As believers, we absolutely must hold to the truth of the Word of God unwaveringly, unflinchingly, and unashamedly. After all, 2 Timothy 3:16 conveys the centrality of the Word of God for life and godliness. If you don’t know that verse, you should. The Word of God is our source of perfect teaching, where we find right doctrine; it confronts us when we are wrong, it corrects us in the right way to live, and it is our training manual for the Christian life. The apostle Paul emphasized the importance of right doctrine. The apostle Paul strongly warned church leaders to guard themselves and their churches against false teaching and false teachers (Acts 2:28-20).

It would seem that Christians would therefore heed preaching that exhorts them to know their Bibles and get their theology right. But often, Christians today don’t get their theology right, or don’t care whether they get it right. In Bible-believing churches, we get to know our Bibles fairly well after a while; those who grow up in the church memorize an abundance of verses, and our songs convey much spiritual truth. Yet we cannot sit back on our laurels and think it is enough to simply know the truth. One person was asked where he stood on a particular point of doctrine (a vital one, in my humble opinion); his response was, “Well, remember the church I come from ….” indicating that his background should answer the question. There was no personal conviction based on a considered study of what the Scripture teaches on the subject. Such, I fear, is the mindset of many Christians today.

However, I digress from what I want to address here. I am speaking now to preachers and teachers of the Word: it is not enough to teach and protect the truth and then expect cold hearts that love the world to be convicted and turn back to right doctrine. A person I knew studied for his Ph.D. at Oxford University under a renowned scholar who, during his lectures, would effortlessly switch back and forth between English, Hebrew, and Greek; he could quote Scripture with his brilliant mind, using whatever original language he felt best at the moment. Yet, that scholar did not have personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and even denied the deity of our Savior.

Listen to what Jesus said: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Notice how this begins: “If you love Me.” That comes before “you will keep My commandments.” The latter follows the former; we must not fail to recognize what Jesus was teaching here. I fell in love with the Lord Jesus Christ long before I knew correct doctrine, before I could quote any verses in the Bible, before I was baptized, before I was able to defend the deity of Christ, before I understood that there was a real devil and demons, before I could even begin to understand end-time prophecies. As I grew in biblical, doctrinal knowledge, my love for God also grew. And my obedience followed. I did not want to become like the first of the seven churches of Revelation. Though they had their doctrine right, they left their first love and lived a spiritually lifeless existence under God’s judgment (see Rev. 3:1-7).

Love came first: God’s love for me, in the form of His kindness (Rom. 2:4), and then my love for Him (1 John 4:19). We can’t possibly love God except as an overwhelming response to His love for us. And then, “if we love Christ,” we will, out of our love for Him, want to do what He commands us to do, and we will obey Him. The word “command” is used in John 14:15 and means just that: Jesus has left commands for His followers. But the crucial thing is this, and we must be absolutely clear about it: obedience in the Christian life as followers of Jesus Christ is not motivated by a Christianized version of the Law. NO! We are motivated to obey Christ because He loves us, and we love Him.

Obedience flows out of love. In the Greek language of John 14:15, the verb tense is future-active, and it is not the imperative tense. Jesus is not saying, “If you love me, then you must keep my commandments.” To be precise, He is not commanding His disciples to keep His commands. He is saying, “If you love me, you will, in fact, keep my commandments.” The most natural thing for Christians who love the Lord is to do what He says. Why would we not want to do that? To say we love Christ and not want to do what He commands puts the lie to our statement that we love Him. It’s all about the motivation!

This is like grace. Because we have been redeemed and converted, we have become new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17); salvation is free and not merited. If someone says, “Then can you go out and kill someone if you are completely forgiven?” Yes, from a theological perspective, murder will not keep a genuine believer out of heaven. But, then, what is the motivation for not murdering someone? Certainly, it cannot be the fear of losing our salvation, incurring God’s terrible wrath! The apostle John wrote, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Fear of condemnation is a poor motivator for doing good. And we extend this to say that fear is also a poor motivator for keeping Jesus’ commandments.

That is the difference between living our Christian lives legalistically versus living in His grace. The person who understands the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will want to submit to His authority. Anything else is destined to fall short of the grace of God. We are free in Christ, as Paul clearly teaches (see Gal. 5:1). But the heart that is set free in the love and grace of Christ will keep returning to His loving authority and commands.

Even in the OT, we see Joshua’s instructions to the Israelites, where he emphasized that keeping the Law of Moses presupposes that love for God comes before obedience (Josh. 22:5).

So yes, we are to keep Jesus’ commandments, but not out of a submission to authority in and of itself, for fear of God’s judgment on us. No, we are to keep His commands because of our love relationship with Him. There is an eternal difference in motivation. And this extends to all the NT teachings about life and godliness, doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. To try to teach, exhort, reprove, and train those who don’t love the Lord Jesus with their hearts, souls, minds, and strength is like talking to deaf people. But for people who love the Lord, there is a ready acceptance of good, sound teaching of doctrinal truth, for they love the One who gives the commands.