What is the new commandment?

(Vv. 34, 35). Moreover the coming parting would mean that the disciples would be left without the powerful bond of the personal presence of the One they all loved. Hence the Lord gives a new commandment, "That ye love one another; as I have loved you." It has been suggested that the Lord speaks of this command as a new command, in contrast to the old command, well known to these Jewish disciples, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The new commandment is, "That ye love one another as I have loved you." Christ loved with a love which, while never indifferent to evil, yet triumphed over all the power of evil. If we love one another after the pattern of Christ's great love, we shall not suffer evil in one another, but we shall find a way of dealing with the evil without ceasing to love one another. Nothing but the bond of love, after the divine pattern, will hold together a company of people each having a distinct personality, with different shades of character, and diverse temperaments.

Moreover a company marked by love would be so passing strange in a scene governed by lust and selfishness, that the very world would realize that such must be the disciples of Christ. The world cannot appreciate the faith and hope of the Christian circle, but divine love and its effects they can at least see and admire, if they cannot imitate. Thus a company marked by love to one another, after the pattern of Christ, would become a witness to Christ in the world from which He is absent, so that Christ, if glorified with the Father in heaven, would be glorified in the saints on earth.

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.

What is the "new commandment?" (Ver. 8.) Love one another. And the "old commandment?" (Ver. 7). Love one another. But in the first case the thing is realised by the divine nature in the disciples, and not only imposed as a commandment. God has many attributes, righteousness, holiness, majesty, almightiness, etc.; but the word employs only two words to tell us what God is as to His nature. He is light, He is love. And it is remarkable to see how the person of Jesus is before the eyes of John, and how the apostle speaks sometimes of his deity, sometimes of His humanity, in the same passage, according to the relations with which he is occupied.

However, He has one striking new commandment to leave with them. It is not a legal commandment, as those given by Moses, and nothing that would tend to puff up the flesh. He had loved them: let them show the same love toward one another (v. 34). Indeed, His love was because of His very nature: they too had been given this blessed nature by new birth. The command therefore is really to allow that nature its proper expression. In this all men would recognize them as His disciples.

But He meanwhile lays a characteristic injunction on them here below. "A new commandment I give to you, that ye love one another; even as I loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love among one another" (verses 34, 35).

The nation disappears. It is no question of loving one's neighbour, but of Christ's disciples and of their mutual love according to His love. New relationships would come out with increasing plainness when He rose from the dead, and sent down the Holy Spirit; and this new duty, loving one another, would flow out of the new relationship: a convincing proof to all men Whose they were, for He alone had shown this throughout His life and death, as also alive again — love unfailing. How far were the Jews from such love? The Gentiles had not even the thought of it. And no wonder. Love is of God, not of man, which accounts for the blank till He came Who, though God, manifested love in man and to man, and was thus, through His death and resurrection, to bear much fruit. Their love was to be, if we may so say, of His own material and mould — to abide, if it did not begin, when He went away. For, as is written in 1 John 2:8, the new commandment now "is true in Him and in you; because the darkness passeth and the true light already shineth." While He was here, it was true perfectly, but only in Him; when He gave them redemption in Him through His death and resurrection, it was true in them also. The darkness was passing ("is past" being too strong to say), and the true light already shines. It is not here activity of zeal in quest of sinners, however precious, but the unselfish seeking of the good of saints as such, in lowliness of mind and in Christ's love.267 [Cf. "Exposition of the Epistles of John," p. 96.]

31 Then comes the communication of the life from Him in heaven. This was the new thing: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." It was not a new commandment to love one another; it was the old commandment, and yet new, because it was now given in the power of it, being not merely commanded in His word, but communicated to you by the power of the Holy Ghost, to reproduce in you the life of Christ. There is a new thing, and you are to manifest it. The Church of God is to be that vessel for the manifestation of Christ down here, according to the power of the life of its head in heaven.

It is His love in verse 33 that leads to verse 34, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." It was a new commandment because never so expressed before. "As I have loved you." Such should be the character as well as the measure of our love to each other. His love had been shown in washing their feet. We too should wash one another's feet (ver. 14). But was this then realised in the disciples? It needed the power of the indwelling Spirit, that other Comforter, or Advocate, whom He would send from the Father (John 15:26; Acts 2:33) before it could be said "which thing is true (not only 'in Him' as always, but now for the first time) in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light now shines" (1 John 2:7-8).

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.

"Again a new commandment I write unto you," i.e., this loving one another; it is no new thing, and yet it is, because you have it now as "true in him and in you."

'a new commandment'

Considering it from a different perspective, this commandment (to love one another) was new. How can this be? How could a commandment be both new and not new? Historically it was not new, vitally it was new. Historically - from the beginning - there was only One who could and did keep it. Amongst the twelve disciples (including John) there were rivalries and self-centredness. There was but One who would lay down His life for His friends. But in John 14:20-21 He spoke of what was then a coming day, the Spirit's day, the day in which what had been true in Him uniquely would also become true in those who belonged to Him. The commandment is new in this respect: it is 'true in Him and in you'. We now have a nature capable of responding to the commandment. His life is imparted to us and we have the Holy Spirit as the power of that life. This is all new in Christianity. Prior to the resurrection of Christ it was not so. The unique feature of Christianity is that it is not comprised of legal commandments. Its commandments are not addressed to man in the flesh with the objective of him attaining life through keeping them. They are addressed to those who already have life, who have from God a nature that delights in those commandments.