The Eleventh Commandment – Tenderly
Previously:
I’ve offered for our consideration John 13.34 as the Eleventh 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.” (Jn 13.34)
I have noted that Jesus is speaking forcefully and he’s speaking exclusively. Now we will find that he’s also speaking tenderly.
Since Jesus is speaking tenderly, I hope you will hear his commandment tenderly. Look how he begins Jn 13.33. It’s the only time you’ll find Jesus addressing his disciples this way. “Little children…” (Technia is the Greek word.) It’s the same word that Mary used in Luke chapter two when after three days of searching she found her 12-year-old son Jesus as he was seated in the temple having a conversation with the lawyers or scholars.
She came in and she said, “my son [technia).” This is the type of word that was used when a parent spoke to a beloved child. It’s an intimate word, it’s a caring word, it’s a relational word. Jesus pulls his disciples together. One last time, they’re in the upper room. Soon they’ll leave the upper room. He’ll bear the agony of our sins in Gethsemane, and then he’ll take our sins to the cross of Calvary, knowing the persecution that his disciples will soon experience, knowing the disappointment they’ll have with each other. Some, after all, will abandon him, some will take his name in vain. Knowing the disappointments that they have with one another, knowing that they’ll soon endure persecution, he says: Little children … Love one another. (Jn 13.33, 34)
He speaks like a parent who knows that he’s going away and before that parent goes away, maybe it’s the first time you trust your 13-year-old, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, or even 21-year-old to watch out for the other kids in the house. You pull all the kids together and you say, now listen, while I’m gone, I want you all to get along. Jesus speaks at that level. He knew the burdens that they would soon face. And folks, the nearer we are to one another, the easier it is to see each other’s flaws.
When we come to know one another in the Lord, we have a common belief to which we hold, often common expectations that are ours to enjoy. And we can see our flaws more significantly even than we see the flaws of those who are outside the faith. That’s what makes the eleventh commandment so important.
I’ve sometimes heard believers who say, “You know, sometimes it seems like I get along better with those in the world than I do with fellow believers.” Or even sometimes, “It seems like I’d rather do business with somebody in the outside world than with a fellow believer.” Let me just say to you, it’s probably because just as you know the foibles and the weaknesses in your personal family, even in your spouse, more than you know the foibles and the weaknesses in anyone else, the same thing happens in the church family. We need the eleventh commandment.
Are you with me this morning? Are you asking, is there somebody that the Spirit of God brought to my heart this morning? This is an especially important commandment. The eleventh commandment is not only an example, but it’s an exhortation based on an example. The eleventh commandment presents an example of love. Notice again what Jesus says in verse 34.
“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, … (here it comes) … as I have loved you.”
Now there are two Greek words that are typically translated in our New Testament by the word new. One of those Greek words is the word naos. Naos speaks of chronological newness. It’s new, that’s a new baby. Chronologically new doesn’t mean it’s a different type of baby, I hope, but it’s a new baby chronologically. Then there’s kainos. Kainos means new after a different kind.
In John 13.34, Jesus says, new kind, a kainos, a new kind of commandment I’m giving to you, that you love one another. And when we ask the question that we started with, well, how’s it new? Well, it’s new in that it’s a commandment to love our fellows, not just our neighbors, our brothers, or our community. And so, it’s a new kind of commandment in that way. But it’s also a commandment to follow with our fellow believers to love as Jesus loved.
You see, we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We love our brothers as Jesus loved. That’s a higher level of love. Jesus loved with total self-sacrifice. So, in John 13, Jesus presents a marvelous example of love. What does it mean to love my fellow believer like Jesus loved me?
Well, in the upper room, as we look in John chapter 13, we have plenty of ways that Jesus was loving his disciples. Look back at verse four. In John 13.4 we read how He rose from the supper and laid aside his garments. He took a towel, he girded himself. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to wipe them with a towel wherewith he was girded. Jesus was humbly serving his disciples in this capacity. He was washing their dirty feet. With every foot that he washed, he provides for us an example.
His love, you understand, is an unending love. John 13.1, “having loved his own … he loved them unto the end.” How difficult that must have been. They were vying for position. James and John had even told their mother, why don’t you talk to him about us sitting, one on your right hand and one on the left, in the kingdom of God? They were sniping at each other. They were upset about various circumstances as they went into that upper room. Yet, having loved his own, he loved them until the end. When they were irritating, when they were difficult to appreciate, as somebody said, you know that man is a servant when he treats them like that.
Jesus in this capacity takes upon himself the form of a servant so fully that he wraps a towel around himself and washes their feet. He has an unending love. He has an unselfish love. Jesus knowing in verses three and four of this passage, the Father had given him all things into his hands. He knows his omnipotence. He knows his sovereignty. He knows his wealth beyond any measure.
Yet the Bible says he rose from the supper and laid aside his garments and he took a towel. Completely unselfish, he loved unconditionally.
He washed the feet of Judas, the traitor. He washed the feet of Peter who would betray him. He washed the feet of Thomas who would doubt him. As his enemies were conspiring against him, as his disciples were arguing among themselves, Jesus’ love never failed.
Now again, I go back to it because I asked it early. Are you thinking about someone who’s deeply hurt you? Someone who you think, “That person is so selfish, I even wonder if they’re a believer.”
Let me suggest the eleventh commandment is most tested when we’re most hurt. The eleventh commandment is most tested by those who are most irritating. The eleventh commandment is most tested when we are hurting about a situation that broke our heart or made us angry. It’s easy to love those in our minds that leave us alone. But those who get close to us and rub us the wrong way,
Corrie Ten Boom grew up in Holland. She survived the Holocaust. She loved the Lord, and she taught other people how to live out the eleventh commandment. Listen to what she wrote years ago. This is quite a lengthy statement that she made, but I want you to see it. I could find no greater example of practicing the eleventh commandment than what Corrie Ten Boom wrote. She says,
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.
“It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. “When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.” The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe.
“There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room. And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat: the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.
“It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were! Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent.
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’ And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course–how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women? But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“‘You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,’ he was saying. ‘I was a guard in there.’ No, he did not remember me. ‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein’–again the hand came out– ‘will you forgive me?’ And I stood there–I whose sins had every day to be forgiven–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard, and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.” ((https://thehidingplacecorrietenboom.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/corrie-ten-boom-story-on-forgiving.html))
“Forgiveness,” said Corrie Ten Boom, “is setting the prisoner free, only to find that the prisoner was me.”
Friend, do you keep the eleventh commandment? It may not be that you need to hear, “I forgive you.”
The poignant terms that Corey Ten Boom lived out often cause us to stop at the eleventh command with confusion. How is it possible to command love? Love’s not an emotion, love’s an action.
And God will test your resolve in relationships with others. And when your resolve is tested most, it’s typically tested by those who have hurt you most deeply, family members, friends, fellow church members. Listen to what Jesus says in Luke 6.32-36, “For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
You might be thinking, “Pastor, this is really hard counsel.” Folks, let me suggest it’s harder to hold a grudge than to hear this counsel.
“This is really heavy, Pastor.” Let me suggest it’s heavier still to live resolved not to keep the commandments of the Lord than to keep his commandments. Jesus wants us to love one another. He wants that love to be unending, unselfish, unconditional. As we consider the eleventh commandment, we find an exhortation.
We find a beautiful example and we discover that the eleventh commandment presents an encouragement to love that’s beyond anything else discovered anywhere in scripture. Here’s the encouragement, John 13.35, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Now we need to slow down as we consider this. Jesus is saying our relationship with Jesus is displayed by our love for one another. Now this is a passage that’s tremendously important, important for every Christian.
Our relationship, it doesn’t say, is best displayed by the positional statements that we make and that we write in our constitution and bylaws. He’s not saying here that we best display our faith by earnestly contending for it. While those things are important, he’s not saying in this passage that we best display our faith while holding on to formalities and worship services and considering ever so carefully what Bible we study from or what songs we sing. Are you with me?
He’s saying that we best display for a watching world to see our true faith in Jesus Christ, the one who loved us and gave himself for us, we best display that by our love for one another. You see, our relationship with Jesus is proved by our love for one another.
In 1 John chapter four, the human author of the gospel, which bears his name, John, is writing his first letter and the Spirit of God stirs his heart to remember a moment in an upper room before he ever went to a garden called Gethsemane, before he beheld the Lord Jesus on a cross on a hill called Calvary. John the Apostle, who becomes John the Aged Apostle, writes by the power of the Spirit of God in 1 John 4.7, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” In his old age, John was so consumed with the burden to speak of the love of God.
Jerome, who wrote a commentary on this in about 300 AD, says that they carried the elder apostle John into church on a chair where he sat as he spoke to the church at Ephesus.
Time after time, as senior citizens sometimes do, he repeated himself. He simply sat before the people and said, “It is enough that you love one another.”
Somebody got a little bit irritated by it. After all, this is John. He walked with Jesus. Wouldn’t you want to know more? “Is there anything else that you would like to say to the congregation today,” he was asked. He shook his head and he said, “No, it is enough that you love one another.”
You ever wonder about your relationship with Jesus? You can know this. You can be confident that he’s your savior. The Spirit of God proves that confidence by weaving into you an inexplicable, undeniable love for fellow believers. Look at 1 John 4.20. Let’s see how this chapter ends. In verse 20, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother…” Circle the word brother because that’s how we fulfill the eleventh commandment. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” He continues, “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.”1
The world will ask, “How many love him?” The Lord asks – “How many do you love?”
And the evidence of that love is our service and compassion and care for one another. C. S. Lewis was right when he said, “Don’t waste your time questioning whether you love. Act as if you do.” It’s good counsel. Said Lewis, “soon you’ll discover a secret. When you’re behaving as though you love someone, you’ll soon come to love that one.”
So, I ask, is there someone today, a fellow believer, whose picture came into your mind when asked the question, does he irritate you? Does she bother you? Can you truly say you love them? Beloved, let us love one another. (1 John 4.7)
Dr. Charles Phelps is the pastor of Colonial Hills Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.
- 1 Jn 4.21-5.1 [↩]