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Before reading on, make sure you've read 1 John 5:1-5.
4. Love of God is to keep his commands, which are not burdensome.
This phrase 'love of God' is what grammarians call an objective genitive. It is talking about our love for God, love that has God as its object, not about God's love for us, love that God has as the subject. So then we can see that John is expanding on his last thought to say that love for God and obeying his commandments are one and the same thing. This statement mirrors what Jesus says during the last supper, (John 14:15) "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
In human relationships we can and very often need to say to someone, "I love you, but I'm not going to do as you counsel or even command me to do." But this is never so with God. Since God is who he is, All-powerful, All-knowing, All-loving, because God is love, to say we love him but not to do as he says makes no sense. All that he commands you must necessarily be good and wise and ultimately to your benefit. The only possible reason for not obeying him is downright rejection of him.
How can John say that God's commands are not burdensome? I mean, most of us think that God's commands are hard; they are a heavy load to carry, impossibly difficult to obey. This is many a non-Christian's primary reason for rejecting Christianity. Yet those of you who are more theologically astute will quote to me from Rom 7, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out... So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members." How can he say God's commands are not burdensome?
Jesus: "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and you will find rest for your souls." Christ's commands are a yoke indeed, there is no denying it. But Christ seems to say that if you put it on, if you truly set your hand to the plow, you will find that it is easy, that the burden of his commands are light, and rest will flood into your soul, the likes of which you have never known before. The problem is that we all too often stop in Romans 7 and fail to go on to Romans 8 where Paul says, 8:1-4, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." John understands here that those who are born of God, are given the familial love for God and his children, and that therefore God's commands are no longer burdensome, but are instead, now, the delight of our hearts.
This phrase 'love of God' is what grammarians call an objective genitive. It is talking about our love for God, love that has God as its object, not about God's love for us, love that God has as the subject. So then we can see that John is expanding on his last thought to say that love for God and obeying his commandments are one and the same thing. This statement mirrors what Jesus says during the last supper, (John 14:15) "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
In human relationships we can and very often need to say to someone, "I love you, but I'm not going to do as you counsel or even command me to do." But this is never so with God. Since God is who he is, All-powerful, All-knowing, All-loving, because God is love, to say we love him but not to do as he says makes no sense. All that he commands you must necessarily be good and wise and ultimately to your benefit. The only possible reason for not obeying him is downright rejection of him.
How can John say that God's commands are not burdensome? I mean, most of us think that God's commands are hard; they are a heavy load to carry, impossibly difficult to obey. This is many a non-Christian's primary reason for rejecting Christianity. Yet those of you who are more theologically astute will quote to me from Rom 7, "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin... For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out... So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members." How can he say God's commands are not burdensome?
Jesus: "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and you will find rest for your souls." Christ's commands are a yoke indeed, there is no denying it. But Christ seems to say that if you put it on, if you truly set your hand to the plow, you will find that it is easy, that the burden of his commands are light, and rest will flood into your soul, the likes of which you have never known before. The problem is that we all too often stop in Romans 7 and fail to go on to Romans 8 where Paul says, 8:1-4, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." John understands here that those who are born of God, are given the familial love for God and his children, and that therefore God's commands are no longer burdensome, but are instead, now, the delight of our hearts.
I think it's very instructive to bring 4:19 into our understanding of what John's saying here, because John tells us there, "We love because he first loved us." If we combine that with this verse here we understand that, "We obey his commands out of love for him, which we have only because he first loved us." Obedience is the joyful response of love to a God who took the initiative in loving us. We do not obey as a prerequisite to being loved by God. We obey because we love him, because he first loved us.
So, how does this help us know that we have eternal life? Well, if we know that love for God fuels our obedience, making his commands no longer burdensome, but the very joy of our hearts, then all we need to ask ourselves to assure our hearts of eternal life is, "Do we truly keep God's commands in the burden-less joy of love for him?"
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