LOVE AND SALVATION

Fr. John De Celles has a nice article on Catholic Exchange today regarding God's love for us as revealed in the Holy Trinity. A passage that stands out to me is the one I pasted below. I don't know how many times I've been asked "Are you saved?" by a well-meaning Evangelical, and I want to ask them back "Are you living so as to warrant the reward of Heaven?"

On the occassion that I have asked this, I get the scripted treatise on "works", but that is not what I mean. What I mean is 'are you in love with God enough to submit yourself to His love for you? By obeying His laws? By demonstrating that you are indeed living by faith?'

Those words, submit and obey, cause much discomfort for humans, especially Americans. But submitting to and obeying a loving sovereign Father is nothing short of loving Him right back. That is all He really asks of us. And the reward for doing so is eternal life. A pretty good deal if you ask me.

And so He came to us in the world, in love, and revealed Himself as love: as a communion of love, Father and Son, and Holy Spirit. And that love does not seek condemnation, but salvation: to restore us to receiving and returning God’s love, a love that is as eternal and limitless as the life of God Himself, the love that is the essence of "eternal life."

But does all this mean that salvation, or eternal life, is automatic — that God loves us so much we cannot be condemned to live without it? Some would like to think so. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do whatever we want, and still have heaven? Is this what John means when tells us: "Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned"? Some very devout and holy Christians argue that this exactly what it means: all we need to do is believe in Jesus, and we are saved.

However, to believe in Jesus ("the name of the only Son of God") also includes believing in what He actually told us. And what He told us, as St. John also reports, is: "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (Jn 14:15; cf. 2 Jn 6: "this is love, that we follow His commandments").