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The Catholic Telegraph
May 19, 2000Back to the commandments again! Only this time the author of First John does not deal with the commandments as God’s challenge to us or as agenda items that flow from our being children of God. In this reading he speaks of God’s commandments as a source of security and reassurance in the context of our relationship with the community of faith.
The unorthodox Christians against whom John is writing had ideas about Christ and about Christian living that were different from those shared by John’s community. Both sets of beliefs could not be true. If you espoused the wrong beliefs, you were separated from Christ and His people! How can you tell if you really belong? John does not set out to offer a technical theological "proof" for the instructions he gives his readers. He simply offers them a principle: if you keep the commandments you belong to the true community of faith. That’s what this Sunday’s reading is about.
He has been talking about the implications of the commandment to love one another. Loving one another involves laying down our lives for one another just as Christ laid down His life for us. At very least, love means reaching out to our brothers and sisters when they are in need. This is where our reading begins.
Real loving is not a matter of theory or words. It’s a matter of practical doing. But this practical doing also enables us to verify our standing as Christians. If we are uncertain sometimes about this standing, we can be confident if we find ourselves doing what God commands since God’s commandments can only lead to righteousness because God knows what He is doing. If we don’t have any question about our standing, keeping the commandments will enable us to maintain security in God and find confidence in our prayer. The commandments being referred to here are faith in Christ and (one more time!) love for our neighbor. If we keep the commandments, we remain in touch with God, God remains in touch with us, we receive God’s Spirit, and (by implication) we remain part of the community of God’s children. (This mention of the Spirit leads the author in the next few verses, at the beginning of chapter 4, to point out that the acknowledgment of the true humanity of Jesus Christ is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.)
This passage offers us two important teachings. The first is a hard-nosed reminder that loving our neighbors includes actually doing something for them. It means getting our hands dirty. It means giving up time for them. It means making sacrifices. The kind of love that John is talking about is not a way of feeling but a practical orientation of life and action. Love involves giving ourselves away for the good of someone else. It is a matter of decision and will rather than emotion. That is why we can sacrifice ourselves for the love of somebody we don’t even like!
The second teaching is about the demonstrative aspects of Christian moral behavior. We have to be very clear about the fact that keeping the commandments does not earn us salvation. There is absolutely nothing that we can do, no matter how generous or how heroic, that will make us worthy to share the life of Christ or that will constrain God to take us into the interior life of the Trinity. God’s life is too far above us to be accessible to our own efforts.
We have seen, however, that sharing that life (through God’s gift) involves some consequences, carries with it some implications. If we share truly Christ’s life, certain kinds of behavior must necessarily follow. What John tells us today is the reverse of that principle: if we can verify certain kinds of behavior in our lives, we must be sharers in the life of Christ. What we are to look for in ourselves to verify our union with Christ is authentic and true faith in Him and practical, effective love for our fellow human beings. If that’s there, we have no need to wonder about the fundamental direction of our lives, no need to torment ourselves with questions about whether God is pleased with us, no need to be afraid that, when our life is over, we will be found deficient.
This reassurance and security that John offers us are not intended to encourage arrogance or self-satisfaction. The issue is not what we accomplish, but our response to what God has accomplished in us. Our ability to relate to the Father in Christ and our capacity to give ourselves generously to the service of our neighbor are not our achievements but God’s gifts. The confidence that we are able to have in Him as a result of our keeping His commandments is based on our conviction of His love for us and not on any awareness of our own natural worth or personal virtue.
God does not like to toy with His children, to keep them in suspense about His care for their well-being, about His presence in their lives. He keeps telling us how we stand with Him. He lets us know where we stand through what He has put into our hearts: faith in Christ and love for our neighbor.
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Conversation Questions
Whom do I love? What does that love involve?
How do I know if my faith in Christ is true and authentic?
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