Keeping the Ten Commandments is legalitic?
“If you love me you will keep my commandments.”
No, but presuming to establish the metrics by how well another keeps the commandments and judging another by one’s own standard of “commandment keeping” can lead to Christ saying to one’s conscience..” How can you presume to tell your neighbor to get the slivers out of his eye when you haven’t taken the logs out your own eye?”
We can’t even keep the commandments on our own or have the perfect wisdom to know when such would apply or other such not apply without the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts! Yet I’ll give you a clue......it has to do with Love and grace!
Yes HELLOOOOOOOOO! I’ve seen no mention of the active work of the Holy Spirit who “writes God’s laws in our hearts” in this discussion thus far.
He’s writing them in our hearts and in our minds; no other way we can do it. I’ve never heard of the Hoggard guy; but I’ll take grace any day.- We may be thinking we’ve got it all figured out and that we’re not so bad after all; but in reality all our righteousness is as filthy rags before Him.
That can be legalistic.
What Jesus is saying is that if you love him, the natural outworking of that will be the keeping of His commandments.
There's a difference between that and thinking that keeping the commandments necessarily means you love Him. One can keep His commandments and not love Jesus, just like Paul did. He was blameless as to the Law and yet violently persecuted the church to try to destroy it.