Book of Common Prayer

Only real faith in Christ as God’s son can make a man confident, obedient and loving

5 Everyone who really believes that Jesus is the Christ proves himself one of God’s family. The man who loves the Father cannot help loving the Father’s own Son.

^2-5 The test of the genuineness of our love for God’s family lies in this question—do we love God himself and do we obey his commands? For loving God means obeying his commands, and these commands of his are not burdensome, for God’s “heredity” within us will always conquer the world outside us. In fact, this faith of ours is the only way in which the world has been conquered. For who could ever be said to conquer the world, in the true sense, except the man who really believes that Jesus is God’s Son?

^6-12 Jesus Christ himself is the one who came by water and by blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. The Spirit bears witness to this, for the Spirit is the truth. The witness therefore is a triple one—the Spirit in our own hearts, the signs of the water of baptism and the blood of atonement—and they all say the same thing. If we are prepared to accept human testimony, God’s own testimony concerning his own Son is surely infinitely more valuable. The man who really believes in the Son of God will find God’s testimony in his own heart. The man who will not believe God is making him out to be a liar, because he is deliberately refusing to accept the testimony that God has given concerning his own Son. This is, that God has given men eternal life and this real life is to be found only in his Son. It follows naturally that any man who has genuine contact with Christ has this life; and if he has not, then he does not possess this life at all.

^16-19 “But how can I show what the people of this generation are like? They are like children sitting in the market-place calling out to their friends, ‘We played at weddings for you but you wouldn’t dance, and we played at funerals and you wouldn’t cry!’ For John came in the strictest austerity and people say, ‘He’s crazy!’ Then the Son of Man came, enjoying life, and people say, ‘Look, a drunkard and a glutton—the bosom-friend of the tax-collector and the sinner.’ Ah, well, wisdom stands or falls by her own actions.”

Jesus denounces apathy—and thanks God that simple men understand his message

²⁰ Then Jesus began reproaching the towns where most of his miracles had taken place because their hearts were unchanged.

^21-22 “Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! For if Tyre and Sidon had seen the demonstrations of God’s power which you have seen they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Yet I tell you this, that it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

^23-24 “And as for you, Capernaum, are you on your way up to Heaven? I tell you will go hurtling down among the dead! If Sodom had seen the miracles that you have seen, Sodom would be standing today. Yet I tell you now that it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”