“…love one another….”

The command in Scripture that Christians love each other is to me one of the most damning to the prevailing worldview as it bears on most any matters of consequence.  Love that can be commanded is totally irreconcilable with the typical story of “love” that most secular expressions of love would suggest, whether in pop literature, cinema, or theater.  We can thank William Shakespeare in part for his contribution to this disconnect, for eros as portrayed in Romeo and Juliet is certainly not the same as agape in 1 Corinthians 13.

I will be accused of taking away all the romance by taking this view of true love.  Well, since I have a high view of classic romance as one of the greatest expressions of man in God’s image, I recommend submitting even that sacred area of life to the dictates of the Word.  God has an opinion about your “love life,” and He has communicated a great deal of that opinion in the Bible.

Consider the “dream wedding” of many a young bride in this culture.  Many who never give a thought to church or the Bible otherwise want a church wedding as part of their traditional preconception of what a wedding should be.  I would cite that portion of  the social structure we share as evidence that God invented marriage.  We sort of have a sense that marriage is an event on par with “God-stuff.”  This is true often despite a latent, pretended “agnosticism” that claims truly not to know if God is real.  Check out Romans 1:18-19 on that topic, by the way.   Dispense with the pageantry of a traditional, Westernized wedding if you like. You still have to deal with the inherent sense that all human civilizations have concerning commitment for life as essential to marriage.  Lifelong commitment is as close as mankind gets to God’s unconditional Covenants with Abraham, David, and Israel.

The Command

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (John 13:34, NASB95)

As noted in the last entry, if a thing can be commanded legitimately, then it can be chosen legitimately. A good command can be obeyed.  I think it very helpful to remember that any time someone has legitimate authority (the right) to issue a command to a subordinate, that recipient has a choice to make.  Command and obedience between persons is not the same as remote-control.  It is pretty easy to lose the personal side of your walk before God, if you adopt a view that God’s Sovereignty implies mechanical relationship like that between a programmer and computer.  The mystery of God’s wondrous power and Sovereignty is precisely this ability to truly be in eternal control, and yet to interact with His creatures in a real, personal way.

Jesus commands us to love one another.  There is your evidential distinction between the Faith and all other faiths.  That is, God has designed the Church to demonstrate the reality of the claims of Christ by how we interact (John 17:21).  This command involves a lot more than being nice to each other in a superficial, shallow tolerance of other believers as we proceed day-to-day .  Our treatment of others within the Family is central to our witness to world of its Creator.

There are many things we could say about this, the New Commandment, but let us summarize this way: there is far more going on with God’s eternal purposes than we can know, but this command is a primary way we participate the wonderful, mysterious plan.

Imitation of Christ

We find this major theme, being like Jesus, throughout the NT.  This command will occupy a number of future entries for “Attention to Orders.”  Notice the sense in which the love of others is commanded:  “as I have loved you.”  Jesus demonstrates love to be both thought and action, desire and deliverance.  Love that does not think is not love; neither is love that fails to act.  The love for which we are responsible is the greatest love: that we lay down our lives for one another (John 15:13).  We should not miss the illustration of this kind of love in every enlistment, every commissioning, every oath taken by our military service members to defend our lives with theirs.

Three Thoughts

1.      Pneumatology (Doctrine of the Holy Spirit): Keep in mind that if God thinks your actions amount to anything, then the actions are accomplished by abiding in Jesus Christ, empowered by God the Spirit.  (John 15:5)

2.      Sanctification:  God expects and requires a believer’s self-sacrificial thought and action in the best interest of other believers.

3.      Ecclesiology (Doctrine of the Church): The Church, or Body of Christ, is an eschatological or “end times” people with an end-times purpose.  The Text tells us quite a bit about the end, but the more we discover from the Bible, the more we realize how much we do not know (Is 64:4, Is 65). What we do know here and now are our marching orders—that we love one another in the greatest possible way, as Jesus has shown us

Passage to Pray: John 17

Memory Verse:  John 13:34-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35, NASB95)