#32 Christ has not left us alone

From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich

Third John verse 11

Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.

The object of this short letter is to hold up before us, as in a mirror, good and evil; how we should do and love the former and seek after and cling to it but abhor and eschew the latter. (Romans 12 verse 9).

Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

The former is for us to imitate; the latter for us to eschew, and to both can no one hold. For as he that is of God must, according to his nature, do the good he sees and hears of the Father, thus is he that does evil of his father also, the wicked one. And as in doing good or in keeping the commandments of God lies our life, thus our death in doing evil or in transgressing the commandments.

And what was not fulfilled in the Old Testament must now be in the New, after Christ came to abolish and take away the death of Adam for all who believe and to give His life for the purpose, so that there is nothing any more that hinders us from doing the will of God—with joy and pleasure, not with indifference and vexation, though we do have continually to fight against flesh and blood that we not let it have its way, but through the Spirit of power and love gain the victory over every temptation of evil. Christ has not left us alone as orphans in the world but has given us an Associate of great might through Whom we are able to do all things if we but keep ourselves at His side.

The man of the flesh, in whom death still reigns, has no conception of what it is once death has been cleared away and life has been brought by Christ, as little as we have even a conjecture of the situation in which human beings were naked without being ashamed, inasmuch as sin was not in them.

Even weakness is not a hindrance to a holy life and walk and cannot excuse us for doing not the good but the evil. Our weakness, rather, if we pray in every concern, will reveal and glorify itself in God’s strength. The false philosophy of the world teaches the people that they need only have confidence in themselves to succeed but the gospel teaches us the opposite: to distrust ourselves and put all our trust in God.

Nor will wishing to cover continual sinning with Romans 7 verse 25 be of any help to false believers.

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

As if the same person could, and must, in part serve the law of God and in part the law of sin, despite the fact that Paul says this of his unconverted state under the law, before he had come to the knowledge of Christ. This one thing is certain: we are servants and do the will of him whose children we are, of him through whom we are descended.