John 13:31-35 is a teaching by Jesus around two topics. The first is with his glorification and departure. The second is with the new command of love.
John 13:31-33 deals with the glorification of Jesus and his departure. 31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now. The "now" marks a decisive turn in the narrative. It refers to Judas' departure. John repeats the absence of Judas as a means of transition from one scene to the next. Yet, this repetition serves to remind the reader that now the community is closed. Jesus is among his 11 truly faithful followers who are alone worthy, if uncomprehending, to receive the teachings of his farewell discourse. These words may imply that Jesus spoke under a painful restraint, given the presence of a traitor. The presence of Judas may have prevented Jesus from fully expresses his mind and heart. The departure of Judas allows the farewell discourse to begin. Jesus offers no reflections upon the traitor. He does not focus upon his own approaching suffering. The arrival of the hour is now the governing narrative and theological reality of the Gospel. John redefines past, present, and future in the light of the arrival of the hour. In this “now,” the Son of Man has been glorified (doxa praise, honor; glorify, exalt). The verb "to glorify" occurs five times, but the temporal framework in which John uses the verb shifts from past to future. This temporal confusion is intentional, because in these verses the mutual glorification of Jesus and God is a reality that is underway even as Jesus speaks. Jesus speaks of the glorification of the Son of Man. John underscores the eschatological import of Jesus' announcement by his use of the title "Son of Man" here. "Son of Man" is the Christological title with the strongest eschatological associations in the Fourth Gospel (5:27; 8:28; 12:23) and is most explicitly linked with Jesus' descent and ascent—that is, his coming from and returning to God (1:51; 3:13-14; 6:62; 12:32-34). John's particular gift to New Testament theology combines two strands of tradition into the one title "Son of Man." Outside the New Testament, the Son of Man is a figure of glory (Daniel 7:13-14). Within the Gospels (whether it reflects an interpretation by Jesus himself or the early church is of no consequence here), the Son of Man takes on the role of the one who suffers sacrificially for others (e.g., Mark 8:31). In the fourth gospel, Jesus as the Son of Man combines in one experience both the suffering and the glory. In his glorification, God will fully reveal Jesus for who he is: God's Son. The obedience of Jesus in the way of the cross reveals the glory of God. Further, God has been glorified in him. "Glory" is a visible manifestation of God's majesty in acts of power. John sees this glory supremely in Jesus' death and resurrection. Thus, it means here Jesus honors God in his obedience and that Jesus reveals the glory of God. For the other evangelists, especially Mark, of course, the crucifixion entails bitter suffering and abandonment. However, for John, the crucifixion is a “lifting up” or “exaltation” (3:14; 8:28; 12:32) and a glorification. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. In this scene, John reveals glorification in the act of Judas leaving the fellowship. John has a much broader understanding of Jesus' glorification – he does not localize it in any one event. Rather, God glorifies Jesus in and through the entire process of his revelation from the Incarnation (1:1), to the words and works of Jesus (2:11, 7:18, 8:54, 11:4), to the Passion (see also 12:23). In the fourth gospel, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is much more aware of the unfolding drama of this final week and his part in it. The distinction between Jesus and God disappears: As you see Jesus, you see God. The Father receives glorification in the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. The Father and Son exhibit perfect unity.
Jesus refers to them as 33 Little children (tekni’a little child, child), at 1:12, the Prologue announced, "to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." When Jesus addresses his followers as "little children," he acknowledges the truth of the Prologue's claims. This verse is the only place in the Fourth Gospel where Jesus explicitly addresses his followers as "little children,” an ordinary form of address for members of the believing community in I John (2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21). The phrase refers to 7:33 and 8:21, six months before. The New Testament does not use the word for little children. A different Greek word, paidion, is the word it uses for that purpose. It implies a bond that, while not mutual, nonetheless includes affection and a sense of protection and responsibility for the disciple on the part of the teacher. This glorification and revelation of Jesus is too much even for the insiders, let alone the Jews, to fathom - and so Jesus calls his disciples "children." I am with you only a little longer. Whereas Jesus was with them only for a short time and will come again only at the consummation, the Spirit will stay with them always, as in 14:16.[1] You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ The time for them to suffer is not now. The time for them to share in glory is not now.
John 13:34-35 deals with the commandment that the disciples love each other. Love one another and you will be happy. It is as simple and difficult as that.[2] One way to think of the mission of the church is to fulfill the commandment of Jesus as understood by John: love one another, as I have loved you. Love alone can have almost any content we might provide. Love is also common. Spouses love each other. Parents love their children. We love our friends. The Shema of Israel commanded the people of God to love God with all they are, and Jesus would refer to it as the greatest of the commandments. He also offered a second commandment, taken from the Torah, as lie the first commandment in its command to love the neighbor as oneself. In all these ways, the command to love is not new. However, when we think of love as having the content that Jesus provided in his life, it takes on distinctive character. It becomes sacrificial. It no longer has whatever content we want to give it. It is no longer common. If one would like to provide one simple mark of the Christian life and of the church, it would be love. For that reason, it becomes even more distressing when the church so regularly falls short. Of course, Christians fall short as well. We struggle with what it means to love. What we think of as love toward another, the other may not receive as love. Loving is not as simple as it might appear.
34 I give you a new commandment (evntolh,), that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. The commandment builds on Jesus' words to his disciples after the foot washing (13:15); his love for them has provided them with the model of how they are to relate to one another. The content of the command is to love one another. In order to understand why this is a new commandment, it is important to look at how "commandment" is used elsewhere in the Gospel. At 10:18, John describes the decision of Jesus to lay down his life as his enactment of God's commandment; at 14:31 and 15:12, Jesus' obedience to God's commandment is the mark of Jesus' love for God. For Jesus to keep God's commandment is for Jesus to enact his love of God in words and works (cf. 12:49-50). What is new, therefore, is not the commandment to love, because that commandment lies at the heart of the Torah (Lev 19:18; Deut 6:4; cf. Mark 12:28 and par.). 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Rather, what is new is that the commandment to love derives from the incarnation (see 3:16). The "new" turn in the commandment of here is that Jesus asks his followers to enter into the love that marks the relationship of the Father and Jesus. They will give others evidence of their participation in this relationship the same way that Jesus' is: by acts of love that join the believer to God (cf. 14:15, 21, 23; 15:12). St. Augustine made such distinctions long ago. They remain true. This commandment is what makes the community a distinctive and serious partner in discussion with the world. With it, it takes place that the people united in it do what people do not do elsewhere.[3] Early Christian theology found the content of the new law here in the new commandment here. It is part of the emphasis of John that God is love. Love elevates us to God and is a matter of abiding in that elevation. Such abiding is the union that unites believers to each other and thus also to Jesus and the Father.[4] He declares the importance of loving friendship. The intimacy of "little children" sets the framework for Jesus' teaching in these verses. The context is that of the "hour." "As I have loved you," means laying down his life and taking it up again. It is a gift. "As I have loved you" makes Jesus the source of such love. Only secondarily is Jesus the standard of such love. Keeping this commandment is the identifying mark of discipleship because it is the tangible sign of the disciples' abiding in Jesus (15:10). To model one's love on a love whose ultimate expression is the gift of one's life is to model one's love on a love that has no limits, that knows no boundaries and restrictions. To interpret Jesus' death as the ultimate act of love enables the believer to see that the love to which Jesus summons the community is not the giving up of one's life, but the giving away of one's life. The distinction between these prepositions is important because the love that Jesus embodies is grace, not sacrifice. Jesus gave his life to his disciples as an expression of the fullness of his relationship with God and of God's love for the world. Jesus' death in love, therefore, was not an act of self-denial, but an act of fullness, of living out his life and identity fully, even when that living would lead to death. The example to which John points the love commandment is the love of Jesus for his disciples, a love that will receive its fullest and final expression in his death. John exhorts Jesus' followers to love one another as fully as he loves them, a love that may indeed find its expression in the laying down of one's life. To maintain the new community, protect themselves from the outside and grow in their faith, Jesus gives the disciples the new commandment. The love of this new commandment is not an allegiance to a romantic philosophical idea, or future nirvana. The love that Jesus commands is intimate and personal. This love becomes a sacramental witness to the fundamental relationship that Jesus has with the Father (17:23-25). Jesus may be physically absent from his disciples; however, those who remain can experience the actual presence of his love, as they love one another. In loving one another, they will experience the love that is between Jesus and God. This commandment is the hallmark of discipleship, yet we often miss the radical call of this commandment. We often dismiss the ethical demand of this commandment, which focuses so specifically on love within and among members of the faith community, as "easier" or "softer" than the ethical demand to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matt 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31) or to love one's enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27-35). Yet, the very narrative in which John places this commandment suggests that there is nothing easy about keeping the commandment to love one another. The setting of the Last Supper makes it a covenant term.[5] Intimacy, knowledge, indwelling are themes throughout the Last Discourse. The Hebrew Scripture knew of the generosity of God, but in another sense, no one could know it until the giving of the Son. It is a response to the physical departure of Jesus. In the love of the community, Jesus confronts people. John unrelentingly places Jesus' teachings on love and discipleship in the context of the betrayal and death of Jesus in John 13.
Mutual love is the way that members of the community will make Jesus present, and any discord within the community will suggest just the opposite. In John, Jesus implies that the world - those outside the faithful fellowship - will be looking at the witness the community offers. If there is an emphasis on evangelism here, then it suggests that the example of this close-knit community will draw seekers, rather than have the word or outreach convert them. There is great contemporary tension in this text. It is easy to dismiss this exhortation to the community to become an inward-looking, spiritually esoteric, homogeneous fellowship. It is likewise easy to assume that inward spiritual growth is of secondary importance to outward displays of mission and social action. Yet, the author of the fourth gospel, given his due, reminds the church that the world continues to observe how the faithful community acts within itself. The behavior of the faithful within the church can reveal the power and presence of the living Christ.
What John presents in this new commandment is a call to the disciples to mirror, in their love for one another, the love between God the Father and Jesus the Son. This love is intimate and sacrificial (see also John 15:13; 17:26). It reveals that John, the writer of the gospel, may have had a particular definition of true discipleship in mind. The Johannine tradition directs discipleship inwardly. The primary way to witness to the essential being of God and the relationship of the Father to the Son is by loving other faithful members of the community. John repeats this theme with an even more sharply honed edge in the first of the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:1-11). Some would see the Johannine and synoptic witnesses as a complementary description of the inward and outward direction of God's love. Others would see them as competing interpretations of the ministry and teachings of Jesus.
One rarely achieves in life the commandment to imitate the love of Jesus, a fact observed famously by Gandhi. “I like your Christ,” he said, but “I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” This judgment stings because of its truth. Christians must struggle to regain the same ethos of love which caused an ancient observer to say of them, “See how they love one another, ... how they are ready even to die for one another.”[6]
To love one another as Jesus loves us is to live a life thoroughly shaped by a love that knows no limits, by a love whose expression brings the believer closer into relationship with God, with Jesus, and with one another. This love carries with it a completely new concept of the possibilities of community.
When we talk about love, it can sound like a Hallmark greeting card. A group of social scientists asked some children, “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think.
“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis, too. That’s love.”
“Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way.”
“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
“Love is when someone hurts you, and you get so mad but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings.”
“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend whom you hate.”
“When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you’re scared they won’t love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only do they still love you, they love you even more.”
“There are two kinds of love — our love and God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them.”
“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”
“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”
“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”
“You really shouldn’t say, ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
“When they crucified Jesus, God could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, but he didn’t. That’s love.”
A man once spoke to a group of high-schoolers about the idea of love. "Someone define love," he said. No response. "Doesn't anyone want to try?" Still no response. "Tell you what: I'll define it, and you raise your hands if you agree. Okay?" There were nods all around. "Okay. Love is that feeling you get when you meet the right person." Every hand went up.
This is how many people approach the idea of love. Consciously or unconsciously, they believe love is a sensation or a feeling (based on physical and emotional attraction) that magically, spontaneously generates when Mr. or Miss Right appears. Moreover, many, just as easily, since they believe this is love, have found that it can spontaneously degenerate when the magic "just isn't there" anymore. You fall in love ... and you can fall out of love.
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now[7]
In his famous book The Art of Loving, author Erich Fromm noted the sad consequence of this misconception when he says: "There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love."
So then what is love -- real, lasting love?[8]
Well, St. Augustine once said husbands and wives love each other, parents and children love each other, and indeed love binds all human relationships. What makes this commandment new is that we should love as Jesus loved. This love renews us and makes us new people.[9]
Jesus would, of course, demonstrate his love to the fullest measure by dying on the cross, giving himself for the whole world. Referencing that kind of love, Jesus would repeat the New Commandment Mission (John 15:12-13): “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The great Quaker writer Thomas Kelly said, "No single person can hold all dedicated souls within his [or her] compass in steadfast Fellowship with equal vividness." (He considered the Fellowship so important that he wrote it with a capital "F"!) Kelly went on to acknowledge that there are degrees of Fellowship. Although all might be within the bonds of love, some are nearer to us individually than others. Some of these who are not so near us might be nearer to others, however, making various groupings in the church that overlap.
"The total effect in a living church," said Kelly, "[is] sufficient intersection of the bonds to form a supporting, carrying network of love for the whole of [humankind]. Where the Fellowship is lacking, the church ... is lacking and the kingdom of God has not yet come. For these bonds of divine love and 'carrying' are the stuff of the kingdom of God. [Those who are] in the Fellowship [are] in the kingdom of God."[10]
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 453.
[2] --Michael Leunig.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [68.3] 816.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 70, 183.
[5] Raymon Brown in Anchor Bible.
[6] (Tertullian, Apology 39, 3rd century)
[7] --Refrain from the song, "Get Together," performed by the Youngbloods.
[8] --Dan Christopher, "Love one another," from a sermon, February 10, 2013. Bellefontefaith.com. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
[9] St Augustine, Tractate 65. The Lord Jesus declares that He is giving His disciples a new commandment, that they should love one another. "A new commandment," He says, "I give unto you, that ye love one another." But was not this already commanded in the ancient law of God, where it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"? (1) Why, then, is it called a new one by the Lord, when it is proved to be so old? Is it on this account a new commandment, because He hath divested us of the old, and clothed us with the new man? For it is not indeed every kind of love that renews him that listens to it, or rather yields it obedience, but that love regarding which the Lord, in order to distinguish it from all carnal affection, added, "as I have loved you." For husbands and wives love one another, and parents and children, and all other human relationships that bind men together: to say nothing of the blame-worthy and damnable love which is mutually felt by adulterers and adulteresses, by fornicators and prostitutes, and all others who are knit together by no human relationship, but by the mischievous depravity of human life. Christ, therefore, hath given us a new commandment, that we should love one another, as He also hath loved us. This is the love that renews us, making us new men, heirs of the New Testament, singers of the new song. It was this love, brethren beloved, that renewed also those of olden time, who were then the righteous, the patriarchs and prophets, as it did afterwards the blessed apostles: it is it, too, that is now renewing the nations, and from among the universal race of man, which overspreads the whole world, is making and gathering together a new people, the body of the newly-married spouse of the only-begotten Son of God, of whom it is said in the Song of Songs, "Who is she that ascendeth, made white?" (1) Made white indeed, because renewed; and how, but by the new commandment? Because of this, the members thereof have a mutual interest in one another; and if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; and one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. (2) For this they hear and observe, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another:" not as those love one another who are corrupters, nor as men love one another in a human way; but they love one another as those who are God's, and all of them sons of the Highest, and brethren, therefore, of His only Son, with that mutual love wherewith He loved them, when about to lead them on to the goal were all sufficiency should be theirs, and where their every desire should be satisfied with good things. (3) For then there will be nothing wanting they can desire, when God will be all in all. (4) An end like that has no end. No one dieth there, where no one arriveth save he that dieth to this world, not that universal kind of death whereby the body is bereft of the soul; but the death of the elect, through which, even while still remaining in this mortal flesh, the heart is set on the things which are above. Of such a death it is that the apostle said, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (5) And perhaps to this, also, do the words refer,
"Love is strong as death." (6) For by this love it is brought about, that, While still held in the present corruptible body, we die to this world, and our life is hid with Christ in God; yea, that love itself is our death to the world, and our life with God. For if that is death when the soul quits the body, how can it be other than death when our love quits the world? Such love, therefore, is strong as death. And what is stronger than that which bindeth the world?
5. Think not then, my brethren, that when the Lord says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another," there is any overlooking of that greater commandment, which requires us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind; for along with this seeming oversight, the words "that ye love one another" appear also as if they had no reference to that second commandment, which says, "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." For "on these two commandments," He says, "hang all the law and the prophets." (7) But both commandments may be found in each of these by those who have good understanding. For, on the one hand, he that loveth God cannot despise His commandment to love his neighbor; and on the other, he who in a holy and spiritual way loveth his neighbor, what doth he love in him but God? That is the love, distinguished from all mundane love, which the Lord specially characterized, when He added, "as I have loved you." For what was it but God that He loved in us? Not because we had Him, but in order that we might have Him; and that He may lead us on, as I said a little ago, where God is all in all. It is in this way, also, that the physician is properly said to love the sick; and what is it he loves in them but their health, which at all events he desires to recall; not their sickness, which he comes to remove? Let us, then, also so love one another, that, as far as possible, we may by the solicitude of our love be winning one another to have God within us. And this love is bestowed on us by Him who said, "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." For this very end, therefore, did He love us, that we also should love one another; bestowing this on us by His own love to us, that we should be bound to one another in mutual love, and, united together as members by so pleasant a bond, should be the body of so mighty a Head.
3. "By this," He adds, "Shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another:" as if He said, Other gifts of mine are possessed in common with you by those who are not mine,--not only nature, life, perception, reason, and that safety which is equally the privilege of men and beasts; but also languages, sacraments, prophecy, knowledge, faith, the bestowing of their goods upon the poor, and the giving of their body to the flames: but because destitute of charity, they only tinkle like cymbals; they are nothing, and by nothing are they profited. (1) It is not, then, by such gifts of mine, however good, which may be alike possessed by those who are not my disciples, but "by this it is that all men shall know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one to another." O thou spouse of Christ, fair amongst women! O thou who ascendest in whiteness, leaning upon thy Beloved! for by His light thou art made dazzling to whiteness, by His assistance thou art preserved from falling. How well becoming thee are the words in that Song of Songs, which is, as it were, thy bridal chant, "That there is love in thy delights"! (2) This it is that suffers not thy soul to perish with the ungodly; it is this that judges thy cause, and is strong as death, and is present in thy delights. How wonderful is the character of that death, which was all but swallowed up in penal sufferings, had it not been over and above absorbed in delights! But here this discourse must now be closed; for we must make a new commencement in dealing with the words that follow.
[10] Kelly, Thomas. A Testament of Devotion (New York: Harper & Row, 1941), 85-86.
good essay on love. you noted the church is to be characterized by love. Sadly we see too little of that in our churches. The UMC is facing this as we speak. Lyn Eastman
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