The PuritanBoard - View Single Post

JohnV · #9 (**permalink**) 07-23-2005, 10:27 AM

You lost me, Marcos. I'm not sure I'm understanding the problem. As I understand it, those who are not in Christ cannot keep the law even if they keep it to the letter, because the commandment is to love God and your neighbour. The one not in Christ is not doing that, no matter how strenuously he keeps the letter of the law.

Also, faith fulfills the law, and without faith it is impossible to please God. The one not in Christ does neither of these, either express faith or please God, again no matter how much he keeps the letter of the law.

And finally, even the smallest of sins cannot ever be atoned for by keeping the law without flaw after the fact.

Even the person who is in Christ cannot bear the weight of keeping the whole law, no matter how hard he tries. That is how deep the hold of sin is. So whether one is in Christ or not in Christ, one cannot please God by keeping the law. So one cannot become a Christian by keeping the law.

But that was not your original question. You want to separate love for Christ from keeping the law. And that is the point I'm trying to raise here. I don't think you can. Just becoming a law-keeper after becoming a Christian can become nothing more than pretense. It is not that keeping the law makes you a better Christian; it is in the practice of keeping the law that you learn more and more to please God through faith and love. As they say ( Francis Bacon, I believe it was ), practice makes a better man. The law instructs you in righteousness, matures you in faith, and nurtures you in fellowship with God and with your neighbour.

So if you meant to say that keeping the commandments instructs you in keeping them better, just because of thankful love, then I would agree: keeping the commandments leads to keeping the commandments. I just don't see how one has love for Christ before keeping the commandments; for no one can keep the commandments to begin with; and turning in love to Christ is a much a keeping of the commandments for a new convert as a more mature and fuller keeping of the law is for the more mature Christian. So just becoming a Christian is already a keeping of the commandments.