A new commandment?

A new commandment?

I was recently privileged to listen to a recorded Bible Study teaching by my father-in-law, Prof Dr.Lee on John 13:34-38. Here the words of Jesus are written “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this will all men know that you are my disciples because you love one another.”

As we can see, our Lord heavily emphasized on the phrase “love one another”, underlying its supreme importance but the question was raised: How is it a new commandment. In another instance, a teacher of the law had asked Jesus what was the most important commandment of the law and the Lord answered him “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The word “new” means “fresh” in the Greek, but it seems just like the second greatest commandment. However, when we read more carefully, the old commandment says “Love your neighbor as yourself” while the new commandment says “Love one another as Jesus loved you”. How did Jesus love us? - Far more than we could ever love ourselves or love others. He died for us the most painful death on the cross that we might have life.

Reading from 1 John, we get a better understanding of this difference. 1 John 4:10 says:- Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The old commandment emphasizes our effort to love God in our own strength but the new commandment focuses first on the Lord’s love for us, and as we receive His love, we learn to love like Him. John also says “we love because God first loved us”.

Therefore, the new commandment is actually a higher commandment, higher because the way Jesus loves is higher than the way we could love ourselves. At the same time, it is a natural love emanating from God’s love itself that overflows from us because we realize how dearly we are loved.

May each one of us truly know and feel the great and wonderful love God and our Lord Jesus has for us, and as we allow His love to flow through us, to also love others as Jesus has loved us.

God bless, Jason