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The Old Commandment
The old commandment is: “You shall love your neighbor as [you love]
yourself” (Lev. 19:18). This commandment seems to be deficient because it
apparently uses a human being as a measure, but the Word continues, adding,
“I am the LORD.” This addition makes it the second most important
commandment (Mk. 12:31). The most important commandment is: “You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind and with all your strength” (v.30). Only one human being, our Lord,
has ever done this, and He can truthfully say, “I have kept My
Father’s commandments” (Jn. 15:10).
The New Commandment
Our Lord Jesus has said to us, “A new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another” (13:34). In the same verse He added, “Just
as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” How demanding it is
to love our brother or sister as our Lord loves us! Our love is an imperfect
love, and we are to work at perfecting it. “If we love one another, God
abides in us and His love is perfected in us” (1 Jn. 4:12).
There are people who are harder to love than others and we should work at loving them. A godly brother commented about a not-very-likeable brother, “We have learned to love him.” How can we learn to love someone who is not very likeable? What does Scripture say? It says, “Whatsoever is true … whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). If we work at doing this with a brother or sister, we will find traits in them we can like, traits that the Lord can use, and that discovery can stimulate love.
The Lord said when you show love for one another, “all people will know that you are My disciples” (Jn. 13:35). He does not say that people will know that we are His disciples by our knowledge of the Word of God, by how much Scripture we can quote, or how cleverly we can refute error. We can display divine love only through the power of “the Spirit whom He has given us” (1 Jn. 3:24). We need to let the Spirit work in us.
Christ showed divine love when He complimented the scribes and Pharisees, saying, “Do and observe whatever they tell you” (Mt. 23:3). He then, in the same verse, warned His listeners to be careful, for the scribes and Pharisees “do not practice” what they preach. We also see His love displayed when He lamented the condition of His people (Mt. 23:37-38). They were heavy-laden (11:28) and He wanted to bear their burden, but they were unwilling.
If we love one another we too will want to help bear each other’s burdens. When we “bear one another’s burdens, [we] so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2). In the “New Bible Commentary,” Donald Guthrie wrote: “The law of Christ operates within the body of Christ, not through a set of statutes, but through all-embracing love.”
By Alan H. Crosby
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In sovereign grace we are born of God, brought into relationship with
God, loved with a love that is proper to the relationship and, at last, we shall
appear in the likeness of Christ. In the meantime, as we abide in Christ, we are
to be characterized by righteousness, love and self-surrender.
It is easy to make a profession of love. Our deeds, however, will show whether our words are true. If it is in our power to help a brother whom we see to be in need and yet decline to do so, it will be seen that our profession of love is vain. It is not a question of eternal forgiveness or salvation, for John was writing to those who were forgiven and in the relationship of children. It is a question of being able to walk in happy liberty with God. To have this confidence we must so walk that our hearts do not condemn us for failing in practical love. — Hamilton Smith (Adapted from “Epistles Of John”)
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