I will say since we deal with the “purgatory posse” here on FR daily, we sometimes take sermons as this one as promoting a works based or works mixed salvation.
I never got that impression from JMac’s sermons both Part 1 and Part 2.
I will note we all quote Paul’s epistles quite often on the RF because of the audience we debate. If we examine the epistles of John, we see quite penetrating language on “if” and “then.” Like “if you love Him, then you will obey Him.”
I read and study John’s epistles often. I don’t think he preached a faith+works salvation either. I think those epistles with Peter’s and James epistles are important to examine our walk with Jesus Christ. It is a marriage after all. We who are married love our spouse and we prove it too by our actions.
I think the *if-then* is sometimes misinterpreted.
In particular where is says, *If you love me, you will obey my commandments*.
That can be taken two ways.
One that leads to adding works to belief, thinking that that makes it faith that saves. So we try to go about working, working, working, thinking that we are obeying Him thus proving that we love Him. Obeying Him then becomes a burden. OK, Lord. I love you therefore I have to obey you. *sigh*
The other way of looking at it is as a cause and effect thing.
If you love God, the natural outworking of that will be obedience. IOW, if you love Him, you WILL obey His commandments without trying. Not to worry. It’ll happen.
I hope that makes sense.
I had a thought of how to explain that better but it slipped my mind and I just cannot remember what I was going to say. When it comes back, I’ll try again.
We all quote from Paul’s epistles so often because he is the Apostle of the Gentiles, and the forming of the Body of Christ was given to him, not Peter and the 11. We quote from Paul because we live in the dispensation of the grace of God. John, Peter, James all belong to the gospel of the kingdom, dealing with Israel, the tribulation, and the Kingdom that is to be established when Christ the Messiah returns. That is why James (faith and works) is trotted out so often to refute Paul’s gospel of the grace of God (faith alone). They are not the same. One is for a kingdom of believers. The other is for a body of believers.