Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | 1 John 2:3 ¶ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 John 2:3 ¶ And this is how we know [daily, by experience] that we have come to know Him [to understand Him and be more deeply acquainted with Him]: if we habitually keep [focused on His precepts and obey] His commandments (teachings). |
Bible Question:
To abide means to stay or remain. So to abide in Christ is to remain or stay in Him. The next logical question would be how do we get "in Him". We get in Him 1 Corinthians 1:30 (Weymouth NT) But you — and it is all God’s doing — are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance; If I have this right then God is the one who placed me in Christ and if I remain or stay in Him (by choice) I should walk as He walked. According to the Gospels He walked uprightly following the LORD's commands all His commands. Neither turning to the right or the left. It seems to me that this is how we should walk to walk as He walked. Does that make any sense? |
Bible Answer: Hi Asis, First we need to understand what it means to abide in Christ. --"What does it mean to "abide" in Christ? Answer: Jesus defined "Abiding in Christ" when He likened Himself to a grapevine and believers to its branches: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me" (John 15:4). That picture illustrates the vital union existing between Christians and Jesus Christ. The word "abide" basically means "to remain." Every Christian remains inseparably linked to Christ in all areas of life. We depend on Him for grace and power to obey. We look obediently to His Word for instruction on how to live. We offer Him our deepest adoration and praise and we submit ourselves to His authority over our lives. In short, Christians gratefully know Jesus Christ is the source and sustainer of their lives. Abiding in Christ evidences genuine salvation. The Apostle John alluded to that when he referred to defected professors who "went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). People with genuine faith will remain--they won't defect; they won't deny Christ or abandon His truth. Jesus reiterated the importance of abiding as a sign of real faith when He said, "If you abide in My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine" (John 8:31)."-- John Macarthur, http://www.gty.org/Resources/Questions/QA161 Jesus fulfilled not only the moral law but also the ceremonial law. As Christians we are commanded to obey the moral law as this is part of God's unchanging character, but the ceremonial law was part of the Old Covenant, that has been fulfilled and done away with by the work of Christ. Because we are now under the New Covenant we are no longer under obligation to keep the Old Covenant, particularly the sign of the Old Covenant. The writer to the Hebrews remarked, "When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear" (Heb. 8:13). The Apostle Paul rebuked the Galatians for attempting to add the observance of days to the sufficiency of Christ’s work for salvation or sanctification (Gal. 4:9-11). This shows us that a new order had been erected with the resurrection of Christ (Jn. 20:1, 19). Moreover, note that there was no ceremonial law pryer to when it was given specifically to the nation Israel. Many believers in the coming Christ for redemption of sin and salvation were not required to obey such laws because they simply did not exist. They were justified as we are justified by faith and faith alone, and not by works, especially works of the ceremonial law, e.g. diet restrictions, feast days, etc. The Apostle Paul soundly rebuked the Galatians for there desire to go back to the Old Covenant system, and also said to the Corinthians to: "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." 1 Cor 11:1, and Paul sure didn't follow the Old Covenant system of ceremonial law. I pray that helped John |