Christ’s New
Commandment
Christ’s New Commandment
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another”
(John 13:34). Did Jesus replace the clear definitions of the Ten Command
-ments with a new religious principle, that love alone can guide our
lives? Does this new commandment supersede the Ten Commandments and replace all
other biblical laws? Jesus clearly answered
this fundamental question when He said, “Do not think that I came to
destroy the Law or the Prophets”(Matthew 5:17).Yet many people who believe in
Christ as their Savior also believe this new com
-mandment frees them from any obligation to obey God’s laws.They
misunderstand what Jesus said and meant. The Holy Scriptures, in the Old and
New Testaments, teach that we
should love each other (Leviticus 19:18). Jesus did not introduce
love as a newprinciple. That was alreadyin the Bible and a fundamental part of
God’s instruction to ancient Israel.What, then, was new in Christ’s “new
commandment”? Notice His wording. He said we are to “love one another; as I
have loved you” What was new was His own example of love! The whole world has a
perfect model of the love of God in Christ’s perfect example of loving
obedience. Christ loved us so much that He sacrificed His own life for us. He
Himself explained: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s
life for his friends” (John 15:13).Jesus came as the light of the world to
illuminate the application and practice of the royal law of love. We no longer
have an excuse for saying we don’t understand what to do or how to do it. Jesus
demon-strated what loving obedience is all about: “If you keep My commandments,
you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and
abide in His love” (John 15:10).
We comply with Jesus’ new command-ment when we obey every
commandment of God in a genuinely loving manner and are willing to lay down our
lives for the sake of others.Jesus Christ: The Real
Story
And since none of these healings involved a life-and-death
situation, they thought Jesus was breaking the Sabbath. But as the Savior,
Jesus understood the purpose of the Sabbath, that it was a perfectly
appropriate time
to bring His message of healing, hope and redemption to humanity and
to live that message through His actions. To make His point, Jesus asked the
Pharisees the question, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil,
to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4). He exposed their hypocrisy in that they
saw nothing wrong with working to rescue an animal that fell into a pit on the
Sabbath day, or watering an animal on that day, yet they were condemning Him
for helping on the Sabbath a human being—whose worth was far greater than that
of any animal (Luke 13:15-17; Matthew 12:10-14).He was rightfully angry at
their inability to see that they placed their own traditions and
interpretations over the true purpose of Sabbath observance (Mark 3:5). Yet
they were so spiritually blind that they hated Him for
exposing their distortions of God’s commands (verse 6).On one
occasion Jesus’ disciples, as they walked through a field on the Sabbath day,
picked handfuls of grain so they would have something to eat. The disciples
weren’t harvesting the field; they were merely grabbing a quick snack to take
care of their hunger. But the Pharisees insisted this was not lawful. Jesus
used an example from Scripture to show
that the spirit and intent of the law were not broken and that God’s
law allowed for mercy (Mark 2:23-26). It was in this context that Jesus gives
the true purpose of the Sabbath.
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” He said
(verse 27). The Pharisees had reversed the priorities of the law of God. Jesus’
Teaching on God’s Law
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