1 John 5:3 Commentary

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1 John 5:3

Comments

This is how we express our love to God: we do not love God by doing anything to benefit him personally, but by keeping his commandments. Love seeks to please, and the Lord has made known what pleases him above all. Not only so, but obedience safeguards us by setting limits on right conduct and warning us where danger lies. The child of God does not see God’s commandments as burdensome as he once did. Of course they never were burdensome, but they appeared so to the unbeliever. Before conversion we obeyed out of fear, and the commandment was enforced only with threats. Our native rebelliousness coupled with the uncompromising compulsion of the law of God made this position extremely burdensome or grievous to us; we resented his authority over us. But when Christ came to us and showed us that he had fulfilled the law for us, that he had taken the punishment for all our failure, that he loved us in spite of our sin, and adopted us as his children, the commandment was no longer grievous to us because it was mixed with so much grace; we found his yoke easy and his burden light.

Application

The commandments are still the same, but now they are seen in an entirely different light because of the change in our relationship with the lawgiver. Now we are able to obey not just in letter but in spirit and from the heart, and we know that the law is holy, and just, and good.

Questions

Doesn’t the believer still find the commandments grievous at times? Yes, because the old nature still remains in him and rises up to cause resentment. Paul describes the complex experience of the believer in which he wills to do what is right according to the law but ends up doing the opposite (Romans 7:14-25). Sin deceives him and makes him do what he does not intend to do. It is therefore no longer the man himself that does evil but sin working in him; Scripture gives us warrant to see it this way. At such times the old nature finds the commandments grievous, but the new nature rejoices in them and prevails over the old, putting it to death.

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1 John 5:3 Commentary and Bible Study