Can Believing mean NOT Doing?
"John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Believing means what? Few verses later...
"John 3:20-21 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who DOES THE TRUTH comes to the LIGHT, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Those who hate the light do not come to the light. But those that love the light DO THE TRUTH because they came to the light that the loved.
All so often, we produce empty faith. People are left knowing in the back of their minds that they are missing something more in the faith, but failing to realize a closeness to God has been restricted from them because of doctrines of men.
Here is the cornerstone of Biblical interpretation, the BIBLE DEFINES ITSELF.
"John 3:20-21 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who DOES THE TRUTH comes to the LIGHT, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
What is truth?
And Your law is truth. (Psalm 119:142)
What is the light?
For the commandment is a lamp, And the law a light; (Prov 6:23)
Can we redefine these terms outside of Scripture? Is that what John intended? Did John throw away the Biblical definitions of "light" and "truth" and leave it up to us to pretend that the Law of God as it was already written and being practiced is now no longer defined as such? Is that even logical?
Believing is loving the law (Word, and our Lord is the Word made flesh)
Believing is hating sin (breaking God's law)
Evidence of loving the law is doing the law
Evidence of hating sin is not sinning
Can one say they believe in the Word and not DO the Word? That would be the definition of a walking oxymoron.
What we do is the evidence of what we believe. If one does not DO the Word then they DO NOT believe the Word to be truth. Our actions define for others our inward beliefs.
The same that love the law of God are the same that hate sin, for sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4).
Can we also redefine the Word of God?
When you love the Way, Truth, Life, Light, and Liberty, you love both our Savior (Jesus/Yeshua) and the Law of God, because they are the same thing and can NOT be seperated.
Loving Jesus = Loving God's law (Jesus = Word made flesh: John 1)
Hating sin = Loving God's law (1 John 3:4)
Loving God = Doing God's law (1 John 5:2-3)
Not only did Christ die on the cross as a manifestation of God's grace to us (His love for us), but Christ taught us how to love by modeling the law of God, as EVERY (not just some) commandment of God hangs off of loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:40). Walking as Jesus walked means walking the same instructions that Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). This is why ALL Scripture is instructions in righteousness (not just some of it)(1 Timothy 3:16).
From a Biblical standpoint, believers are to do what they believe and believe what they do. We are called to believe the Word of God as truth, not to believe that the Word of God is now false and abolished. God and Jesus are the same Word that the Bible declares is the Word, and we either accept our faith in God (the Word) as truth or not. We can not pretend that some of the Word is no longer the Word of God. We can not pick and choose and say this applies and this does not apply. If God is the Word, then how can we say that only SOME OF GOD is TRUE. That makes no sense. He is either the Word or He is not.
Our faith saves us because we can never DO anything to save ourselves. That is what grace means, unmerited favor. At the same time, our faith is in the Word and Word made flesh. Can we have faith in a Word that we refuse nor want to do? What faith is that? Faith means we believe that the Word true and commit to it as truth. In our faith can we continue to do things CONTRARY to the truth? What faith is that?
It is time to throw away the false teachings and doctrines of men that have not taken both steps out of the Catholicism that birthed this faulting interpretive paradigm. So many seem just fine with taking one step out of Rome and into the Bible, but why stop short of believing and doing the whole Bible? Why should we just have partial faith? It is time to love God and teach others how to love God, because He first loved us. It is time to return to what the Bible calls truth and what men have abandoned. Men call freedom bondage and bondage freedom because they let their flesh speak out of their lips and command their pen. The law is spiritual (Romans 7:21) and it is time to be spiritual and be led by the spirit (Ez. 36:26-27). Being led by the Spirit (going after God's truth) means that we are no longer under the law of sin and death (after the flesh)(Galatians 5:18).
It is time to come out of the darkness and bondage and experience the full blessings and rewards of living His way, truth, life, light and freedom. God says we love it and it is easy and not too remote. Take Him up on that and see what happens.
We pretend that Jesus as the Word of God does not include the Law of God, that suddenly the definition changed, even though God's Word is silent on such a belief. If we are to follow Jesus then we are to follow the Word of God. It does not get any simpler than this. Making things complicated is a symptom of trying to explain things away that should not be abolished in the first place.