“I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”(John 14:34).
The great theme of love in Biblical context is so extensively wide that it deals with various aspects of human relationship with God, most often in covenant terms, and of course the relationship of love in sentimental perspective. This is love in action by human standard.
However, the Deuteronomic law of love focuses on the legalistic interpretation of love and its spontaneous application, not as a matter of force, but as an issue of obligation and loyalty expressed in a covenant relationship.
Love here is an action that carries the candour of goodwill and sincerity of purpose driven by love itself. Here love thrives better in an atmosphere of mutuality and respect for one another and for other values attached to human life. This is why love in all its imperatives seek to protect the interest of the other person. A society not governed by the above truth is doomed. Therefore, the emphasis of Christ Jesus on love for one another is fundamentally tied to the above revelation. In our message this week, we shall be focusing on the moral and divine response of humankind towards God’s love, by loving one another.
The above connotation of love is in accord with other Biblical usages of the term ‘love’. For instance, in marriage, love carries the obligation of fidelity and loyalty between husband and wife. It is this element of loyalty and trustful compromise in a covenant relationship that are reflected when love, as a spontaneous sentiment, cannot be forced; instead it freely recycles itself on the wheel of moral rejuvenation and convivial spirt of mercy, trust, care and gratefulness.
Love is required in Deuteronomic law (Deut. 6:5) as Israel’s liege duty to the God who has entered into covenant with His people. The love of God is indeed often intertwined with the sacrosanct keeping of His covenant and command (Deut.11:1). This, therefore, is the sense in which Jesus challenged the apostolic church of Peter’s time to first and foremost love Him (Christ) and then keep His commands because obedience proceeds from love. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15), and to love one another; “I give you a new commandment; love one another, just as I have loved you, you must also love one another” (John 13:34).
The derivative force, which triggers the expression of love, actually hinges on God’s demand to love through Jesus Christ who is the express representation of God’s love. This is what gives credence to the statement of Jesus in our warrant text above. Our compliance to God’s commandment is synonymous with our compliance to the moral and spiritual demands of His love towards us.
The command to love assumes a more intense appreciation when we understand that love, in its natural meaning, is the natural response of the Church or the individual person to the love of God so wonderfully bestowed by God Himself upon the people whom He has chosen. To therefore fail in this response would be to have unjustly forgotten the unique relationship in which the Church stands to Jehovah.
Loving one another as a command by Christ remains the greatest task of the Church today. The preaching of the Gospel expressly finds fulfilment in this obligation. It is the sole of evangelism and core value in the Church’s agenda for the 21st Century world. The measure of relevance, which Church exerts on society, is dependent on the degree of selfless application of love for perishing souls out there. The presentation of the Gospel, and its receptive value is driven by love as its content.
Our moral response to the command to love one another is a sine qua non towards building a wicked-free society, a society where wickedness against human life is absent. When people’s heart are ruled by moral and divine forces of love, the issue of insurgence and terrorism will be unheard of.
Brethren, as we earnestly long for the emergence of Christmas (season of love), we must respond to the imperatives of God’s love by loving one another in keeping with the commandment of Christ Jesus whose advent and birth we commemorate. The expression of love in this sense goes beyond mere exchange of material gifts, to the expression of indiscriminate goodness of God to all creation. Love, in all ramifications, is protective. Our love for one another must seek to protect the overall good of our fellows.