What did Jesus say about love?

The Lord's answer astonished all who heard it. Evidently it was quite new to them, even to the Pharisees, who had never been able to silence the Sadducees like this. Hearing it, the Pharisees came together, and one of them put to the Lord his question about the law, raising a point that they had doubtless often discussed amongst themselves. He was thinking of the ten Commandments in Exodus 20, but the Lord turned him to Deuteronomy 6:5, and added Leviticus 19:18. The demand of the law is summed up in one word — love. First, love to God; second, love to one's neighbour. When Paul tells us, "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10), he is only stating in other words what Jesus said here (verse 40).

A New Commandment. — So far what concerned Him. But what about His disciples, left here below for a time? Changed indeed would be their condition, as bereft of the Lord's fostering care! So dissensions and divisions might rear their heads, and go far to break up the company. Already had such a danger been seen. A question had been debated among them, as to which of them should be the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 18:1); and even disputing had arisen with reference to it (Mark 9:34). And such a hold had that spirit got of individuals, that James and John, with their mother Salome, came, and asked, she being the mouthpiece, for the two best places of honour for her sons in the coming kingdom (Matt. 20:20). Such a spirit, though checked by the Lord each time it had appeared, might readily break out afresh, and bear bitter fruit, when He should be no longer with them on earth. For even on the night of that Supper there was a contention as to this matter among them (Luke 22:24). Hence the new commandment now given was opportune and needful. We quote it: "A new commandment I give to you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (34). His disciples they had been. His disciples they were to continue. As His disciples men had known them accompanying their Master in His movements in Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea. As His disciples they were still to be known; and that henceforth as loving one another, the new, the Divine nature seen active in each of them. Profession of faith, confession of a creed, would not settle the reality of discipleship, though a necessary part of it. But love to another would attest that Christ's word was hearkened to, His command obeyed. Truly the Lord loved them. So "as I have loved you" was the example put before them. The command followed, any attempt of the enemy to divide them would be defeated.

But now a word as to what follows. It is the very pith and essence of that which concerns our relation towards others here below; the great active principle from which all right conduct flows. This is the question of the true character and limits of love. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy" (ver. 43). This was the expression that the Jews drew from the general tenor of the law. There had been the sanction of God for the extermination of their enemies; and from that they drew the principle, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." Here was a thing that the law never could teach — it is grace. In a thousand practical instances, the question is not whether the thing is right. We often hear Christians asking, Is such a thing wrong? But this is not the sole question for the Christian. Suppose wrong is done him; what is to be his feeling then? If there is enmity to him in another, what is he to cherish in his own heart? "Love your enemies … do good to them that hate you … that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven;" thus they show in practical ways that they belong to such a parentage, "For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust … Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (vers. 44-48).

Jesus said to His own, "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye should love one another, as I have loved you;" and John makes on this precept the practical comment, "He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." If this commandment is new, then it cannot be part of the law, which already was old; and if this commandment, which is new, makes part of the Christian's rule of life, and at the same time does not make part of the law, it follows, beyond all controversy, that the law is not the rule of life for believers. And the reason is easy to understand. This new commandment of the Lord regulates the duties of a relationship of which the law knew nothing, and could know nothing — brotherhood in Christ. The law only bade to love one's neighbour as one's self; but here is a precept that bids to love the brethren in Christ more than oneself; for it requires one to love as Christ has loved us, and He loved us more than Himself when He sacrificed Himself for us, laying down His life.

Here, beloved Christian reader, lies the grand motive-spring of all Christian obedience. Life is the ground; love the spring. “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” And again, “He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me; and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” How precious! Who can adequately set forth the blessedness of this manifestation of Christ to the obedient heart? Should we not earnestly long to know more of it? Can we expect it if we are living in the habitual neglect of His holy commandments? It is “he that has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me.”

To His host the Lord turned and said, "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much." The word "for" is sometimes a reason why, and sometimes an evidence why. In this case it is the evidential "for," not the causative. It was not because she loved much that the Lord forgave her. It was His grace that caused her love.

Hence, after having first unmistakably laid down the necessity of the cross, He next shows the grace that was manifested in the gift of Jesus. Here He is not portrayed as the Son of man who must be lifted up, but as the Son of God who was given. "For God," He says, "so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." The one, like the other, contributes to this great end, whether the Son of man necessarily lifted up, or the only begotten Son of God given in His love. (Verse 16)

Mark how our Lord puts the case in the beautiful parable of the good Samaritan. It was, if I may so say of Him as a man, the single eye and the heart that perfectly understood what God was, and enjoyed it; that never, therefore, had difficulty in finding out who was his neighbour. For, in truth, grace finds a neighbour in every one that needs love. The man that needs human sympathy, that needs divine goodness and its clear testimony, though it be through a man upon the earth, he is my neighbour. Now, Jesus was the only man who was walking in the whole power of divine love, though, I need not say, this was but a little part of His glory. As such, therefore, He found no riddle to solve in the question, Who is my neighbour?

"As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you." It is not here simply the eternal love of the Father to the Son, but divine love to one walking in this world, whose word was, "I do always those things that please him." This was a love which took up the disciples as walking down here. He could put them in the same relation to Himself that He was in to His Father. "As the Father hath loved me (the Son) so have I loved you; continue ye in my love." They were walking here on earth in that blessed relationship which He Himself had known. He wants us not only to abide in Him and get strength, so as to bear fruit to His and the Father's glory, but that we may abide in the continual, uninterrupted sense and enjoyment of His love. He gives Himself as our example: "As I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." I need not say how He abode in it! "If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love": still our responsibility - obedience to Christ's words. It is not here a question of the Father loving the Son, as from eternity the beloved One. It was as He is seen walking in this world in a path of perfect obedience, and abiding in Him. If there is in us a spirit of simple obedience to Him, we abide in His love. If we do a thing because He said it, we abide in His love.

If we add to this that nine of the ten commandments forbid positive sins and evil dispositions, because men are disposed to them, or there were no need to prohibit them, we shall find that the very nature and existence of a law which prescribes the good on God's authority supposes the evil in man's nature which is opposed to it. This is a deplorable truth, take either aspect of the case. You cannot command love, that is, produce it by commanding it, and you cannot put out lusts by forbidding them to a nature which has them as nature. Yet this is what the law does, and must do if God give one. It proves that what is forbidden is sin, and that it is in man to be forbidden; but it never takes sin away. It prescribes good in the creature but does not produce it. It shews what is right on earth in the creature, but how far is it from taking man into heavenly places! It can have no pretension to this.