Interesting OP, but I understand it differently.
1 John 4
20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
So, my understanding of Christ’s answer to which is the greatest law, was to love God with all you heart soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
If your attitude is:“ I’m going to volunteer at a food shelf. Then I earned heaven” then the person does good works to get a spiritual paycheck. That’s works based salvation. You will not be working there bc you want to help people and have empathy. You will do it with the end goal in mind, you. You will expect these people you are helping to give you respect and thank you, because you are sacrificing good hoop time. You love how your dates swoon when you tell them about your selfless acts of kindness. It’s all about you, or you will do the work like a chore, and thinking God owes you heaven.
On the other hand, quoting that are best works are but filthy rags, a believer may try to justify doing nothing. He is already saved. And no matter how noble an act, it is a filthy rag, so why bother? As a result, he sees a homeless person, and tells them to get a job. He sees someone with cancer, and says, “that’s what you get for smoking.” And each time he treated others this way, he treated Christ this way. My theory is that we are not separated from God, but God is expressed in each one of us. Buddhists say, “Namaste” I bow to God within you.
If we, as Christians, were to treat everyone we interacted with as if we were talking to Christ, how differently we would treat one another.
But one cannot claim to love God but hate his brother. So, they won’t know God, because they did not love.
Inbetween is the answer.
I had a mystical experience once where God spoke. The understanding he made clear was: We do good, he loves us. We do bad, he loves us. He loves us regardless of our sins, because his love is unconditional. He then showed me that sll these years, he had been offering his love. Out of shame, guilt, family upbringing, I believed myself unworthy, so never accepted it. He asked simply one thing: to accept his love. Then, it was my choice of what to do after that.
Really experiencing God’s love,I wanted to show unconditional love to others. Feeling forgiven, I forgave others as a way of saying thank you.
And the random acts of kindness were fruit of the tree. And they become so second nature, that you don’t think of yourself as earning Heaven Points, of deserving Heaven or Good fortune on earth, If love is in your heart, you will help those in need, and the acts of kindness change your heart.
One poster, claiming I was willfully disobeying God, wanted to know how I was going to respond to God when he said, “why do you deserve the Kingdom?”
I said. I don’t, Lord” and smile. I am allowed in through grace. He does not want us to love and serve others out of obligation, what’s in it for you, or with ulterior motive.
Rather. It becomes something that is common to your behavior so as you don’t even think much about it.
But the works with be the fruit of the love.
Now, I differ who he is referring to. At time he told the story, the Pharisees, teachers of the Law, hated Christ, because he undermined their authority. Simon, being judgemrntal of both the woman washing Christ’s feet and judging Christ for allowing her pressence, made Simon admit he showed less love than she.
What he was referring to,then were the Pharisees, who made a show of their religion to other people. Rather than love, they showed no mercy, and looked upon others in condemnation. They strained a gnat (focused on minor laws, burdening people rather than edifying) and swallowed a camel (ignored love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy) granted to them by God.
The Pharisee would say, “Didn’t I learn, and preach the Scriptures?” And yet, Jesus constantly rebuked them for their lack of understand, their priorities, the hardness of their hearts.
So, I would imagine that Christians that lack love, focus on the sins of others, but ignore or forgive their own, quite possibly, do not know Christ.
It makes you think. Take modern conservative Christianity. One would think the message of the Gospel is “stop sinning”, and “Don’t be gay.” Homosexuality and abortion are talked about a lot.
If one doesn’t have same-sex attraction, no one is going to grill you on whether a boyfriend/girlfriend are having sex. No one is going to check your phone/computer history to see if you watch porn.
The focus is on other people, who aren’t allowed. in the church, and so, easy targets. They are slandered, and not there to defend themselves. And the justify the mistreatment of these targets by dehumanizing them, telling people they are a threat, and misusing the bible.
And only the HS can move their heart enough to show that they neither serve nor know God, and often, work directly against him, because if you try, your words fall on deaf ears, as they believe their beliefs to be that of God, and all others are hellbound.
In a way, they have made themselves God, demanding others follow, even sitting at God’s right hand in Judgement if not on the throne itself.
.. because you wrote earlier,
