^ L. Abbott, Signs of Promise, 234.
32 THE NEW COMMANDMENT
^ Truly God has bound Himself by love's sweet constraint to make us capable of a love that is similar to His own ; that is to share the highest of all things with us to the full. The self- sacrificing love that began in God must also go on in us. By every means, our hearts must be made capable of possessing and reciprocating it all. God knows how sweet it is to love and to be loved. And so the glory that He gave to Jesus — the supreme glory of self-sacrificing love — He has given even to us also, that we may be one in love even with the Father and the Son. Having therefore equipped us with this highest power, He lays on us the command which, enforced by His example, finds such an echo in our hearts. "Above all things have fervent love among yourselves ! " ^
(1) God the Father loves with this twofold love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only hegotten Son." Was the love that demanded that a love that made Him glad ? Was it not a love that " hurt " Him ? But, says Jesus, " If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father will love him." Why, the Father loves every man, whether he keeps the commandments of the Lord or not. But this is a new love — a love that makes the Father glad. So also is God the Son capable of a twofold love. What a yearning love there is in that cry over the self- doomed city : " 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! " How different from the love He bore to that disciple — "the disciple whom Jesus loved ! "
^ If you are reverent, you may see the love of Jesus by reading in succession John xi. 1-5, Mark xiv. 3-9, and Luke X. 38-42. "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." And one man is known to all history as the friend of Jesus. They called Him the friend of publicans and sinners, a name that dimly reveals the inner secret of His life. And the last hours of His life were reserved, not for the crowd or the impenitent, but for those who loved Him best, and whose love He trusted when He went down to death.^
(2) And so also to the follower of the Lord is this double love not merely possible but quite inevitable — a love that hurts, and a love that makes him glad. Sharing the love of Christ which sent Him to die for sinners, he loves those for whom Christ died, though they do not recognize Him as a Prince and a Saviour.
> Frank W. Crossley. ' F. W. Lewis, The Untcen Life, 18.
ST. JOHN XIII. 34 33
It is a real love in the true Christian, an anxious, eager, almost consuming love sometimes — a love which brings no gladness, but burns the breast with yearning desire. It is a love which suffers persecution, which makes the gentle woman courageous, which amazes and staggers the unbeliever. But there is a love also which makes the follower of Jesus glad.
^ In a block of London's poorest abodes a woman was visiting one night. Trying room after room, she found only misery, filth, brutality. When to the weary knock at one more door a cheerful "Come in" was the response, and she found herself welcomed at the bright fireside of a poor but real follower of Jesus, there rushed forth to meet that welcome a love that made her glad. The one is a love that demands self-denial, the other is spontaneous, irresistible. The one makes us fit for the inheritance of the saints in light, the other proves us saints upon the earth.
III.
The Example.
1. " As I loved you " — these words point to an action which is past and done, not to a continued state. Westcott endeavours to preserve the tense and yet apply it in a general way. " The exact form ('I loved')," he says "implies that Christ's work is now ideally finished." But a much simpler explanation lies to our hand. "That ye love one another; as I loved you." The act He refers to is just past. It is the washing of their feet. We view that marvellous action chiefly as a great wonder of con- descending love. He meant it as an instance of true Irotherly love. If I, your Lord and Master, act as a brother towards you, ye ought to act as brothers towards one another. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye act towards one another as I have just acted towards you. The whole strange action of the feet-washing leads up to this command; and the command interprets the action. "As I have just loved you" — the exact meaning of the word is brought out better by that translation than by any other. In washing their feet He offered them a single instance of the brotherly love He commanded. It was, however, an instance which involved the principle, and was capable of endless application.
ST. JOHN (2) — 3
34 THE NEW COMMANDMENT
2. The instance of washing the disciples' feet involves, we say, the principle. From this and other instances of Christ's love St. John deduces that principle and applies it: "Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us : and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." Not die for the brethren. We may be called to death, and we may not ; but we are to lay down our lives for the brethren. It is a comparatively easy thing to die for other people; but to live for them, — to lie down in the muddy road and let other men walk over us, to stand and let other people climb upon us, to be underneath our equals, to be the means by which they climb to preferment and reward, — that is hard. And that is what Christ did, and what Christ held up as the ideal for His children evermore.