Let me be honest with you. For most of my Christian life I hated John 14:21. And “hate” is not too strong a word. It exhausted me. Demeaned me. Made me feel condemned. A daily failure. Trying to live it out eventually provided me with a year’s sick leave. I was in burnout. Depressed. I have shared that story on our podcasts.
John 14:21 was toxic to me because, like many who read it, I disconnected it from the gospel. I read it like this: “You need to obey to show God you love Him so that he will be pleased with you and love you back.” This not only creates a lot of hard work, it is really BAD news.
But when I learned to read it in the context of the gospel, I realized it could not mean the above. It is wrong because:
- It makes His love for us dependent on our love for Him.
- It makes us the initiator.
- It makes God the responder.
- It makes our obedience the proof of our love.
The gospel tells me the good news that my obedience is a result of God’s love for me, not a cause of it. And so I rewrote John 14:21 in light of the gospel and have taped it in my bible – along with how God is a gambler (see last week’s post). Here is what I wrote:
“You keep my commands and love me because I have given you a new nature and I have loved you first. Don’t ever think you obey and love me so that the Father and I will love you back. We made you into someone who has the ability and desire to obey, not so you can earn our love, but so you can experience the love we already have for you.”
Now it is no longer a “prove it” verse, it is an identity verse that describes me…and it is GOOD NEWS! God’s love is His character and my behavior cannot change His character!
How have you been reading this verse?
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Thanks, Bill. Your paraphrase pierces my heart. You’re hitting exactly how I’ve lived most of my 46 years of my Christian life–in fear (not awe, but afraid fear) of God and how I feel ashamed/unworthy when I disobey Him. Why should He forgive me if I willfully choose to disobey Him? This rendering of John 14:21 opens me eyes to a whole different perspective and freedom to rest in my position in Christ and His character.
Eileen!
So good to hear from you! You have lived the Christian life like so many of us have. God continues to forgive and love us because it is His character…and my behavior does not change His character. Isn’t this good news!
Great interpretation Bill. It’s wonderful to know that we are free to obey God out of something more than the fear of punishment and hope of reward. Ive done it many times. But the primary motive for the christian life is a response of love and gratitude for what He has already done.
I like what I’m hearing in this post and the one last week. Understanding what Jesus is saying has been difficult. But I’m wondering why this is so. Was Jesus being intentionally vague? He said what he meant but he knew we wouldn’t understand it? Or, was he describing the way things were meant to be before the Fall? And He knew we couldn’t do it. When did He think we would figure out we couldn’t do it? So many of these verses including Matt 22:37-40 and John 15:7 lead us to try thinking we should be able to do it because Jesus said so; but then only to fail. John 10:6 refers to Jesus talking in figure of speech. Were most of his sayings just figures of speech? Grace is a lot clearer in the Epistles. Not so much between Christmas and Easter.