22.1 Love One Another
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12).
Love is one of the largest topics in the long course of human relationships and thus has taken on so many different, even opposing, shades of meaning that it is almost useless as a word. For the basic underlying definition, we must possess as the rule of our knowledge of God and our interpretation of every other word in the Bible, we must narrow this topic down to the very specific definition that this eighth most important verse in the Bible presents. This lesson begins our attempt to do that.
How We Hear
We must begin with how we hear. In the past we heard these words, “This is My commandment,” in the following manner. “Oh, Jesus has commanded me to do this, so I had better obey this command or I don’t love Him.”
In the present moment, we hear those same words quite differently. Now we hear them as the Life creating Word coming out of the core of God, entering into us through faith, that those Words, the Lord Jesus Christ, might become all that they are in us. Before, we never did because we could not; now we ARE.
The Core of this Word
Next, we see here that Jesus, and John in 1 John, give us a very specific and concrete definition of “love.” Although that definition of “love” is filled with meaning, we must reserve it for the next lesson. Here we are interested only in the core of this word.
| Subject – the one doing | Verb – the action | Object – the ones receiving |
| You | Love | One Another |
More than that, we are seeing this core through the lens of one word: opportunity, a word that must bring us to tears. Will the Father have the opportunity to reveal Himself as He is upon this earth through vessels of flesh?
Setting
But this word, “This is My commandment,” was spoken in a very definite setting, following after the first commandment of the Bible, the only command that counts. Abide in Me and I in you. The setting was the upper room, a few hours before Gethsemane. The words were spoken by Jesus as John remembered them 65 years later, words that had merged together with the knowledge of Jesus as John knew Him at the time that he wrote.
Inside of, “You always live in Me and I always live in you,” just before Gethsemane, Jesus is conveying into His disciples the most important passion of His desire.
Story
We find here the same as we found earlier. When we study the words of Paul or the writer of Hebrews, we want to know the shades of meaning from the Greek. But when we look at John’s words, the Greek meanings are of little value to us. We will bring in only two Greek words, psuche, translated “life” and tithémi, found three times in these three verses placed together as one, “lay down.”
In contrast, John’s words require story; they clearly find their meaning only out from story. And thus we find that the meanings of the English words are sufficient for the story.
Most Important
And here is the first thing that story tells us. The most important concept conveyed by Jesus out from His heart in that most urgent hour was not that it was a commandment, nor that it was directed towards you and me, nor the action of love, nor the storyline that defines that action of love. The most important concept filling all the tears of Jesus’ heart was the object of the sentence, also repeated three times but with three different terms, the same in English as in the Greek.
One another – friends – the brethren. – We are speaking of the Father’s opportunity. Do you weep with compassion over your brethren?
Who Is Being Loved?
The first question is not who is doing the loving, nor how the love is accomplished, nor what the actions of love look like. The first question is WHO is being loved. If WHO is being loved is not front and center to us, then all the other parts of this eighth most important verse go sideways and the Father loses His opportunity, at least regarding us.
This command to love is not to love “everybody,” but rather a very specific group. This one specific group of people is then defined for us by these three terms: one another – friends – the brethren. But first, let me show you the side paths “love” can take.
Side-Paths of “Love”
Side-Path 1: Actions of a “laid down life,” but no love!
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).
Side-Path 2: “Faith” and “love” – but no actions.
If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? (James 2:15-16).
Side-Path 3: “Loving” God, but not Christians (1 John 4:20).
If someone says, “I love God (whom he has not seen),” and hates his brother (whom he has seen), he is a liar …
My Commandment
Now we must return to the word “commandment.” This is My commandment.
You see, these three caricatures of “love,” side-paths so many run down, are the direct results of hearing these words of Jesus as something on the outside of us, something we must DO!
The first caricature is the most common in Christian circles. People are told that if they don’t do the actions of love, then it’s proof that they don’t love Jesus and that they are fallen short of God. Thus they try and try to do the actions of love, wearing themselves out, yet never finding real love in their hearts.
Could We Disdain Our Brethren?
The second caricature is a reaction against the first, yet separate from union with Jesus. “Don’t you just ‘feel’ the love. ‘Loving’ everybody.” Only nothing ever comes out from that feeling towards other Christians.
But the third caricature, I’m afraid, is of greatest concern to us. You see, we who are entering into all that the Holiest means, are also those who have wandered far away from the camp, as Jesus did, because we know there is no life of God for us there. But here, in this place of solitude, as we rejoice in all the revelation of Christ our only life, we stand in great danger.
We could imagine that we love God, even as we disdain our brethren!
New Testament Commands
I was involved once in a serious and deeply penetrating engagement with the question of God’s order for His church, an engagement that left a burning question in my heart. What does God command us in the New Testament? So awhile later I went through the entire New Testament, typing out every single commandment. Then I re-typed all of them, categorizing them into groups of similar types.
That exercise was one of a number of milestones that turned my path in the direction of this word of joy I now share. The smaller categories of New Testament commands can be grouped into three: our relationship with God, our relationship with one another, and our relationship towards non-Christians.
Life Together
Nowhere in the epistles do the apostles tell their hearers to “get out and save the lost.” Commandments towards the world are specific: live at peace with all men, but do not love the world. Commandments regarding relationship with God are, of course, critical to us, starting with Abide in Me. But – by far the largest group, the overwhelming concern of Jesus and the apostles, is how we treat one another as we walk together in the church. The New Covenant in His blood IS life together.
We learn of Christ as every word God speaks, we see Him in our hearts as the one who lives as us, we are overwhelmed with joy as we see His power flowing out of us – BUT.
Christ IS a Many-Membered Body
As important as all those aspects of Christ ARE, none of them become real, none of them do we truly know, none of them are forever ours, until we know Christ as a many-membered body, walking together in love.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized (immersed) into one body … and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14 – the eleventh and twelfth most important verses in the Bible!).
If you and I do not know Christ together with other Christians, in the end, we do not know Christ.
Come and See
The Spirit and the Bride say come (Revelation 22:17). Come where? There is no “go and tell,” unless there is first a “come and see.”
Then Jesus turned, and seeing two teenage boys, John and Andrew, following Him, said to them, “What do you seek?” They said to Him, “Rabbi, … where are You staying?” He said to them, “Come and see” John 1:38-39 - modified). – Come and see where I live.
Entering into the Holiest, entering into all that is Christ, is entering into Church, life together, a community of believers walking together in love.
A Body Prepared
Look at the setting of “entering in.”
A body you have prepared for Me (Hebrews 10:5b). For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them (Matthew 18:19). That … He might gather together in one all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
If there is no gathering together, there is no revelation of Jesus Christ. If there is no gathering together, there is no entering in. If there is no gathering together, there is no Body for the Father to win the determination of His heart.
Poking a Hole
The entirety of that which is the Kingdom of God comes out from this one point first, the gathering together of believers walking as one body together, loving one another. Am I poking a hole in our great balloon of joy as we glory in the revelation of Christ living as us in this present age, the glory of Jesus connecting us as one person together with the Father by every word that He speaks? Yes, I am.
But not to despair, rather to hope in the expectation of God. If you and I “tried” to make the connections of Christ with other believers in Jesus, we would end up as Paul said, profiting NOTHING.
To Do Your Will, O God
We have no sufficiency of ourselves.
The same Word that enters into us through faith as every word connecting us as one person together with the Father – The same Word that enters into us through faith living now in our hearts as our very and only life – The same Word that flows out from us by faith as rivers of life and joy, touching everyone we meet –
That very same Word enters into us through faith to become, “Love one another, JUST AS I have loved You.” Jesus alone gives a Body to the Father, the gathering together.
We place ourselves into His hand - To do Your will, O God.