The New Love

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
– John 13:34, ESV

John is the “love guy.” He’s “the disciple whom Jesus loved,”¹ and the most likely author of the Gospel of John and the epistles of I, II & III John, all of which are love-saturated writings. In the gospel, we find love twelve times in the first twelve chapters. Then we are inundated with love, finding forty-four mentions of love in the final nine chapters.

In our opening verse for this blog posting, Jesus says he gives a “new” commandment. But God’s affinity for love is found throughout the Old Testament.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
– Leviticus 19:18, ESV

So, how is Jesus’ telling us to love each other giving us a new commandment?

A New Baseline

God told his people not just to love each other, but to love our “neighbors” as we love ourselves. Paul seizes on this when telling husbands to love their wives, saying, “no one hates his own body,”² so we husbands are given that baseline and told to love our wives in that way and to that extent.

It’s almost as though we are told to love one another and we’re expected to be asking the question, “What do you mean by that?”. So we’re given examples, comparisons, a benchmark for measuring our love output.

We’ve seen that God told his people in Leviticus to love as we love ourseves, and we know Paul told husbands to love our wives, as we love your own bodies. Jesus also gives us a comparative, and it really ups the ante. We are to love one another just as Jesus has loved us.

That’s new!

A New Quality

When Jesus said he was giving a new commandment, he said καινὴν, (kainein) from kainos. Yes, it means new, fresh, unused, but it’s really a little nuanced than that. Think “innovative!”

An innovative command I am giving you. It is new in quality in that it’s never been given in quite this way before.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
– John 13:1, ESV

Immediately on the heels of this verse, Jesus, the Master, the Lord, the King … washed the filthy feet of his disciples, because none of them would stoop so low as to wash each other’s feet. In fact, I am fully convinced that to get the full picture of what Jesus did and why he did it, we need to go to Luke’s gospel to get the backstory.

It’s the same setting. We’re in the upper room having the final Passover meal. Jesus is about to die, and he’s trying to explain this to his disciples. In that context, this happens:

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.
– Luke 22:24, ESV

Jesus is serving, willingly preparing to give himself as a sacrifice for all humanity, and these egocentric disciples are fighting about which of them is the greatest. I’m convinced it is in the face of this, that Jesus wraps himself with a towel and stoops to being their lowly servant. It is the ultimate object lesson.

And then he says this:

The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.
– Luke 22:25-27, ESV

Jesus, who shares eternal glory with the Father, shows what love is, it’s height, breadth, length, and depth.³ His is a love that serves. It is a love that stoops.

You give me your shield of victory
    and your right hand sustains me;
    you stoop down to make me great.
– Psalm 18:35, ESV

A New Measurement

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
– John 15:13, ESV

So we can see great love in action, that it is sacrificial, but love in and of itself is great. And we see that there is greater and lesser love, but all love is great love. God is love,⁴ and God is great.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
– 1 Corinthians 13:13, ESV

The thing about Jesus’ love that makes it so great and so exemplary is that Jesus died not only for his friends, but also for his bitterest of enemies.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
– Romans 5:8, ESV

I find it difficult to pray for my enemies,⁵ but much more so to bless them and speak well of them. But to die for them? That is a tremendous challenge.

But we have something compelling us, driving us, constantly pressing us forward into loving as Christ loves.

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
– 1 Corinthians 5:14-15, NIV-1978

The summation is this:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
– 1 John 4:9-11, ESV

Blessings upon you, my friends.

Victoriously in Christ!

– damon

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1. John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 20:8, 21:7, 21:7, 21:20,
2. Ephesians 5:29
3. Ephesians 3:14-19
4. 1 John 4:8, 16
5. Matthew 5;44