A New Commandment?

John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." What is new about this commandment? Isn't it essentially the same one we see in Leviticus 19:18, "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord." Not really. Jesus was not there when Leviticus was written. However, He was when He added, 'as I have loved you.' He walked with His disciples for three years. They witnessed first-hand everything He said and did. They learned what it meant to love like Jesus.

Does this new commandment mean we can ignore the Ten Commandments? No. Jesus came to clarify and magnify God's commandments, not replace them. He would have told us that this new commandment was meant to replace the Ten Commandments. Instead, He said, Matthew 19:17-19, "And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

So, when He said in Matthew 5:21-22, "Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." We see how He took the commandment to not kill and expanded it to include all kinds of hatred. We must understand that God has been telling us about His Law of Love for thousands of years. We have just been too stubborn to learn it. So, Jesus had to come down and explain it to us, 2 John 1:5, "And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son."

Shall we ignore the message Jesus brought? Only to our peril, for Jesus brings eternal, abundant life. If we want only this life, we can ignore Jesus. If we want eternal life, we must learn what it means to Love Like Jesus. So, what did Jesus show us about the abundant life when He walked the earth? He took the Ten Commandments and unpacked them to clearly demonstrate that they represent God's love. He brought us the Spirit of the Law, as opposed to the letter of the law, by following verse 34 with John 13:35, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." First, He demonstrated it by His life, and then He called all of us to live it so that the world could learn of God's Love by our example, John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." His love is not a hollow attempt to make us think He loves us. He gave His life to prove it. He asks us to do the same. We might not have to die to fulfill this example. We could sacrifice some of our time by visiting a hopeless prisoner, a lonely widow, or a child abandoned; James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Jesus's call is not a call to act religiously. It is a call to action. It is a call to genuinely live God's love. To care about others the way Jesus cares about others. To live the selfless life He created us to live. The goal of this kind of life is to spread God's love to the entire world and to lead people to salvation that leads to eternity with God, Matthew 28:19-20, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." Anything less than this is a fake religion that feeds our selfish desires.

God has placed us in unique places throughout this world. This blog is about sharing His Word; please share it with those you believe would be blessed by hearing it. Bless you! If you want to receive the Quarterly Newsletter, email us at bill@reasoningwithgod.com. If you want to read past blogs, go to https://www.reasoningwithgod.com/blog.