Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 4
Jesus’ “new commandment” is presented as the next level beyond loving neighbor: “love one another as I have loved you”; what is “new” about Christ’s example in the way William Law describes it (“until then, unheard of example of love”), and how would an early Christian community have been forced to practice that in ordinary church life?
Another way to ask: Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you.” What is “new” about Jesus’ kind of love, and how would early Christians have had to live that out in everyday church life?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
William Law says the “new” part is the new example: Christians must love by imitating Christ’s own pattern of love, not merely the general duty to love others. The speaker implies early Christians would have had to practice this by concrete, sacrificial actions and by treating love as the visible mark of being Christ’s disciples.
- Jesus’ command: “love one another as I have loved you,” and “By this all will know that you are my disciples.”
- The speaker calls it “the next level,” beyond “love God…love your neighbor,” because Jesus “loved us even further…think about all the things he did for us.”
- He gives a specific example of Christ’s love: “he laid his life down for us to redeem us.”
- William Law: it was “new…to imitate a new, until then, unheard of example of love…as Christ has loved us.”
- William Law’s warning: if we are “void of this love,” we show we are “none of his disciples.”