We cannot reach a higher level of excellence without following a new commandment Jesus has given us. This isn’t a command to love God. It is a command to love others as Jesus Christ loved us.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).
To love others as Christ has loved us is the whole fulfillment of the Law (Romans 13:10).
The writer of the book of Hebrews wrote of something similar in Hebrews 8:8-13. These verses speak of a new covenant. Hebrews 8:13 says, “In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
If a new covenant made the first covenant obsolete, a new commandment made the first commandments obsolete. We are not to follow what is obsolete. We are to follow this new commandment that Jesus gave to love as He has loved us. Following this one commandment will fulfill all the righteousness of the Old Testament commandments (Matthew 22:36-40).
The Old Testament Law controlled people’s actions from the “outside” by telling them what to do. Jesus’ new commandment of love controls people’s actions from the “inside.” Because of the New Covenant that Jesus’ perfect love has given us, God puts His Laws in our minds and writes them on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). The Holy Spirit from within is now our teacher and guide.
Jesus’ declaration, “as I have loved you,” is very meaningful. Jesus loved as no man had ever loved before. Jesus commands us to love as He did. But we are incapable of this. We must receive Jesus’s love as our own before His love can flow through us to others.
The Old Testament commandments explained how we should love God and how He would respond to us. The New Testament commandment in John 13:34 describes how we respond to God's love (I John 4:10). The Old Testament commandments were followed to obtain God’s love. The New Testament law of love responds to God’s love freely given to us in the gift of His Son.
The New Testament often quotes the Old Testament law of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves (Leviticus 19:18). Jesus demonstrated a higher level of love that had never before been seen. Jesus not only loved His neighbor as Himself, He loved His neighbor more than Himself. This New Testament commandment has fulfilled the Old Testament commandment. Christ’s law of love is a greater commandment encompassing the Old Testament commandment of loving others as ourselves and all other Old Testament Laws.
John, who wrote this Gospel, later wrote about the new commandment of love and obviously received his inspiration from Jesus’ teaching. He wrote, “Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).
This new commandment of love wasn’t new to God but was never clearly seen by men because of the darkness of sin. However, it was unveiled and revealed to men when the darkness was removed in the light of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. The old commandment of love became new through Jesus’ gift of His life in a way words can hardly express.
How can I love with such an amazing, inexpressible love? How can I love others more than myself? I am incapable of it. Just as I have no power to keep an obsolete law or perform a perfect work, I cannot make myself love with Jesus’ perfect love. It has to come from His laws written on my heart. If Christ is in me, the Spirit is living in me because of the righteousness I have received (Romans 8:10). I have the Holy Spirit to empower Christ’s love in me. When I follow Jesus’ command to love, He controls my actions. Not me.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
If I don’t freely share the love of Jesus I have freely received, then all these gifts and all I do mean nothing. When the Holy Spirit does not empower my life, I have no power to give the love I have received. But when I yield the selfish desires to prove my worthiness and begin to live out of the righteousness He has given me, the love of Jesus fuels my life. He is who I am and whom I freely give away. And He continually gives unto me as I give unto others.
Jesus’ commandment to love as He has loved us is new, encompassing, fulfilling, and unending. Thank you, Jesus, for calling us to this higher excellence! There are no words adequate enough to express your love!
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