“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” — “These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” John 15: 12,17 (12-17)

The new commandment isn’t to love one another, as the Scriptures already declared that we are to love: “Do not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am YHWY.” Leviticus 19:18 — Love has been the command of life from the beginning. We are instructed to: Love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44); which includes doing good to those who persecute you. We are told not to return evil for evil (1 Peter 3:9). Yahoshua reiterates the commandment to love in Matthew 22:37-39 — “And Yahoshua said to him, ‘You shall love YHWH your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and great command. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

The new command is simply the example of love, “just as I have loved you”. How has Yahoshua demonstrated His love? Between the John 15:12 and 17 we read: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” How did Yahoshua lay down His life? He served, He didn’t regard His position, His equality to Elohim, His Sonship, but rather emptied Himself and become a servant. He healed, He taught, He washed feet, He made wine, He wept, He died.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” What sort of love? One that serves, one that weeps, one that heals, one willing to wash feet, dying to self, living for Yahoshua.

As the song goes: “They will know that we are Christians by our love.”

We are called to love as Yahoshua loves and not as the world loves. For the world loves with expectation, “what do I get out of it?” Yahoshua taught us to love, because, He first loved us, period.

By our love.

You are loved,
cj