The Amazing Teaching of Jesus Christ on Love

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). One of the top Beatles’ songs of 1967 was about love. It’s entitled: “All You Need Is Love.” The song sold million of copies and is still played today on the radio. The chorus goes, All you need is love All you need is love All you need is love, love Love is all you need Love, love, love Love, love, love Love, love, love The word love is repeated thirty nine times throughout the song and the phrase “all you need is love” 12 times. The song is catchy, and they certainly made their point: “all you need is love.” The problem, however, is they didn’t tell us what love is. But Jesus Christ does, and it isn’t an empty, fluffy word. The greatest leader in all of history was the Lord Jesus Christ, and He was the most loving man to ever walk upon this earth. He is divine love in the flesh, and what He taught about love is unmatched by any teacher or leader on the pages of human history. Below are ten examples of Jesus’ teaching on love. They are foundational to the rest of this book and demonstrate that love is positively indispensable to Christian leadership and all Christian service. God Is Love. Jesus makes the most astonishing claim: He declared that He has been “loved” by God the Father from “before the foundation of the world,” that is, before the universe was created He was loved (John 17:24).[i] Thus, Jesus teaches that love has existed before the creation of the world, that God the Father is the source of this love, that He Himself has been the eternal object of love, and that this relationship is the supreme model of all love relationships. God’s Love for His People Jesus makes the amazing declaration that God loves us “even as” He loves His Son: “So that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me” (John 17:23; italics added). The comparison Jesus uses is “breathtakingly extravagant.”[ii] The “very same love he reserves for His Son,” writes D. A. Carson, He reserves for us.[iii] Jesus’ Love for His People Jesus also makes the same declaration of His own love for us: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you” (John 15:9; italics added). “The Son’s love for men is so great,” writes James Moffatt, “that he can only compare it to the Father’s love for himself.”[iv] Jesus states that, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus displayed the greatest love possible when He laid down His live for His friends. The cross is Jesus holding His arms out wide saying, “I love you this much.” God’s Love Dwelling in His People In His final prayer for His disciples, Jesus prays that the very love with which the Father loved Him would be in and among His disciples: “And I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26; italics added). To fulfill this amazing prayer request, Jesus promises the indwelling Holy Spirit who produces in every believer a new supernatural capacity to love with God’s love. In the words of R. S. Candlish, “We have now a divine faculty of loving; we love with the love which is of God; which is God’s very nature.”[v] So here is an important starting point for our study, you must have God’s love in you through the Holy Spirit or you are not a Christian leader; in fact, you’re not a Christian! Loving God--The Greatest Commandment Answering the question which is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus states without hesitation that “the great and foremost commandment” is to love God with one’s whole being—with all one’s heart, with all one’s emotion, and with all one’s mind (Matt. 22:35-40). The sum of all God’s commandments and all religious service is love God. So the first commandment and the greatest commandment is to love God with one’s whole being. All the law of Moses and the words of the prophets depend on this first commandment. Loving Jesus--The Preeminent Love Relationship As no other person can do, Jesus demands the preeminent place among all our love relationships: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:37, 38). Jesus’ demands of discipleship require dying to self and loving Him above all others. All other relationships become idolatrous when He is not loved first and foremost. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus insists (Matt. 6:24). Love Expressed in Obedience Jesus teaches that obedience is one of the primary ways we express our love for God. He Himself is the best example of this important truth: “But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31). Jesus displayed His love for His Father by His perfect obedience. So we too display our love for Christ in exactly the same way, by obedience to His commands. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience is also evidence of our love for Christ: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me” (John 14:21). Neighbor Love and the Good Samaritan Jesus states that love for God is “the great and foremost commandment,” but then immediately adds that the second commandment (“love your neighbor as yourself”) is “like” the first. Jesus further states that, “On these two commandments depends the whole Law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:39, 40), and “There is no other commandment greater than these [love God; love neighbor]” (Mark 12:31). Jesus brilliantly summarizes the heart of true religion and all ethics by this simple double-command—Love God and love neighbor. This bold, new declaration elevates neighbor love to the same category as love for God, making them “inseparable companion[s]”[vi] yet still maintains the priority of love for God. This will mean that Christ’s followers will be marked not only by total devotion to God but sacrificial service to their neighbor. Since Jesus elevated the commandment to love one’s neighbor, the inevitable question is, “Who exactly is my neighbor?” Jesus answers this question with the unforgettable story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). The story goes: A man from the country of Samaria was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he found a person robbed and nearly beaten to death. Although the Samaritan didn’t personally know the victim, he stopped and cared for his needs. So our Lord teaches that “One’s ‘neighbor’ is anyone in need that one encounters, and ‘love’ is putting oneself out to meet those needs.”[vii] But how exactly did the Samaritan display love to his neighbor as himself? Take special note: He cared for the man’s needs in practical ways without any promise of reward. He stopped his journey, bandaged the beaten man’s wounds, took him to an inn to recuperate, and provided money for his food and lodging. He cared for the dying man as he would have cared for himself. This is costly, self-sacrificing neighbor love. It also expresses kindness, compassion, patience, tenderness, and generosity. This is neighbor love as defined by the Lord Jesus Christ. When you think of loving others, think of this story. Then you’ll understand what our Lord requires of those professing to love as He loves. But also think of the religious priest and Levite who walked by the dying man and did absolutely nothing for him. Love for One’s Enemy Not only did Jesus teach the high priority of neighbor love, He taught love for one’s enemy. In one of His most radical statements on love, Jesus proclaims “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44, 45), “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27, 28). New Love Commandment Hours before His death, Jesus gave “a new commandment:” A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34, 35). The new commandment super-saturates the New Testament. It flows through all the veins and arteries of the New Testament letters. You simply cannot understand Christian living, ethics, and witness, or life together in the local church, or Christian leadership without grasping the new commandment. “The new commandment,” writes Carl Hoch, “is the sine qua non of the Christian life.”[viii] (See Appendixes 2: “The New Commandment.”) Loving one another as Jesus loved is not an option or a suggestion, it’s a command. The love required of the new commandment is defined by reference to Jesus Christ and His cross. Jesus sets His own example of love before His disciples as the new pattern of love. In love, He desired only their highest welfare; He served them and gave His life for them on the cross. Note how the Bible states this: · “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). · “who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). · “just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2). · “Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood” (Rev. 2:5). · “who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). · “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The love Jesus demonstrated and calls us to imitate is an imitation of God’s love in Christ. is a love that desires and seeks the good of others. is a love for both unlovely and undeserving objects, as well as worthy objects. is a caring, serving love. Jesus made Himself a humble servant for us. is a love that acts in total self-giving. Jesus gave Himself. John best explains the full implication of imitating Jesus’ love when he writes: “and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). B. B. Warfield puts the whole matter succinctly and rightly in perspective when he writes: “Self-sacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life.”[ix] New Commandment Leaders The new commandment applies to all Christians, not just leaders and teachers. “Every Christian is employed in the business of sharing love,” rightly claims Funderburk.[x] But since leaders are to be examples to the God’s flock, they above all others must obey the new commandment and do everything in love (1 Cor. 16:14). “Self-sacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life.” B.B. Warfield Therefore, everything you do as a Christian leader should be shaped by the new commandment, whether it is teaching, leading, correcting, protecting, speaking, motivating, organizing, planning, visiting, counseling, praying, or helping. You are to love as Jesus loved and thus give your life for those you lead. “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Two friends of mine planted their first new church. Months after the church had been established they organized a question and answer meeting for the new congregation. During the meeting a young lady, who had only recently become a Christian, asked them this heart-searching question: “Would you be willing to die for me?” Her question caught them off guard leaving them for a moment totally speechless. Not wanting to respond lightly to her sincere question, they answered her wisely. They told her they first needed to examine their own hearts privately to see if they really loved her that much. After examining their motives before God, then they would answer her question. What a thoroughly biblical question the young lady asked these two new shepherds. How would you answer the young woman’s question? [i] Other texts that affirm the Father’s love for the Son: John 3:35; 5:20; 10:17; 15:9; 17:23, 24, 26. Jesus also boldly declared His love for the Father: “I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31). [ii] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 569. [iii] Carson, The Gospel According to John, 569. [iv] James Moffatt, Love in the New Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929), 258. [v] R.S. Candlish, The First Epistle of John, 2d ed. (1869; reprint ed.Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d.), 422, 423. [vi] David C. Jones, “Love: The Impelling Motive of the Christian Life” in Presbyterion 12 (Fall, 1986), 67. [vii] Allen P. Ross, Holiness to the Lord (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 362. [viii] Carl B. Hoch, Jr., All Things New: The Significance of Newness for Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 145. Sine qua non (SIH-neh kwah nohn) is a Latin phrase meaning, “without which nothing.” The new commandment is an absolutely vital, essential element of the Christian life. To neglect or eliminate the new commandment would render the Christian life, shall we say, as nothing, as not Christian. [ix] B. B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” in The Person and Work of Christ (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1950), 64. [x] G. B. Funderburk, “Love,” in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 3: 996.