The New Commandment Justin Wadel

This law is a royal law. It's royal. It's meant for royalty. It's meant for people who are under a king. There is no way we can separate our love for God from our love for one another, because that is the test to whether or not we really do love God and whether we really do have a relationship with God.

What is the foremost commandment of all? So Jesus was just constantly getting all these questions, and people would come to him. And a lot of times, the very learned people, that in this case, we have a scribe coming to him, someone that would have been very taught and learned in the law.

And he comes with a very important question, maybe one of the most important questions that were ever asked to Jesus. Verse 28 of chapter 12 in Mark. Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, "Which is the first commandment of all?" And this time, Jesus answered him. Many times, Jesus would kind of reply with a question.

Well, just this time, Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."

This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these. So the scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but he. And to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." Now, when Jesus saw that he answered well, he said, "You're not far from the kingdom." That's a very interesting observation here that Jesus made. He said, "You're not far from the kingdom of God because of this one truth, which is the foremost commandment of all."

In the parallel passage in Matthew, where this incident, this discussion happened, Jesus added that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart. Love your neighbors yourself.

So let's look quickly at these two commandments that Jesus is referring to. The first is found in Deuteronomy 6. I'm going to read verse 1 through 9. Now, this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you're crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. And here it is, verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. And I'm not a Jewish scholar at all, but from what I understand, this "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one" is what they call the Shema, and it's the central affirmation of faith for the Jewish people and is very often the first section of scripture that a Jewish child learns. And this is something they'll repeat many, many times throughout their life. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, along with the commandment. The second commandment that Jesus referred to here is found in Leviticus 19, starting at verse 13.

Now, just to help get some context here, you shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse to death nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God. I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice and judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty.

In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go about as a tell bear among your people, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord. Why didn't Jesus answer this question by just giving the one great commandment? He could have answered the question by saying that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and left it at that. But instead, he adds the second commandment. And I think he did that in order to establish a guiding principle in the kingdom of God. And the principle that he's establishing is that there is no way we can separate our love for God from our love for one another.

So that's why the second commandment, he says, is like unto the first. And then when he ends, he says, there is no greater commandment, not plural, singular, than this. Jesus pretty much took the two commandments and made them one.

One commandment. So if the Shema is the central affirmation of faith for the Jewish people, then the golden rule, like we call it, should be the central affirmation of faith for the Christian. So probably one of the best ways to evaluate my love for Christ, for God, whether I do love him with all of my heart, whether I do love him with all of my strength, is to evaluate my love for those around me. Most, if not all, of the writers of the New Testament pick up on this principle, and it's just all over the place. If you start kind of looking through the New Testament with this in mind, thinking about what it means to love one another and how that directly influences our love for God, it's just all over.

And it's not hard to see that the early church very much believed that there is a direct connection between our love for God and our love for others. You can't separate it. Just like we were talking about this morning, you can't separate unity from Christ and his body. It's got to be there. It's all part of the same package.

In James, he calls this commandment the royal law.

So this is a magnificent law given by our king and upheld by the citizens of his kingdom. I don't think that that term royal is used very often, but James refers to this law as a royal law. And again, we're just seeing how special and unique this commandment is in order to be given that kind of title. It's royal. It's meant for royalty.

It's meant for people who are under a king. Galatians 5:13 and 14, "For you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word. Even in this, you shall love your neighbors yourself."

Imagine hearing that as someone who grew up knowing the law, knowing all the ins and outs of the law, and just the law was huge. It took years to learn everything that was in the law. And to hear that it's all summed up in this one word, "Love your neighbor as yourself," that's hard to imagine. Some of the last words that Jesus spoke to his disciples before his death, I think Jesus coined this when he said that this is a new commandment. And John definitely picked up on that. And I think some of the others did as well, that this is a new commandment because the commandment was from a void. It did come from way back in the history of the Israelites.

But in a real sense, with Jesus coming on the scene and showing us what love is, it became a new commandment. In verse 31 of chapter 13 of John, "So when he had gone out, Jesus said, 'Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him immediately.

Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' So now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.'" So powerful. According to Jesus, the test of a true disciple is the ability to love one another because that, in turn, becomes the true test of whether or not we love God. Again, I just want to read another little passage here. John picks up on this in 1 John 2.

And I know John was thinking of that moment, thinking of that moment when Jesus was saying those special words to them right before his death. 1 John chapter 2, my Bible has a little heading that says, "The test of knowing him." Now, by this, we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He who says, "I know him," and does not keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him or is being completed in him. By this, we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked.

Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Remember what we heard last week about the Son of Righteousness. Okay? When the sun comes up, the moon disappears in its brightness. And the only light the moon had, first of all, was from the sun. But when the sun comes up, the moon fades away and the sun becomes the light.

The sun is the light. And think about this in this context. The darkness is passing away. The true light is already shining. He who says he is in that light and hates his brother is in darkness until now.

He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. So again, a new commandment to love one another. So here again, John just makes this very simple. And I want to try to keep it very simple. I try to keep this very simple in my own mind. We can't know Christ if we do not keep his commandments and if we are not keeping his greatest commandment to love one another. It's a surefire way that we really don't know Christ, that we really don't know God.

So let's make sure that we're asking each other the right questions. And I don't know if we do this here a lot. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but just we do, I think, sometimes question one another. And you know, but I've been places where people just kind of go up to each other randomly and, "Well, how's your relationship with the Lord? How's your relationship with the Lord?

What did the Lord do for you this week?" And it's a great question. I don't have any problem with that. But in some ways, it's the wrong question to be asking. We should be asking things like, "How's your relationship with those around you?

How have you been showing your love to your brother or sister this past week? How about your neighbor? How's your relationship with your neighbor? What's your neighbor say about you? How's your neighbor feel about you? How have you been treating the people that are closest to you?" Because that is the test to whether or not we really do love God and whether we really do have a relationship with God is how we're treating those around us. Is the darkness passing away from our hearts and lives? And are we walking in the true light of the Sun, capital S, U-N, of righteousness?

Down to 1 John chapter 3. "In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous.

Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this, we know love because he laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Again, by this, we know love because we already talked about this in Sunday school because of what Jesus did for us. He actually laid down his life for us. He willingly laid down his life for us. He wasn't forced to do that. And our love for one another, again, should be tangible. It should be something that's seen and felt and heard.

We should be a people known for our generosity and sharing with one another. And you know this thing that love isn't necessary just in word. It's easy to say, "I love you, brother. I love you, sister. I love you." But that love needs to be tangible. It needs to be real. It needs to be in deed and in truth, like John said. And what John is saying here, again, goes back to Deuteronomy 15:7. Interesting little section there. "If there is among you a poor man of your brethren within any of the gates in your land, which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs."

Our response to our brother's need should be an eager and willing desire to bless as soon as we have an opportunity. And that's just love becoming practical. That's love becoming shoe leather. I came across an article yesterday I'd like to read about the early Christians and the way that they practiced love. And very interesting to see that society, the Roman society, the world around them took notice of this. They took notice of the Christians because of their love for one another. That's something that even their critics started saying about them. They do love one another. They take care of their poor. They take care of our poor. They take care of people that are needy.

They help one another. And this was very—it was just interesting to read some of this. This article is titled "A Love Without Condition." I'll let you guess who the author is. At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries. And Roman society took note. Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim, "See how they love one another." Okay? This wasn't them saying this about themselves. This was the people that actually really didn't like them. But they had to admit that the Christians loved one another.

Justin Martyr sketched Christian love this way. "We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refuse to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies."

Clement, describing the person who has come to know God, wrote, "He impoverishes himself out of love so that he is certain he may never overlook a brother in need, especially if he knows he can bear poverty better than his brother.

He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain. And if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain. When a devastating plague swept across the ancient world in the third century, Christians were the only ones who cared for the sick, which they did at the risk of contracting the plague themselves.

Meanwhile, the pagans were throwing infected members of their own families into the streets even before they died in order to protect themselves from the disease." So the Christians were coming along and nursing these people back to life or at least just caring for them in their sickness.

The love of the early Christians wasn't limited simply to their fellow believers. Christians also lovingly helped non-believers. The poor, the orphans, the elderly, the sick, the shipwrecked, even their persecutors. Jesus had said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."

The early Christians accepted this statement as a command from their Lord rather than an ideal that couldn't be actually practiced in real life. Lactantius wrote, "If we all derive our origin from one man whom God created, we are plainly of all of one family. Therefore, it must be considered an abomination to hate another human, no matter how guilty he may be. For this reason, God has decreed that we should hate no one, but that we should eliminate hatred so we can comfort our enemies by reminding them of our mutual relationship. For if we have all been given life from the same God, what else are we but brothers? Because we are brothers, God teaches us to never do evil to one another, but only good.

So because we are all brothers, God teaches us to never do evil to one another, but only good, giving aid to those who are oppressed and experiencing hardship and giving food to the hungry." And then he talks about here a little bit about taking a brother to court.

The early Christians would never have considered that since they viewed other humans as brothers and sisters. It's no wonder that Christianity spread rapidly through the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary or evangelism programs. The love that they practiced drew the attention of the world just as Jesus said it would. So I think we've established that our love for one another and our love for our neighbor, our love for those around us should be at the center of our lives as Christians and that we can't separate this from our love to God. And there's a lot more scripture that we could read that supports this. And we may get to some of them later.

But when we think about how this affects how our love for one another affects our relationship with God, and I think Mike mentioned it this morning about, you know, we hear so much about this one-on-one relationship with God. Well, it's just me and Jesus having this great relationship. And I don't feel like I'm there yet, but I'm just learning more and more as I understand the New Testament that it really is more about my relationship with those around me. And then that's going to affect that relationship with God. And it actually is a big deal. I'm going to read some verses here in Luke chapter 6. Jesus speaking here, verse 27 of Luke chapter 6. "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.

Give to everyone who acts of you. And from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. Or if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.

But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the Most High. For he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.

For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." These words here hit me the other day like they never hit me before. I was reading over that, and I just got stuck on that. They're right around like verse 37, 38. And I was like, "Wow, what's he saying here?" And I'm mainly going to lock in on verse 37 and 38. But even before these verses, Jesus is kind of leading up to this by telling us how to love our enemies. So this thing of loving is not just inclusive to our brothers and sisters or to our neighbors. This even includes our enemies and that we are to love even those who don't love us in return.

And actually, we are to expect nothing in return for the goodness and kindness that we show to our enemies because the reward will come from our Father in heaven. And we will be worthy of being called sons of the Most High because he also is kind and shows his goodness to the unthankful and evil.

I mean, I think we all know that. Like, yeah, well, sure, God, I was outside this morning walking around, and it was just so beautiful. The birds were out and, you know, what don't what birds do, just joyful as can be and singing. And my neighborhood, at least, was pretty quiet. It was just so beautiful. The sun was coming up. You know, there was kind of that almost frozen dew on the grass and a lot of that kind of glittering around, but so beautiful. And I thought, "God just gave us this beautiful morning." And that's not just for me.

The guy down the street that really doesn't care much about God is blessed with this beautiful day as well. That's how God is. He actually shows his goodness. Somewhere it says that he sends rain on the just and the unjust.

He is kind and shows his goodness to the unthankful and evil. Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. So Jesus has given us this glimpse into the very nature and character of God by depicting him as a merciful Father. There's so much out there that depict God as something else.

But Jesus is showing us here that he's a merciful, kind, loving Father. And we wouldn't want our heavenly Father to be otherwise, right? That should just make us stop and be so thankful because we've all been recipients of that, of his mercy. But we can't stop there. And Jesus is going on here, I think, just making a point that as children of the Most High, the expectation is that we would then, because of the mercy that has been shown to us, that we are then going to turn around and show this mercy to our fellow man. And this brings us to these verses here, 37 and 38, and what I'll call the boomerang effect. Judge not, and you shall not be judged.

Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.

Does everyone here know what a boomerang is? This is when I wish I had a PowerPoint. Do you all know what a boomerang is? So it's like this V-shaped object, and you just grab it by one side or the other, and you throw it, and they go and make a circle, and they come right back to you. That's a boomerang. That's what a boomerang does. And it's been many, many years since I had one or throw it or even played with one.

So it makes this full circle, and it comes right back to you, right back where it originated from, right back where it started. So basically, this means here what Jesus is saying that we better be careful what we're tossing out there. We better be careful what we're giving out, what we're throwing out, because that thing's going to make a full circle and come right back to us.

So only toss out what you want returned, okay? Is kind of the simple message here. Only give out what you want given back. Or like we tell our children, treat others like you want to be treated. That should be so simple that in the same way that I want to be treated, it should be how I'm treating others. But we just, that thing just like, it doesn't get through our heads very easy.

This principle here should be so easy to understand, yet so many times we completely ignore it, or at least we think that somehow I'm in a situation where this won't apply. And I can be critical of my brother and I'm, man, I just can't forgive this time. It's too bad. You know, I'm just going to treat my brother or sister wrong. And that this won't apply to us. But the plain fact here is that the way we choose to treat others, what we give out will and does affect us. It will affect our salvation, whether we think it applies to us or not. Jesus is saying here that we shouldn't judge or will be judged.

And just to clarify this, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't discern or call out sin or admonish and correct one another. That's all in its place. And if I understand correctly, this would just be more like means to pass judgment, as if we were in the place of a judge passing judgment on a person. I think that's why then Jesus follows this by saying, you know, condemn not. He's kind of saying the same thing here. Judge not, condemn not. It's kind of the same idea.

By judging or condemning others, we will bring judgment and condemnation on ourselves.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

How often have we heard that and reminded ourselves of that, and yet just have a hard time accepting it? Jesus said that if we do not forgive our brother his trespasses, neither will our heavenly Father forgive us our trespasses.

We all know the parable that Jesus told of the servant who wouldn't forgive his fellow servant this small debt that he owed him. Just after his own debt, which was so large he could really never pay it, had been forgiven by his master.

And what happened? The forgiveness was retracted and the original debt was reinstated.

We refuse to forgive, we won't be forgiven. And I think John Martin says it very well. When we choose to forgive someone, we think we're freeing them and we're actually freeing ourselves. We're actually letting ourselves out of a prison that unforgiveness creates.

Jesus ended that story with a very sober warning. So my heavenly Father also will do to each one of you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother's trespasses.

So here again, the boomerang effect. We throw that boomerang of unforgiveness at someone, that thing comes right back where it started.

We throw that judgmental attitude at someone, it comes right back at where it started. Ephesians 4:32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And then Jesus really emphasizes this in verse 38. He emphasizes the boomerang effect. Whatever we give out will be given back to us, and it will come back, he says, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be handed back to us according to what we give. And I always looked at this and thought, or just before last week, I would have always looked at this and thought that, well, this is talking about when I give, right? And so this is always good coming back to me that when I bless someone, when I give, when I'm generous, then what comes back is even more, and it's shaken together and pressed down, and it's even better.

But I'm reading this and saying this goes along with verse 37. This goes along with verse 36, that it really could be good or bad coming back and being pressed down and in full measure. With the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.

So this isn't only good coming back when we do good, and that does happen. If we choose to be generous and we choose to bless others and we choose to forgive, then we get that same benefit back from God.

And it's pressed down, and it's even more than what we gave out. But the same happens when we decide that we're not going to forgive and when we're condemning, when we're judging, when we're not merciful. That same what we give out is given back to us and pressed down in full measure. I don't know if I'm getting my point across.

The same measure that you use, okay, whatever you're using to measure other people or situations, and God's just going to do that to you. He's going to use that same amount and maybe more. So what are we going to choose to give out to those that we interact with, whether it's our family, our coworkers, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, even our enemies? What are we going to choose to give out? What are we going to choose when we throw out our boomerang? We all know what we want our heavenly Father to give us. We all have this expectation of how God should be treating us. We want to experience his love.

We need his mercy and his kindness. We desperately need his forgiveness. We want his blessing and his favor on our lives. And we all want all of that in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over in our lives and hearts.

But there's a condition. A new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. If we indeed obey the greatest commandment and love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves, then indeed our joy and gladness will be of full measure and complete and overflowing. This law is a royal law. It's royal. It's meant for royalty. It's meant for people who are under a king. There is no way we can separate our love for God from our love for one another, because that is the test to whether or not we really do love God and whether we really do have a relationship with God.