THESE chapters (John 13-17) form a very blessed section of Holy Scripture. And I venture to hope, and believe, that they have a special place in the hearts of God’s saints. So indeed they ought, for they are some of the last words that fell from the lips of our Lord Jesus before His crucifixion. We all cherish the last words of a dear earthly friend. We often recall them, while the circumstances under which they were uttered invest them with a charm which other words do not possess. Therefore we ought to read these chapters with peculiar interest and care. Every sentence is precious.
Without further preface, let us look at these words in John 13 The Lord says, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.” That, then, was to be the distinguishing mark of the disciples of the Lord Jesus. It was by this badge that all men everywhere were to know them. Not by their great spiritual endowments, not by their power to work miracles; not by their ability to speak to men in other tongues; not by the number of their converts, though they might count them by thousands. None of these things, great as they were, should be the distinguishing mark of discipleship. They were to be known everywhere by sweeter, simpler, lovelier and more heavenly features. All men should know them as His disciples by their love one for the other. He speaks of it again in the fifteenth chapter, and tells them not to be surprised if hatred, scorn, and persecution came upon them from without. But among themselves there was to be fervent charity. They were to love one another, and this was to be the true sign of discipleship.
Observe, it is spoken of as a new commandment. Why did the Lord Jesus call it new? It was no new commandment to love. The law enjoined as much as that. Those that were under it were to love God with all their heart, and their neighbor as themselves. But what made this a new commandment was that they were to love one another as the Lord Jesus had loved them. Its newness lay there. And this commandment rests upon us today. It is the sweet and blessed obligation that love imposes upon all those who call themselves the disciples of the Lord Jesus. We are to love one another as our Saviour and Master has loved us. Of course, we cannot love according to His measure. In this, as in everything else, He has the preeminence. But we are called upon to love after His manner. Nor would we wish the standard lowered. The Lord Jesus then sets this before us. He says, so to speak, “Now I am going away, and I leave you in the midst of a hostile world. If you are the objects of its hatred and the persecutions that spring from it, I want you among yourselves to have fervent charity. It is to be your distinctive mark. All men everywhere shall know you as My disciples if you have love one for another. Love, as I have loved you.”
Now some one might say, “What I am I called to love the saints as the Lord Jesus loves me?” Yes; and remember when you speak of the saints, or of the disciples, or the brethren, you are to use these terms in no narrow sense. Use them in the biblical sense as including all who really and truly belong to Christ. Use them in their large and broad and blessed meaning.
How much, then, has the Lord Jesus loved you? Can you say out of a full and glad heart, “Why, He has loved me well enough to lay down His life for me”? You think of Paul’s words, and in a voice all trembling with emotion you exclaim, “The Son of God has loved me, and given Himself for me. That is the measure of His love!” What! is that so? Has the Lord Jesus loved you with a love so great that He laid down His life for you? Is that the manner and the measure of His love? Let me then, ask you to look at 1 John 3:16,16Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 John 3:16) where this very thing is spoken of: “Hereby we have known love, because He has laid down His life for us; and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives.” What a word is that! We are to love the brethren with a love that holds nothing back, a love that delights to make every glad surrender. We may not indeed be called upon to lay down our lives in one great heroic act. There are other ways of spending them in the service of those who are dear to Christ. And the apostle shows that the first step on the road is to be ready to lend a helping hand to one in need. So, then, we are called upon to lay down our lives for the brethren. Our love to them is to be of such a sort that, if the occasion called for it, we are willing to die for them.
I raise the question again as to how much the Lord Jesus loves us. It has been already answered. He loved us well enough to lay down His life for us. True, but did His love end then? Is there no present love of the Lord Jesus showing itself in present activities on behalf of its objects? Think of what comes before us in the opening of this chapter. I refer to the Lord girding Himself with a towel, and taking the basin and water, and stooping down to wash the soiled and weary feet of His poor disciples. What was it that lay behind that lowly act?
It was His undying love. “Having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” I know very well that beneath so humble a deed of love there lies a great spiritual truth. But let us not, miss the lesson on the very surface of the passage. It teaches us to be ready to do the lowliest service for any who belong to Christ, and the Lord Jesus will regard it as having been done to Himself. The Lord tells us elsewhere that even a cup of cold water given to one because he belongs to Him shall never lose its reward.
Let me now turn you to 1 John 4:99In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9). “In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Two very blessed verses. But mark what the apostle bases upon them. He says “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” So we are to love one another because God has loved us in this most wonderful way.
Let me refer you to another passage. Look at 1 Corinthians 13. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” Observe the remarkable language the apostle uses. Though a than speak in the dialect of angels, though he is able to discourse on divine things with a tongue of burning eloquence and in the sweetest speech that ever fell from mortal lips, if love is not animating his heart, he is but sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Though he have the gift of prophecy, so that he can peer into the future, and foretell things to come, though he understand mysteries that baffle the intellect of the others, though he have faith so that he could remove mountains, and have not love, he is nothing. Though he be a man of ample fortune, content to live in a cottage, spending but little upon himself that he might feed the hungry and clothe the naked, yet if he have not love, it profits him nothing. Though he give his body to be burned as a martyr, and have not love, it is nothing. How striking this is! Not eloquence, nor knowledge, nor gift, nor power, nor benevolence, but love is the measure of the man. How we need to feel this! And then when we read down this thirteenth chapter, we see the beautiful traits of divine love that were seen so perfectly, and without a cloud, in the Lord Jesus Himself. “Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly ... beareth all things ... endureth all things,” and so on. Brethren, we need just to sit down as little children in the school where our gracious Lord is Master, and ask Him to teach us to love one another as He has loved us.
Then there is a further word which I commend to your notice. It is in Galatians 5 “By, love serve one another.” What a beautiful thing is this love that leads us to serve the saints because they belong to Christ! And suffer me to say this: It is a good thing to look at the saints in the vision of the Almighty. If I look into the face of one of the faultiest saints to be found on earth, I look into the face of one whom the Lord Jesus has loved well enough to die for. He bears with that one, and carries him in His bosom. And I am called upon to love that one as the Lord Jesus loves him. I know we shall need help to carry this out, and I am very conscious that I cannot speak to you about it as I would like. Perhaps the very feebleness of my words will make room for the Lord to display His grace by writing His own words on your heart, and on mine. I pray to Him to do so. “Lord Jesus, look down upon Thy poor servant, so full of fault, write this lesson deeply upon his heart, teach him to love them because they are Thine, and to love them with a love that is akin to Thine.”
We are called to love the saints, not only those who agree with us in everything. It is easy to go along with those who see eye to eye with us, who walk with us, so to speak, arm in arm, who sit down in the same meeting room, sing out of the same hymn books, and who shake us cordially by the hand, who always tell us that they are glad to see us, and find pleasure in our company, as we in theirs. It does not require very much grace to love such. But to love those who will not walk with us, who sometimes say hard things about us, to love all these, to love them because they belong to Christ, and to pray for them, this requires very much grace. Of course, we have, and very rightly, to distinguish between love and fellowship. Sometimes because we cannot have fellowship with everything, people think that we are lacking in love towards them. That is a mistake. Fellowship is one thing; love is another. We have to embrace in fervent affection all who belong to Christ, but in this day we cannot have fellowship with all who belong to Christ. For example, suppose I know a Roman Catholic, and have reason to believe that he belongs to Christ. Suppose further that he says to me, “Come with me to our church.” I could not do that. I could not mix myself up with a thousand things that I know to be wrong. I should seek to show him that love was one thing and fellowship another. So our fellowship is necessarily narrower than our love. Sad that it should be so. It is so, because of the evil that we find all around us. But love takes in all those who belong to Christ. We love them and seek to serve them because they belong to Him. Let us love one another with a pure heart fervently; let us cultivate the holy, happy habit of seeking to find out in one another all that is of Christ.
It is, then, by this badge that all men are to know that we are the disciples of the Lord Jesus. How distressing it is that men do not exactly know us by this badge. We feel the sorrow of it and the humiliation of it, but still we may look up to the Lord and ask Him to teach us to love one another a little more, to love all saints, to love them with a deep, true affection, because they belong to Him. May He teach us this lesson. W. B.
The power of gravitation holds a ship, which has run on to a shoal, fast to the ground until another power — hydro-dynamics — comes in with the rising tide. This lifts it clean off the shoal and makes it superior to the adverse power which has been keeping it down. Here we have an illustration of Romans 8:22For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2).