John 13:31-35
Key Verse: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)
It is customary, especially among Jews, to think of the Old Testament as having 613 commandments. There are laws about how to think of God, about human character, the study of the law, idolatry, the Sabbath, Jewish festivals, marriage and divorce, what to eat and not to eat, oaths and vows, the temple and sacrifices, and the list goes on. Jesus comes along and says, “A new command I give you: love one another.”
This raises two questions: First, is it really a new commandment? In Leviticus 19:18, we read, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” That commandment says essentially the same thing. The second question comes from noting that there are already 613 commandments: why do we need one more?
We can get help on these questions from Jesus when he was teaching his disciples on another occasion. We read in Mat. 22:37-40 that if we love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves we fulfill the whole law because “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” And Paul explains this in Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
The New Testament teaches us that we are under a new order. We are under the New Testament, the New Covenant (Heb. 8:7-8). The old covenant is finished, as we are told in Heb. 8:13: “When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.” Paul says the same thing in Gal. 3:19, “Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.” the law was only “added” until the promised one would come, and he has come.
That is why we do not need to be under the law. If we live by the new commandment Jesus has given, we will fulfill the law without being under it. I do not need to be under a law in order to fulfill that law. I may by my behavior fulfill the French law or the Nigerian law without being in either France or Nigeria and therefore under their laws. Jesus teaches that you will fulfill the Old Testament law by acting out of love.
We are not under the law (Rom. 6:4). As Paul goes on to say in Rom. 7:4, “So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.” if we are dead, we are not under the law. We are alive to God and fulfill the new commandment given by our Savior. And that, by the way, fulfills the law.
Prayer: Lord, you are the Law-giver, and under the new covenant you have freed me from the old law. Thank you for that freedom, and help me to live by the new commandment that you have given. Help me to love others as you have loved me.
