandment is given notice that eternal life is not the stated reason it's that other men shall see you and know that you are my disciples if you love one another that that's the goal of him commanding that okay and then at the beginning of verse one in this chapter john 14 we saw believe also in me there's the commandment nothing to do with sins of the flesh and the like it's about confidence in christ who he is having faith in who he is jump down to verse 11 again what's the commandment believe me the time in the father and the father is in me believe me for the very work sake there's the commandment once again it has to do with their faith in who christ is really in relation to the father not a sin of the flesh issue um you get to verses 13 to 14 again uh it's here's the commandment if you shall ask anything in my name i would sorry i must have forgot to type up the notes for that but i arguably not necessarily a commandment but there there's the commandment if there is anything ask in my name and if you ask in my name i will do it okay so sorry for missing out the description there um john 15 we get to the next chapter we get to verse four what's the commandment abiding me and i knew what does abide me to continue to remain to stay in christ which you know remember this will be important after christ is no longer physically with them they will have to continue in him nonetheless we get to uh chapter 15 verse nine continue in my love there's the commandment something very specific not a sin issue okay and then again he re-emphasizes what he said earlier when he said uh this is my commandment that you love one another well he's already told them to love one another in chapter 13 so he's telling them again verse 17 these things i command you that you love one another so once again repeating a very specific theme here not talking about sins of the flesh and then here's another commandment you shall also bear witness so there's the commandment once again not a sin issue but they will bear witness to the sayings the words and the who Jesus is being of the okay you then go to chapter 16 and you get to verse four what's the commandment you remember that i told you of them again not not a sin issue of the flesh issue they need to remember the things that Jesus has taught and keep his words which the Holy Ghost will remind them to do fast forward to verse 23 again repeat of what we already saw in John 14 here's the commandment ask in my father's name and if you do that he will give it on to you okay nothing to do with sins of the flesh it's an encouragement that they will receive help after Jesus departs from them and then the final commandment then be of good cheer so that's you know an exhortation everything's going to be okay no mention of the sins of the flesh in any of these commandments but is Jesus telling them to do these things yes he is so you you start to see the big problem here because all all the legalists want to make these commandments in this chapter all about sin and how holy you are by your actions when for the most part that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with what Jesus is talking about in this conversation you know Jesus isn't telling his disciples here to abstain from sins of the flesh because that's not where they stumbled he's telling them not to lose heart to no one believe that he's the father and more crucially to love one another okay you know and this is even though Christ is departing from them they need to continue in the faith continue in his love for them ask things in his name so that they may receive those things and the Holy Ghost the Holy Spirit will bring other things to their remembrance so let's try and think of this visually these are the things that I have spoken on to you be yet with you if you love me keep my commandments well in this conversation what has Jesus commanded love one another and wash each other's feet be of good cheer continue in my love and abide in me ask anything in my name and I will do it believe that I am in the father and the father is in me and then the Holy Ghost will bring all things to your remembrance and so you know the Holy Ghost will remind them of all the things that Jesus taught them and they will pass this teaching to us through their epistles and their gospel accounts so you know John is telling us what Jesus told him in this conversation in his gospel he then writes his epistles where he picks up on these same themes Matthew's gospel tells us about some of the other stuff that Jesus said that John didn't tell us Peter's epistle although Peter perhaps doesn't pick up all of the same themes from the gospels we presume that Peter got his teaching from somewhere okay we assume that Jesus probably taught him a lot of the things that he's teaching us in his epistle same thing with James the same thing with Jude okay and so in summary we we now understand a more clear meaning behind if you love me keep my commandments or he who keeps my commandments and words and sayings it is he that loves me you know that's what he's saying to the 11 disciples so what what does he mean by all that well hold on to your faith in Christ be of good cheer believe that he is in the father and the father is in him continue in the love that he has for you don't be afraid of the persecution that will come because you hold on to your faith and preach Christ the Holy Spirit will be sent to come for you hold on to Jesus's words and sayings and the Holy Ghost will bring these words into your remembrance and so obviously the doctrines and Jesus's moral teachings are a part of what Jesus said they are a part of his words so obviously do not discard those words hold on to them and pass them on well the disciples did this because in their epistles they themselves taught moral issues you know they taught don't do this sin don't do that sin walk in this path walk in that path etc you know they preserved Christ's words for us today that we have hundreds of years later love one another just as Christ has loved you when Christ departs and he's not there to lead you anymore you know don't descend into devouring one other and trying to establish your own kingdoms and be the right hand of Jesus to sit by his throne you know love one another as servants all 11 of you you know do not desire personal greatness above the other disciples and so we can then see following all what we've seen we can then see how the disciple John particularly carries this forward into his epistles because he's going to pick up on a lot of the same things that Jesus talked about so you know Jesus said to John in John 13 34 to 35 a new commandment I give on to you that you love one another as I have loved you by this all men shall know that you are my disciples if you love one another that's what Jesus talking to John what does John say to us in his epistles well very similar theme just as Jesus told him to love one another he says to us love one another okay just as Jesus said a new commandment he says he gave us commandment Jesus gave us commandment and that's exactly what happened in John 14 that's in 1 John 3 23 there that I've got that verse from and then you go to 1 John 5 1 and 2 and again repeating a lot of these same themes keep his commandments well one of his key commandments was that love one another and he picks up on this same thing everyone that loves him that begat loves him that is begotten of him if I'm begat of God and you're begat of God we are commanded here to love one another because we are brothers in Christ and just as Jesus said to the disciples by doing this all men shall know that you are my disciples so likewise John says about us collectively by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God okay so here's what it's about it's about knowing what's what's about knowing who's who so notice that the key command here is to love one another and this is as brethren who are children of the same God it's it's not in the context of your neighbor or your fellow citizen as it was in the Old Testament law and this is why you know if you want a reason why Jesus calls it a new commandment quote unquote and so this is how we identify each other as children of God and how men identify the disciples of Christ because this is interchangeable with loving God according to 1 John 5 and notice also that again the reason for loving one another in these verses loving one another is not a commandment to become a child begotten of God because this starts by believing the Christ you know he even says 1 John 5 1 who so ever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God this is his commandment that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ as it says in 1 John 23 so there's the commandment to become a son of God believe on Jesus Christ but loving one another is how the children of God identify each other and how all men identify the disciples of Christ okay so yes there was an immediate context to the disciples themselves but we can apply this to us today as well in a different context so let's again let's use an illustration this is an illustration so that we can see and understand this more clearly the children of God we know that we are okay because God begets this guy God begets that guy God begets that guy and God begets that guy and so that guy loves that guy and that guy loves that guy that guy loves that guy and that guy loves that guy and they love each other and they love each other and so on and so on and so on and so all the men all the world shall know that we are they see this and they know you are my disciples okay this is how we are to be identified that's the purpose of why he's giving this commandment Here is another example of John carrying forward the conversation in John 13-16 into his epistle. So Jesus saying to John, the new commandment, and again we go forward to 2 John 1, not as though I wrote a new commandment but that which we had from the beginning because Jesus gave that from, you know, all the way back from John 13, that we love one another just as Christ told John to do. So is John telling us to do that same thing, okay? And this is love, that we walk after his commandments, this is the commandment that you have heard from the beginning. What have you heard from the beginning? That you should love one another, okay? Now again, another reason, okay? So Jesus said to John, if a man loves me, he will keep my words, okay? We then get to John and what does John say? He says there are many deceivers entered into the world and how are they deceiving? Well they don't confess that Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver, this is an anti-Christ. So this is, although it perhaps doesn't use the word love in that verse, it's obviously sandwiched next to a verse that does. So we've got those who love Christ and the deceivers, the anti-Christ, and what is the problem with the deceivers and the anti-Christ? It's that they don't confess that Jesus has come in the flesh. That's a very, very specific problem. Got nothing to do with people. Well they do confess Christ's sin and he came in the flesh, but they just teach all of these things about sin and carry on sinning. No, that's not the problem here. That's not what John is describing there. And so we then understand what, when Jesus will get to John 15 and when we do a study on this, we'll understand what he means, the word which I have spoken unto you, abide in me and I in you. And so what does John say about that? Whosoever transgresses and abides not in, abides in what? The doctrine of Christ has not God. He that abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. So how is John, in his second epistle there, defining abiding in Christ? If we're to link that word abiding there, it's the doctrine. It's about who Christ is, not about all the works that you do. It's about who Christ is. So that's what's being discussed here. And again, just as Jesus said to John, by this all men shall know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another, that was in John 13. John carries a similar thing forward into his. John helps us define this. If anyone comes on to you and does not bring this doctrine and it's about the doctrine, don't receive them into your house. Neither bid him Godspeed. So Jesus told John to love one another. John's telling us not to let somebody in our house and don't bid them Godspeed. That sounds like the opposite of love, but what's the criteria? They don't carry the doctrine. So part of loving one another, then carrying the doctrine. So there's a lot of important contextual information here that John gives us in regards to the kind of things that Jesus was talking about and how John interpreted that. So, you know, we see that there are, in second John 1, 7, there are plural, it says commandments with an S on the end. So there's plural commandments. So there's obviously more than one commandment that we're expected to obey. But one commandment here is being particularly emphasized in the second epistle, at least. And that's to love one another and carry for, you know, remaining the doctrine is another important commandment being emphasized. So, you know, it's either about loving one another or it's about the doctrine. In John's first epistle, it was either about loving one another or it was about believing on the Christ. So, abiding in Christ, obeying His commandments, it all has to do with understanding who Jesus is and continuing in that truth. So the people that say that Christ didn't come in the flesh, they don't carry forward that truth. They don't abide in Christ. They don't remain in Christ in that context, okay? So, you know, we can bridge these two together because what we don't want to do is just arbitrarily pick a passage in the Bible and say, well, that's what Jesus was talking about over there because that's what the work salvation crowd do. But notice how we've got the terminology here, abide just as it says, abide in John 15. We've got commandments. We've got commandment and we've got love one another, love one another. So, you know, all these consistent themes to prove that this passage is related to this passage, we're not just making an arbitrary connection here, okay? So it's quite important then that John ties this in with the doctrine of Christ because John is applying it to who Christ is. You know, it's not about sins that you've turned from or the life that, you know, you've turned your life around or any of that stuff. This is all about Jesus. It's about who he is. It's about what he's done. And so when we see, because some people will pluck things out of either the gospel of John or the epistles of John about like, he who does good or he who does righteousness and he cannot sin, they always want to make it about how obedient you're following the moral dos and do nots when actually John himself relates it more to actually who Jesus is rather than how good of a Christian you are. And so, yeah, and so, you know, ending that off then, we have the context of those who we are supposed to love and identify when Christ says love one another as I have loved you. Who is he telling you to love? It's the children of God. You know, you can't just imply it because some people on YouTube get a bit annoyed with people like me and plenty of other people, whether true or false, that if we call somebody else out, if we label somebody else a false prophet and we criticize them and we mark them as I've done with epi, apologetics, I've done with seeking the one saved and he's done the inverse on me as well. You know, they come out with the, well, we're supposed to love one another and this isn't very good for you Christians to be behaving like this, but there is a very specific thing here. I'm supposed to love those who bring the doctrine. Okay, and so if, you know, if Jesus says I should lose nothing regarding those that I've given eternal life to, an epi, apologetics or seeking the one saved says, well, no, actually he will lose some because he lodged Judas or was that effect? Well, they're not abiding in the words that Jesus spoke. They're not abiding in his sayings. And so, they're not the people that Christ is telling me to love one another as I have, you know, loved you, okay. And even when we wind back in John's gospel, and you can also perhaps tie this in with Romans 11 where Paul talks about this, is why did the Jews stumble? Well, ultimately they stumbled on unbelief. You see, the problem that Jesus had with the Jews wasn't that there were loads of Jews who were just so moved by his message but they wouldn't pour the drink down and they wouldn't, you know, throw their naughty drawings away. The problem is that the Jews didn't believe on him when that's what they told him to do. And so, you know, they're the kind of people that would say the holy one, the Messiah of Israel, is not coming to flesh. That is an example of the deceiver, the people who don't continue in this doctrine, the kinds of people that John is talking about. Now, following that, some people will ask, and I'm only addressing this because some people might ask this. Okay, well, even though loving one another isn't how I become a child of God, is it how I sustain my relationship as a child of God? And again, this comes from the idea of maintaining salvation, that, you know, faith produces works or something like that. So we have to justify it with obedience, but they have to get around the faith without works versus so that they will say things like, we don't earn salvation, but we keep it or we prove that we really are saved. Normally justifying this from James two or Hebrews 11 or something like that. We can't really delve into the epistles of John too deep because we would digress from studying John 14. And I do intend to eventually address them, but we clearly have the reason given in John 13. It's that all men shall know that you are my disciples. So our love for the brethren makes us known before men, not before God, which is perfectly consistent with James two where he says, what does it profit my brethren? And Romans four, where Paul says, if a man has work, you know, if a man has work, if, sorry, if Abraham had the works, he has glory, but not before God. Well, if it's not before God, who's left? Presumably he means men. And so likewise from John's epistles, we know that we are the children of God. That's the whole point of saying that he doesn't say that it's to sustain your salvation or something like that. So again, it's not about whether one individual Christian is pulling his weight and doing his bit for God. It's about the children of God being able to know and identify each other. And then those outside being able to identify the children of God. Okay, because, you know, if we all devour one another, while we end up with the same mess that Christianity's already in, there's so many different denominations. How is unsaved Joe supposed to even know what's true because there's just so many different things going on out there. And so it's about identifying this unit, this children of God, these people that belong to God. So there is more that I would have liked to say on John 14. There's just so much to unpack because it's such a difficult chapter and that there's so many things being thrown against faith without works, you know, from this passage. But just because this study has gone on for so long, I'm gonna start wrapping it up so we are coming towards the end. There's just, there is more that I wanted to say about obeying Jesus in this context, but you know, it can wait until we've got to John 15 and 16, which completes this same conversation anyway. So other things I would like to unpack about this conversation that I didn't cover sufficiently in this study, we'll probably need to cover when we get to John 15 and 16. So what do we do with a Christian who is stuck in sins of the flesh? Can they really be categorized as loved Jesus? Do we have examples of people who did not abide in the faith and disobeyed Jesus' commandments? Are conflicting love that Jesus, sorry, that the disciples had for Jesus, which is a conflict between 1428 to 29 and 1627 to 29. Are works of obedience evidence that a person really is saved or loves God? What if we don't love our brethren? You know, what do we do with that kind of a person? And then is there an application to his commandments generally or specifically? So I would have liked to address some of these things, but you know, it's already gone on for so long. And I think we just need to sort of break it up a bit more. So in summary, what does Jesus mean if you love me keep my commandments? So at least based on what we've seen and based on how John seems to define it, what can we understand? Well, in its immediate context, at least, it's got nothing to do with turning from sin. It has to do with the disciples continuing in their initial faith and coming to a full understanding of Jesus' relationship with the Father and following this, loving one another in the absence of the physical presence of Christ and not being afraid of the persecution that may follow. Jesus is giving them an encouragement, not a warning. Okay, even though he's leaving them physically, the Holy Spirit will not leave them comfortless and they ought to love one another as equals and as brethren united around their love for Christ. John's epistles are very consistent showing the same thing that the chief of the commandments are believing on him to be begotten of them, him. And then following this, loving others that are begotten of him and his second epistle ties up abiding in Christ with holding on to the doctrines that he laid. Okay, so that's the end of our study. I hope that this has helped you. Following this study then, I'll be working on material for John 15, particularly about the issue of abide in me and this is normally used to teach conditional security. It may take me a while to write the content just because it's took me a while to do John 14. It's a difficult passage. There's a lot to cover. There's a lot to address and it takes a long time to produce carefully planned content in any case, with a PowerPoint and everything. So like today's study, it will probably be very long with lots to cover. So do keep your eyes peeled for that coming out soon.