894. Here are they that keep the commandments of God, signifies that these are they who live according to the commandments of the Lord in the Word, as is evident without explanation. It is said in many passages in the Word that "they should keep and do God's commandments and His precepts;" and "to do the precepts of God" means the same as to love the Lord above all things, and the neighbor as oneself. For what a man loves inwardly or from the heart he wills, and what he wills he does; and to love God is to love His precepts, because they are of God even to the extent that they are God. From this it can be seen how little the followers of faith alone know what love is. They grant or affirm that faith lives from love, and that faith without love is dead, and yet they do not know that love and deeds are one. They declare that love is in faith; and yet they do not know there is no love in faith when one does not live according to the Lord's commandments in the Word; and that it is from this, and from no other source whatever, that there is any love in faith except a natural love that is not love to the Lord and love to the neighbor, but love of self and love of the world; and these loves utterly destroy faith, and even falsify the truths that must constitute a genuine faith and that are in the Word.
