#35 We have no other choice

From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich

We have no other choice here: either we must find Christ through His Spirit incarnately (essentially) in us, that He teach us all things and guide us into all truth, to not only know but also do the will of God (II Corinthians 13), or we are unqualified and reject Christ as the Truth and the Life. He must be so near to us that we need not run hither and yon in uncertainty and perplexity (Romans 10) or we are never secure from deception and temptation if we have to depend upon other men.

It is indeed good that we still have the written word or we could no longer find Christ at all. Yet, even with the written word, we nowadays must needs be called heretics and seducers if we cling faithfully to the truth. And, in this world, men can indeed set the written and the preached Word of God aside so that they need not endure His eyes which search the very bottom of their hearts, but how confounded and ashamed will they be in their nakedness when the Lord Himself appears again, Whose eyes are like flames of fire and before Whom they must stand and receive their sentence, for (II Timothy 2:19):

... the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

However, if we are free from all unrighteousness, nothing else than righteousness remains and if we know that He is righteous, we then know that everyone who does righteousness is born of Him. In the New Testament, the heart and mind of man is the ark of the covenant, where the living law is laid down and preserved.