June 24, 2018 Keep the Commandments of Jesus

The Law Cannot Give Eternal Life

Jesus wants us to receive grace, receive Holy Spirit, love God with all our heart and soul and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Those who are indifferent to these things and who think they can live their own conscience are still subject to the Law. To give up your life for what you consider to be righteous because you followed your conscience is to kill yourself, it is spiritual suicide. Let us live under the law of life, not according to conscience. Let us love God and love our neighbors with the help of the Holy Spirit and fulfill the intent of God’s law.

God gave life to man through His words. That is why the Word of God is called the word of life. God gave the His words to man as commandments. Those who have the will to live can accept the commandments. Therefore, it is difficult for those who are not interested in eternal life and who just want to gain peace of mind to accept the word of life.

God the Father testified of Jesus, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” But when He stood before the Law with the sins of all mankind, death came even to Jesus. The role of the Law is not to save man, but to reveal his sin and to judge him, even if the man is the Son of God.

God commanded Adam, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:17) But Adam disobeyed and in the course of time he came to know good and evil, and as a result he was destined to go to hell. The role of the Law that God gave to Israel was to teach them to distinguish that which is good from that which is evil. The conscience plays the role of the Law for the Gentiles. People try to obey the Law and their conscience in order to gain eternal life, but contrary to their expectations, the end result is spiritual death.

Jesus Christ Fully Satisfied the Requirements of the Law

Why then did God give the Law or conscience to man? Even before the condemnation of the Law or conscience, man was destined to perish because of Adam’s sin. The problem was that people did not know it. Just because people don’t know that they are sinners, that doesn’t mean that the penalty for sin, that is, spiritual death, will not happen to them. Men are sinners from birth, and the wages of sin is death. Spiritual death does not escape a sinner just because he doesn’t know he’s a sinner. If you want to avoid spiritual death, you must first recognize that you are sinner.

That is the role of the Law and of conscience. They convict men of sin. Those who generally try to obey the Law or their conscience are considered righteous, but those who try to obey the Law perfectly quickly discover that they are sinners. Galatians 3:10 says that all who rely on the works of the Law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the Book of the Law, to do them.’ It is the devil who has the power of death and who is the legitimate ruler of the universe. It is also the devil that condemns man with the Law, and ultimately tries to drag men to hell.

The Son of God brought the life of God into a world ruled by the devil. There is a world of difference between those who have God’s life and those who do not. One evidence is that, by faith, we can cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. Another difference is that those who have God’s life will be resurrected and live eternally when Jesus comes back to the world again. However, those who don’t have God’s life and die as unbelievers become demons, and in the end will go to hell.

As far as the Law and conscience are concerned we are already dead. So why was Jesus crucified? In order to fulfill the requirements of the Law. Jesus Christ satisfied the requirements of the Law. The Law can no longer demand anything from Jesus Christ. He was already killed by the Law and resurrected by God. We have been united with God in baptism. Therefore, there is nothing that the Law or conscience can demand of us.

The Essence of the Law is to Love God and to Love Your Neighbor

If those who have been united with Jesus Christ in baptism later return and subject themselves again to the Law and to conscience, They deny the sufficiency of Jesus’ finished work on the cross, who was crucified for our sins. What does Jesus Christ want for us? God wants us to cherish the Life that God gave us and to share it with the world. It is the natural by-product of those who have the life of God.

The Law consists of various provisions and the core of them are the Ten Commandments. The first four Commandments relate to God and they are: ‘You shall not have no other gods before Me, You shall not bow down to them or worship them, You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, and do not forget to sanctify the Sabbath day and keep it holy.’ The fifth through the tenth commandments relate to how one should that his neighbor. They are: ‘You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor, You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s.’

Israel believed that it was their duty to obey the Lord’s commandments, but they couldn’t understand the heart of God or what He wanted them to know. One of Pharisees tested Jesus with the question, “Teacher which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Then Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’”. This is what God wanted Israel to do so.

There are many words for love in the Greek language, including ‘agapi’ and ‘phileo.’ Agapi love refers to unconditional love such as the parents’ love for their child. Parents love their own children unconditionally. Even if parents have ten children, they love all ten children. In contrast, phileo love is like a child’s love for his father, it is reserved for one special person. It is not a general love that is directed at multiple people or objects. Phileo love is a special affection that is directed at a specific individual. In other words, this is the kind of love that is reserved for God alone. We should not love anything or anybody else with the same love with which we love God. God wants us to love Him with phileo love.

The resurrected Jesus appeared to Peter by the Sea of Tiberias when Peter was fishing and asked him three times “do you love me?” In the Greek text, the first two times Jesus asked Peter ‘do you love me’ the word used for love is agapi, but the last time Jesus asked Peter he used the word phileo. All three times Peter answered that he loves Jesus, he used the word for phileo love. Peter confessed that the love he had for Jesus was reserved for Him alone.

At that time the Pharisees and the Sadducees were proud because they obeyed the Ten commandments to the letter, but Jesus could find neither any love for God, nor any love for their neighbor in them. Jesus reinforced the law to those who believed that they were already righteous and showed them that no one, not even the Pharisees and the Sadducees could avoid the condemnation of the Law.

Let us Fulfill the Intent of the Law by the Holy Spirit

The Law can never save the sinner. The Law is rather the law of sin and death for the sinner. Even though the Law emphasizes that you should love God and your neighbors, you cannot satisfy the requirements of the Law by your own strength. That is why Jesus sacrificed Himself for us and sent us the Holy Spirit, so that we could be under the law of life.

If you have received the grace of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, you should love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself without the need for the Law to tell you to do it. Those under the Law strive to obey the Law out of fear of punishment and curses. Those who are under grace endeavor to love God and their neighbor with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The first of our neighbors we should love is the church. How much does a man love his own body? You do not mind spending your money on expensive food and clothes so that you look good and feel good. Do you love your church with that kind of love? When you come to God with an offering, is your offering greater than or less than what you spend on food and personal items such as clothes, jewelry or cosmetics? If you know that you are part of the church body, you will be involved in whatever work the church is doing as if it is your own.

Those who are not yet under the law of life are our neighbors whom we should love. They still rely on the Law or their conscience because they do not know or understand what Jesus Christ has done for us. They will be condemned by the Law or by conscience and go to the place of punishment prepared for the devil. So we must persuade them to receive grace and the Holy Spirit. Jesus kept all the commandments in the Law, now we must keep the new commandments. If the prospect of keeping the Ten commandments made you fear, then the new commandment that the Jesus gave should make you much more afraid.

God is the father of life. There are many gods in the world, but there is only one who can give us eternal life. We call Him “God”. God formed man from the dust of the earth and gave him a spirit. Unlike the other creatures, God specifically created man as a spiritual being so that man could receive God’s life.

‘Day and night, tears are filled in my eyes and I eagerly await for my Lord to come to me. When He comes again to me, I will gasp with joy, O Lord! When will you come to me?’

For these 60 years, I have only been waiting eagerly for the Lord to come to me. He took away all my faults and shed His blood on the cross. I live because of the grace that the Lord has given me, which has made me righteous. Not matter how vicious the enemy is, I know that he cannot overcome the truth. The heart of Semuon, like charcoal, has been burnt up dark and black, but my soul has been trained and tested, and like gold, it is all the more blessed. What your servant only wants, O Lord, is that you would make him sleep back in your bosom. Therefore, I am always before you – O Lord – you who have saved my soul. There are those who, night and day, are endlessly planning together on how to separate me from You. But just who could ever cut off the cords of grace that connects me from my Lord?

I, Semuon, am now not afraid of the world. For the past half century, I have endured and have overcome. And neither do I love the world. I only love those whom you have given in this world. So that not one of them would be lost, I am vigorously praying and loving their souls. I only ask, day and night, that they would be fed better pasture and fed cleaner water. I only breathe through the Holy Spirit, whom You have given me. The Lord has commanded me to fully experience all the great gifts that He has given me on this earth, and I am doing just that. Lord, make my soul full of the gifts of the Holy Spirit!

Even though I would rather leave this world as soon as possible, if you, Lord, do not allow this, then I will endure just the same. But the thing that is just so painful to your servant is that the ones who called Semuon their teacher, their father and their friends, are now as enemies, and they are slandering Semuon and abusing him. But if, by receiving slanders, your servant will receive blessings, I will by all means endure them. And if by my death, they would in turn receive blessings, then I will do this do as well. Sungrak Church is my legal home, it is my current address, and it is my place of work. And finally, it will be my tomb.

Lord! I have even gone to the lawcourts of those who sentence criminals. At that time, there were many of our saints who came to comfort me. In my lifetime, I would never have thought that I would have to go through these things, but I know that even this is the burden that I must bear. I am glad because I am not ashamed. No matter what anyone says, I am grateful. Although my body has much difficulty to endure all this, so long as you, Lord, will give me strength, then I will endure this.

Even though the life of your servant has been a life of constant toil and hardship, I know that this is the command that you have given me, and I obey it. I pray that the church would one day sooner be restored to peace. Semuon, only has you, O Lord, to rely on. And I bow before your name, and on this night, I pray to you. I pray that you would bless the saints who love the Church as the Body of the Lord. I pray that you would bless the souls of all these people. Amen.

Coming Soon

Outline translated by Daniel Hong, John Kim
Letter translated by John Kim
Interpretations by Daniel Hong
Korean Summary by Ki-Taek Lee