“If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22).
In this letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul has pointed out many of their violations of God’s will, emphasizing they need to correct their sins if they are to please God. In this verse, near the conclusion of this great letter, he adds the point about the necessity of loving Jesus if they are to avoid being a recipient of God’s wrath.
Without a doubt, he is tying together the ideas of love and obedience as he attempts to stimulate these followers of Jesus to take special care in regard to keeping His commandments if they are sincere in their profession.
This verse is actually a companion to last week’s Thought (1 John 2:15) in which the Apostle John teaches that we are not to love the world nor the things in the world. Paul here places an intensified spin on the idea of love and our connection with divinity: one who fails to love Jesus is condemned.
Jesus Himself, like Paul, clearly attaches the idea of love with keeping His commandments, not just those taught in this epistle but those in all of the New Testament, when He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…” (John 14:23).
The message of both Paul and Jesus rings down to us today: if we expect God to take us seriously when we claim to love Jesus, we must follow His teachings.
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