Headed to the airport at 4:00 a.m. Destination Phoenix. Here’s Wednesday’s post early, a gem from Keller on why neither religion nor irreligion will transform our hearts into loving ones:
“For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly dwait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus eneither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but fonly faith working through love.”
“….neither religion nor irreligion count toward inner character change and a heart
of real love. Verse 6b says that faith literally energizes love. Neither religious moralism
nor licentious irreligion can do this because both are essentially selfish and insecure.
Selfishness and insecurity cannot produce love, which is self-donation. The faith Paul
says produces love is that which was just described in v.5. It is the faith that reflects
upon the certainty of our righteousness and welcome with the Father. If we do that,
Paul tells us that two things will happen:
a) Negatively, the ups and downs, good performance and bad performance will now
neither puff us up nor cast us down (“neither circumcision nor uncircumcision have any
value”) because our standing in Christ is not effected by either.
b) Positively, this eagerly-awaiting faith of v.5 now will naturally produce a great deal of
love (“faith expressing itself in love”). If we are reminding ourselves and living in light of
this hope, we will have a heart sloshing over with love. Put another way, if we find our
love running dry or cold, we are not by faith looking at our hope.
So vv.5-6 could be paraphrased: “Gospel faith produces a certainty that we are holy and
beautiful. The more conscious we are of this certainty, the less we will be subject to
ups and downs and the more we will find our hearts melted with love.”
