Only Two Verses

The New Testament speaks often about keeping commandments. The Greek noun for commandment, entole ἐντολή en-tol-ay', appears 71 times, and the verb for keeping, tereo τηρέω tay-reh'-o, 75 times. The verb for remaining, meno μένω men'-o, appears 121 times, and 68 of those are in John’s Gospel and letters. With words so common, you might expect them to meet in the same sentence again and again. Across the whole New Testament, they do so far less often than that.

Fourteen Verses

The noun for commandment and the verb for keeping stand together in fourteen verses.

The list should be read honestly. In one of these verses, Mark 7:9, the keeping is not of the commandment at all. Yeshua rebukes those who set the commandment of God aside in order to keep their own tradition. Even there, though, the two words stand together, and the contrast between them is the point of the sentence.

The list runs from the Gospels through the letters to the last book of the Bible. Keeping the commandments of God is not a theme that fades out after the cross. Revelation, near the very end of Scripture, still describes the holy ones as those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.

Two Verses

Only two of those fourteen verses also contain the third word, meno, to remain: John 15:10, and one verse in John’s first letter.

1 John 3:24 Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God, and God in him; and by this we know that He abides in us — by the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) that He has given us.

Keeping the commandments and remaining in Him are bound together in a single sentence only in these two places. Both come from the same apostle. In the Gospel, John recorded what Yeshua said on the night He was handed over. In the letter, John set down the same truth in words of his own.

Abiding in Both Directions

The letter goes one step further than John 15:10. In the Gospel verse, Yeshua said that the disciples would abide in His love. In the letter, John states that the abiding runs both ways: the one who keeps abides in God, and God abides in him. This is mutual dwelling, stated outright.

Then John says how this is known. The proof that God abides in a person is not that person’s record of achievement but the Spirit whom God has given. The abiding is God’s gift before it is anyone’s experience of it.

The verse just before this one belongs to the same thought, and it says what His commandment is.

1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment: that we believe in the name of His Son Yeshua Messiah and love one another, just as He has commanded us.

The commandment begins with believing in the name of His Son and continues to loving one another. The keeping that John speaks of in verse 24 starts with believing in the name of the Son. It does not start with a person’s own merit. Here again the order holds. Faith in the name comes first, and the keeping and the remaining follow from it, with the Spirit given as the sign that God abides in the one who keeps.

Not Heavy

Someone who hears the word commandments may expect a heavy load. John answers that fear directly.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God — that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

John does not say that there are no commandments, or that they need not be kept. He says that they are not a crushing weight. Yeshua had said the same when He called the weary to come to Him.

Matthew 11:30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

A yoke is a working tool. It is laid on an animal so that it can pull a load, and it means work is being done. Yeshua does not say that those who come to Him will have no yoke. He says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. The commandments of the One who has already kept His Father’s commandments, and who has already paid the price of redemption, are not heavy for those who remain in Him.

The Order in One Line

With this the order of taking hold is complete: new birth, forcing, the door, remaining. A person is born of the word, takes hold of the word and does not let go, enters by the door who is the Word, and remains by keeping the word’s commandments.

Each step rests on the one before it, and every step rests on what He has already done.

A question may still trouble some readers: is this keeping and remaining something that began only after the Word became flesh? Scripture answers with a man who lived long before Sinai, of whom God said that he kept His commandments, and with his grandson Jacob.