This
question that was asked to the Lord Jesus was "Which commandment,"
singular, "is the foremost of all?" And the Lord Jesus seemingly
gives two answers to this question. He's asked "which commandment is
greatest?" and He responds by saying 'you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.' And 'you shall love your
neighbor as yourself.' Now, the Lord Jesus always gave the perfect answer. He
never said anything that didn't need to be said and He never left anything out
that needed to be there. So when the Lord Jesus answers the question by saying
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength," He had to include "You shall love your neighbor as
yourself." Otherwise this would not have been the perfect answer to the
question "which commandment is greatest?" And what the Lord Jesus is
revealing here is that these two commandments are inseparably connected one to
another. These two are actually one. They cannot be divided and you cannot have
one without the other. In 1 John 3:23 we read - "This is His commandment,
that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just
as He commanded us." Again, the word "commandment" is singular,
not plural. At first glance it seems as though we are given two commandments in
this verse, but the two are actually one. "This is His
commandment..." Loving God is directly connected and inseparably connected
to loving people. The two are actually one.
1
John 4:20-21 says - "If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother,
he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen,
cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him,
that the one who loves God should love his brother also." This verse just
amplifies what we have already seen. I like the fact that in verse 20 John
states this in two different ways. He starts off by saying, "If someone says,
“I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar." If he stopped there we
would have too much wiggle room. I don't know about you, but I would tend to
get into the mindset of, "well, I don't hate my brother. Hate is such a
strong word. I don't necessarily like him, but that doesn't mean that I hate
him." But the Lord doesn't leave us that much room, because right after He
says, "If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a
liar," He says "for the one who does not love his brother whom
he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." He gives it to us,
first in the negative and then in the positive. It's not enough to simply
tolerate one another. According to this verse if we do not love one another
then it is absolutely impossible for us to love God.
We read in 1
John 5:1 - "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and
whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him." If we truly love
God, the natural outcome will be love for His children, our brothers and
sisters in Christ. If we don't love one another, that is simply an evidence
that we don't truly love God. In 1 John 3:16-18 we read - "We know love by
this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need
and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little
children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and
truth." We know love because Christ laid down His life for us. That is
what love looks like. And so we're told that our love for one another should
motivate us to lay down our lives for one another. This doesn't just mean that
if someone is at the point of death and we have the opportunity to switch
places with them we should do it. That is certainly in view here, and that is
certainly one of the ways that the Lord Jesus laid down His life for us, but
that is not the extent of it. We can lay down our lives for one another in
practical ways every day. That's what the apostle John goes on to talk about in
the following verses. He says that we should lay down our lives for one
another, and then he says - "But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees
his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God
abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in
deed and truth." Laying down our lives for one another begins by laying
aside our own desires in order to help someone else. We lay down our lives for
one another, not necessarily by dying for one another, although it may
eventually come to that, but by putting their well-being above our own. This is
talked about in Philippians chapter 2 where the apostle Paul says that we are
to consider one another as more important than ourselves. That's what it means
to lay down our lives for one another. What makes us think that we would ever
be willing to die for someone if we aren't willing to live for them in
practical ways every day? So in Philippians chapter 2 when the apostle Paul is
using the Lord Jesus as our example of laying down our lives for one another
and considering one another as more important than ourselves, he shows how the
Lord Jesus laid down His life for us in practical ways every day, which
eventually led to His laying down His life for us to the point of death, even
death on a cross. We can lay down our lives for one another by giving away what
is rightfully our own in order to help a brother or sister who is in need. Let
us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.
John
13:35 - "By this all men will know that you are My
disciples, if you have love for one another."
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