Those who
know me well know that I'm a man who loves logic. In college, my
philosophy professor had me come back and guest teach a class on logic the
semester after I took his course. So, when I came across Jesus' words in
John 15:10, my logic loving brain kicked in:
"If
you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my
Father's commandments and remain in his love." (New English
Translation)
There is
much debate in theological circles as to whether or not someone can earn God's
love. Some might think the verse above supports the position that
God's love for us is based on our obedience of Him. If you look at this
verse and think that Jesus' love comes through our obedience, you have fallen
into a very common logic trap.
This
verse presents a typical “If . . . then . . .” logical statement. These are common statements. For example, I might say to you, “If you
drive north from Iowa, you will arrive in Minnesota.” My statement is very similar in its
construction to Jesus’ statement in John 15:10.
Both have an antecedent clause, (“If you drive north from Iowa,” and “If
you obey my commandments”) and both have a consequent clause (“you will arrive
in Minnesota,” and “you will remain in my love”).
(For those
of you getting confused, bear with me.
You will soon see why this is important.)
Now, some
might look at Jesus words in John 15 and say, “You see! If we want Jesus to love
us we have to obey him. Salvation is
based on our works. Our relationship
with God is based on us. If we don’t
obey Jesus commands, He won’t love us.”
This is a
logical fallacy called “denying the antecedent.” To understand why it is wrong, let’s compare
this statement to my statement. “If you
drive north from Iowa, you will arrive in Minnesota.” Does this then mean that if you don’t drive north
from Iowa that you cannot arrive in Minnesota? Not at all.
It is entirely
possible to fly north from Iowa and arrive in Minnesota. It is also entirely possible to arrive in
Minnesota by driving west from Wisconsin.
There are many ways to get to Minnesota.
Driving north from Iowa is just one of them.
Now let’s
apply this to Jesus words. Jesus is
saying that if we obey his commands, we remain in His love. He is not saying that if we disobey His
commands that He will stop loving us any more than I am saying that driving
north from Iowa is the only way to get to Minnesota.
Thus, we
cannot use this verse to support a works based salvation or even use it as a
means to show that we can earn a greater portion of God’s favor by obeying Jesus. However, this is not the only mistake some
might make with these verses.
Some
might say, “I know that I remain in Jesus’ love. Therefore, I am automatically obeying
him. All I have to do is feel God’s love
and obedience comes naturally. Jesus is
more interested in our feelings than our actions.”
This is
the opposite argument to the first one, and it is also a logical fallacy. This mistake is known as “affirming the
consequent.” This fallacy holds that if
the consequent of the “If . . . than . . .” statement happens, the antecedent
must have happened as well.
Applied
to my statement about driving north from Iowa, it would be like saying, “I
arrived in Minnesota. Therefore, I must have driven north from Iowa.”
Again,
this is not necessarily the case. Perhaps
you drove south from Manitoba. Perhaps
you took a boat from Iowa up the Mississippi.
The fact that you arrived in Minnesota in no way indicated that you must
have driven north from Iowa. In fact,
you can get to Minnesota without ever having been to Iowa. In the same way, the fact that Jesus loves
you in no way means that you are living in obedience to Him.
There is an interesting conclusion that we can derive from Jesus’ words in John, and these words
are shocking when we think about them.
Let’s start with the reverse of my driving to Minnesota statement:
If you
have not arrived in Minnesota, then you did not drive north from Iowa.
There are
many ways to get to Minnesota. Driving
north from Iowa is one of them. If you have
not arrived in Minnesota then there is no way that you drove north from
Iowa. Of all the possible ways to arrive
in Minnesota, you used none of them, including the Iowa route.
This is
called denying the consequent. If the
consequent clause of an “If . . . than . . .” statement did not take place, then
the antecedent clause did not take place either.
Now,
let’s apply this to the reverse of Jesus’ words:
If you do
not remain in Jesus love, you are not obeying His commandments.
If we
take Jesus at His word, and apply the rules of logic to His statement, then
there is no way that we can even obey Him without Him loving us.
Why is
this important?
Because
it means that if you are trying to earn Jesus’ love by obeying a set of rules,
you are failing. You cannot even begin
to obey His commandments until He loves you.
If He loves you already, why are you trying to earn His love?
This is
why I wrote this in the first place. It
is vitally important that we understand this point. We need to know that it is not even possible
to become a good person without Jesus’ love.
It is the
work of Jesus in you that allows you to obey Him. You are helpless without Him. It was His love that caused Him to come to
earth as a man, die for you, and rise again. It is a
love given to you freely and without limit and it is only out of that love that
you can be transformed into the person you were meant to be.
Will you
accept His love for you?
Will you remain in His love?
