³⁴ “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

Love is central to Christianity, so central that even non-Christians recognize it as the “supposed” defining characteristic of those who claim to follow Christ. We believers do not always live up to this commandment, but it is the gold-standard for Christian behavior. But in what sense was it new, as Jesus says here in the passage for today?

It was not new in its time sequence, in that love was required also in the Old Testament (e.g. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Lev 19:18). Certainly, Jesus had previously given the commandment to love early in His ministry: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Mt 5:43–44). Even in the Gospel of John, He had already commanded His disciples to love (see John 15:12, 17).

What was new is not the timing of the command but the nature of the command. In the OT, they were to love their neighbor. Jesus taught them to love their enemies. The newness, though, is found more in the way they were to love—“even as I have loved you.” This puts love into a whole different category, an impossible kind of love, one that can only happen by the power of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus has more to say about shortly.

The disciples have yet to see the love of Christ expressed in its fullest, ultimate way. Yet, Jesus speaks of it as past tense. Little did they realize the love it required for the Creator God of the universe to condescend in humility to take on the form of a human being, a “servant” as Paul says in Phil 2:7-8. He left His glorious throne at the right hand of the Father to come and die for the sins of those who rejected Him. He came to live as a human and lay His human-life down for us. This was love at its finest. So, yes, Jesus had already loved them by the fact that He was there in the flesh. His love was about to be made perfect in His ultimate sacrifice. We as readers of this passage, who have read the Upper Room discourse many times before, can’t help but anticipate Jesus’ clarification of this two chapters later: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Truly as John says elsewhere, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10–11).”

Lord, I can’t thank You enough for loving me and giving Yourself to die in my place. This motivates me to love others as You have loved me.