preaching against the Armenian errors, which put man in the center of the gospel. He was also preaching against the tendencies and the philosophies of the church of the time, the official church, the Church of England. He was brought up on charges by the church and in July of 1936 he was barred from being a minister in Scotland and he was exiled into the city of Aberdeen and he was told to stay there and then ever preach the gospel. And he did stay there for a year and a half and then in the midst of change and an acclimat of renewal where the Presbyterian form of government was made the official government of the church. He went back to N-worth to his flock there. He would eventually be appointed as a commissioner to the Westminster Assembly in 1643. He is one of those men who helped to give us the Westminster Confession of Faith. Before he had left his church to go to Aberdeen, there came a knock on his door one evening. A stranger that was traveling came to his door and while he didn't give his name, he asked him for quarter for the night as he was traveling. Rutherford was a godly man and he was a good host and he was caring and showed a love to all that came to him. In fact, it was said that no one ever knew him in his role unless he was either teaching or visiting the sick or writing or studying and that that was all of his life. That is all that he did was that which was connected with his pastoral work and so here in his home as this knock came upon his door, he welcomed the stranger into his home. And as they sat together the evening came and as was his practice, he took out the scriptures and he called to the servants and family and servants all gathered for scripture reading that night. As he began to categorize the group, he asked them how many commandments are there and the stranger answered up and said there are eleven. Rutherford was shocked at the reply and he looked at this stranger and he said I am amazed that there is anyone in Scotland who wouldn't know that there are 10 commandments that our Lord has delivered 10 commandments. A stranger said yes, but a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Rutherford then asked his name. The name of the man was Usher and he was the archbishop of Ireland. There in the home of Rutherford was a man that he had sworn he would never allow into his pulpit, that he would never allow unofficial from the official church of England to ever come to his pulpit and yet there he was in his home. Broken and ashamed, he begged the man's forgiveness and begged that this man, this archbishop of Ireland would lift him and his family up in prayer and they did in fact all join in prayer there together. Other than the precept of love that Rutherford was exposed to there and other than his understanding of that in the context of his own despising of those church authorities which had persecuted him and now in his home a man quoted this commandment of Christ that we should love one another and he repented of that. Besides this is there in fact an 11th commandment. If we're asked how many commandments are there should we say 10 or should we say 11? Let's consider for a moment this theme of love. If fact the whole gospel of John can be categorized or characterized by this idea or this theme of love. Certainly John 3, 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That verse has come to be a theme verse and most people's mind and rightly so for the whole of the gospel of John. It's a gospel remember that was written for the Jews of the dysphoria, those Jews that were not in Jerusalem as a tool of evangelism to teach them about Christ from the Jewish perspective and so we find bound up in this the love of God poured out in this gospel. John 3, 16 gives us the idea of love and here we find that idea amplified in a commandment by Jesus but it's not only in the gospel of John listen as Paul picks up the same idea in Ephesians 5 just the first two verses. Therefore Paul says, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Here we have an interesting connection between our calling to be imitators of God and walking in love, displaying love, showing love, living as love. How is it that we're to do that? How is it that Paul could expect the people to become the same characteristic of love when we hear the verse, God is love and first John. How is it that we are called to be imitators of God in the same way? So characterized by a disposition of love, we read from Jonah earlier in the service in Jonah chapter four and you should have been as I was amazed that here this man of God, this prophet of God didn't want the Ninevites to repent and he was angry that they had repented because of his own disposition of hate towards the Ninevites. He did not rejoice that they were saved, he mourned and then he went and he sat on a hill just to see if perhaps God would destroy the city still. Perhaps he would have even prayed for that but his communication with God being as clear as it apparently was he knew God's intention to forgive the city. Jesus, in this command to love, again keeping the context of the upper room, a farewell discourse, Judas having left. Now the group being cleansed as it were of the impurity and now Jesus addressing his own, he uses a term that he had not used before, little children, little children, yet a little while I am with you. This is a term of gentleness, a term of endearment of close relationship. He's showing them that his reason for leaving them is not because of a lack of care for their welfare, in fact he is saying to them, I'm leaving you but in saying that and using the term little children he's saying, I love you, I care for you as my own children and yet I will be having to leave you. This is also continuing his role at the meal as the head of the family as it were. This last meal, this Passover meal in which he superintendent. Jesus again, use this term only once in the fourth gospel but John, who was there with him, picks up on this idea and he uses it seven times in his epistle of first John. According to Jerome, one of our ancient church fathers, that last command that was given, John understood and he uses that little children love one another as the last command which John gave because in Jerome's opinion, it summarizes everything that is practical about Christianity. If someone ever was to ask, how are we to live the Christian life? It can be summarized in the summary which John gives, little children love one another because the activity of love as it is displayed in the community and in the household of God is the activity of Christ. So comprehensive is love to a people. Contrast this to the traitor, however, that was just dismissed. Contrast the attitude and the disposition of love which Jesus is commanding his disciples to the disposition of the one who has just left to serve himself and in so doing betray Christ. The disciples have to love as he loved them and they must love each other as they loved him. They have to love Christ as Christ loved them and they have to love each other as Christ loved them. They have to love vertically and they have to love horizontally. This is a transferring or a commissioning going on here with the disciples. He is giving them the same disposition or a command to do and act and be the same as he has been. Peter is about to express his love for Christ by saying, I'm willing to even die for you. I have a loyalty and a love that is even to death but Peter will be dismayed at himself because he will not in fact be willing to love and to live unto death. Love is so joined to Christ that we can't be said to truly believe unless we love.
If you want to jot down or turn either one to first Peter, one, 22, just a verse. In first Peter, chapter one, verse 22, listen carefully, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you have been born again. Not a perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God. Our being born again, our rebirth is connected with our capacity for love. To love one another. We can't believe in Christ and not also love. Love is connected with our belief. And first John, we find the symbol or sentiment in chapter three, verse 23. And this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us. You see how these are joined together? This is the commandment that we believe in Christ and love one another. They go together believing in Christ and loving one another. Jesus and these comments that he makes tells them that they are to love one another and then he also offers, as I said to the Jews, as I said to the Jews, you will not be able to find me. They'll have to patiently wait his return. They'll have to patiently wait and stay in their office as apostles until they run their course on the earth. Jesus and talking to the Jews told the Jews they would not be able to come and find him. But in speaking to the disciples, what he is meaning here is that you will have to remain until I call you home. Later in our study of John 14, we'll hear the promises that he gives to them of he's going to prepare a place for them. But now he is getting them ready for his departure and to know that they cannot be martyred immediately to go with him. In Philippians 1, 21, for me to live as Christ and to die as gain, he's telling them they will have to live now to serve him. And then in verse 25, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. In Philippians Paul was desiring to go and to die and to be with the Lord. But then he confessed, I know that that's not going to happen that I will have to remain because it is good for you. The disciples are hearing from Jesus that they will have to remain and to work and to serve. A term that Jesus used there, Jews, as I told the Jews or as I said to the Jews, clearly Jesus is here speaking of his opponents and confrontations with the Pharisees. He promised them that they would not, that they would look rather but they would not find him back in chapter 8 verse 21. He told them that they would even die in their sin. Why is it that he would tell them that because they were looking for a deliverer but they were rejecting the Messiah? The disciples aren't classified as the Jews, but when Jesus leaves, that's who the disciples will be among to minister. And so Jesus tells them, a new commandment I give to you. Many take this category of love to differentiate that first testament from the New Testament, the Old Testament from the New Testament. Some say, well God is angry and he's full of wrath in the first testament but now he's a God of love. As if the new commandment created a New Testament and gave us a different or a new face of God. Well, we find no such division between the first testament or the New Testament, we find no such division in the personality of God. When Jesus mentions the new commandment of love, it might seem to replace the cold hard commandments written on stone, but that's not the purpose of this new commandment. This new commandment is not to replace the commandments that were written on stone and it's not to add yet another commandment to them giving us 11 and more law that we have to follow. When Jesus says it's a new commandment, does he intend to unveil something that they've never heard before? Is he making a change that makes the previous commandments null or void? The command to love predated the incarnation. In Leviticus 19 and 18, we read, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, he quoted from Deuteronomy 65 and Leviticus 19 and 18 to say to love your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. Even John in his first epistle, which in many ways is a commentary on this love that Jesus is prescribing says for us in 1 John 2, 7, and 8. I'm writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you. So John was recognizing that there was a certain nooness of the command, even though the command had been given to them before, the nooness of the command is bound up in the nature of the new covenant. That Jesus has just announced that the supper. John doesn't give us the details of the last supper as the other gospels do, but we know from the other gospels that in that upper room, Jesus was there with his disciples and he took the cup and he poured in. He said, this is a new covenant which is in my blood, which is given for you. In that supper, when Jesus poured wine into the cup, announcing that new covenant in his blood, he was making a connection between the Passover meal which they were enjoying now. Its connection and its reflection in the past, he was making that connection with the Lord's supper and the new covenant, which was to come, the new covenant. Like the previous covenants was concerned with redemption and the establishment of his people as a kingdom. This is the distinction brought out in Jeremiah 31. If you ever want to know, if the new covenant is mentioned in the Old Testament, one of the places most clearly where the new covenant is seen most clearly is in Jeremiah 31, verse 31 and following. And there we read, behold, days are coming to clear as the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. But this is the covenant that I will make. I will put my law within them and I will write it own their hearts. The newness of this command is found in its spiritual nature, a narrowing and an expanding of the application and by the example that is shown in Christ. What do we mean by this connection with the Old Testament command and yet a newness that is founded or based in the spiritual nature of the new covenant? We see the same thing in the signs that we have for the sacraments. We know that there is a connection in the Lord's supper to the idea of Passover, but there is a spiritual intent and a spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord's supper. We also know that with baptism, they're harkening back to the circumcision of the Old Testament that circumcision was a physical sign in the cutting off of the flesh to show the removal of the defilement of the flesh. And then in Colossians 11 and 12 are 12, 1 and 2. It tells us that we have a circumcision of the heart, a circumcision which is not made with hands. And so we understand that there is a spiritual nature or spiritual intent with these. A narrowing of focus and yet an expanding, an expansion of the application of it. It's narrow and that love is shown to one another qualitatively different and the command is not given until Judas is left. Surely God has loved all of his creation. And surely there is a love that God has for all, but there is a particular love that God has for his own. In Romans 9, 13, we read, Jacob, I love. He saw, I hated. Does that mean that God hates in the sense that we understand love and hate all of creation that is not redeemed? God loves all of his creation, but there is a saving love. There is a particular love that is an intimate love that he has for those who are in Christ. John 17, 23, you have loved them even as you have loved me. It's that love that is applied to the disciples. Jesus will continue to expand that own in chapters 14 through 17 as we survey these together and he'll say particularly in 159, as the Father has loved me so have I loved you, abide in my love. And then in verse 12, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. In contrast to that in verse 19 of chapter 15, if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So John understands this love for one another as being a love that is bound up in Christ and it's available to those who have been indwelling with the spirit of Christ because it is Christ loving through us, through the disciples. First John 4.7, beloved let us love it. Let us love one another for love is from God in 15 and 16. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and believe that the love that God has for us because God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. So love is not just an action, love is our being. But besides the refining of the source, the nature and the object of our love as a community of believers in Christ, there is also an expanding expression of love, which is our testimony. So there is a sense first of all in which the love which Jesus is commanding is a unique and particular love available with believers and then there is also love which becomes our testimony. Jesus and the very last verse we read today says clearly by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. So our love for one another is testimony. Jesus says it plainly that their love for one another will testify of their connection to Christ. The new commandment not only involves their love of God in their love for one another, but their proclamation of God in their love for one another. Since Jesus was the incarnation of love, it follows that the body of Christ should also be the manifestation of his love as a witness to the love of the Father. James Boyce very briefly puts it this way, the vertical love of the disciples for the exalted Christ must be expressed horizontally in their love for all the other Christians moreover. Their horizontal love which can be seen by everyone is proof of the vertical dimension. What does he mean? The love which we have for God vertically going up to the Lord must be expressed in a love for each other horizontally and also the love for each other horizontally is proof of our love for God vertically.
I don't know that it could be put much planer is if you love God and you're indwelling by Christ, you will love your brothers and sisters. And consequently, if you are showing your love for your brothers and sisters, that is the fruit and the evidence of your love for God. If we have no love, we are not indwelling by Christ. The way of the world is that of self love, self serving, self seeking, seeking to gratify self needs by the lives of others. But the way of Christ was to express love such as he did when his mother and his brothers and sisters came and the disciples said, do you need to leave us and go to your family? And he said to them, you, you are my family. It's the love which Christ showed them in the up room when he took off his teaching attire and he put a towel around his waist and he washed their feet. Brotherly love is a badge of discipleship. It's the evidence of discipleship, how others know them and how they recognize one another. Of all the Christian work we feel ill-equipped to do, this one is for all. When we talk about the work of a Christian in the church, you can hear the choruses of the lack of spiritual gifts and the lack of time and the lack of ability and the lack of experience as one after another, people withdraw and say, I just can't serve the church in this way. It's probably the most frequent occurrence of Christian testimony is what they can't do for the church. But yet in this sense, all of us have an obligation. This is not a matter of a unique spiritual gift. All of us have an obligation to love one another. And one other sense, this love was an expansion rather than simply a narrowing. Narrowing in the sense again where it's a particular love for those who were in dwell by Christ. But it's an expansion of the expression of it because it is the testimony of the church to the world. The gospel doesn't recognize only the Jews, but the love of God is for the Jew and the Gentile, the male and the female, the slave and the free. There's no distinction in Christ. Our love is for any who proclaim Christ, an English speaking person or an Arabic speaking person, a white person or a black person, a man or a woman. Among Christian attributes, love is first. Colossians chapter three, 12 through 14. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meatness and patience, bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you so you also must forgive and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And what does it look like? We can talk theoretically about put on love, love binds everything together. We ought to love one another. We should love each other with the love of Christ. What does it appear to be when we love one another with the love of Christ? A favorite passage, perhaps one that was read at a wedding, you've either attended or been to first Corinthians 13. First Corinthians 13 is a passage that lends itself to a practice which I have frequently undertaken both in sermon and in private life. Listen as Paul begins the chapter. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. Paul is simply saying, if I am a sage speaker and if I am wise and I'm speaking great profound truths, but I don't have love then I'm just making a bunch of noise. Because love authenticates the message. The message means nothing if there's not the attribute of love to make it authentic. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I'm nothing. How profound is that? If I have the faith that can move a mountain, if I understand prophecies and the mysteries of God, if I have all the knowledge of the world but I don't have love, it's all useless. It means nothing. If I give away all that I have, if I deliver up my body to be burned but I have not love, I gain nothing. No amount of religious piety. If I give away everything to others to serve them, if I give up my own body to be burned as a martyr but I don't have love for others, then I've got nothing at all. And here in verse six and following is my goal. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy your boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. We can substitute Christ because God is love for the word love. Christ is patient and he is kind. Christ will not envy your boast. He is not arrogant or rude. Christ does not insist in his own way. He is not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Christ bears all things, he believes all things, he hopes all things, he endures all things and the love of Christ will never end. Now brothers and sisters, if we are indwelt with Christ, then as we substitute Christ, we also substitute our own name. Let me use my own name as a way of showing how far short I come but just what the goal is that we would attain to. If we are to love one another as Christ's love, then this will be the description of our love. Michael's love is patient and kind. Michael does not envy nor boast. He's not arrogant or rude. Michael's will not insist on always having his own way. He's not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Michael will bear all things and he believes all things, he hopes all things and he endures all things and Michael's love will never fail. I fall short. I am sure if you reflect upon it, you also will realize where you fall short. But the calling is clear. We are to be imitators of God and walk in love. Demonstrating love practically in our lives. This was the command of Christ and the context of the command is his parting words. So significant is this as being as I said before, the very badge of our discipleship that the Apostle John by way of reminder says little children love one another. Is there anything in the life of a Christian that is raised above this? Because love means a losing of self. Love means an abasing of ourself. Love means being humble and meek and lowly as our Lord was. Love means lifting up one who is struggling and hurt. Love means strengthening those who are weak. Love means to proclaim the gospel to a hurt and dying world as testimony not of my loveliness, but of Christ's loveliness. Love is not meant to reflect upon how wonderful I am. Love is meant to reflect upon Christ for it is God loving through His church. And it's in the church that love is practiced. Too many feel that they can be a church to themselves, but God through Christ has called His disciples together and He has instructed them to love one another. To love one another with that unique narrow sense of love and then to express that love in a broadened sense not just to their own kind, but to all. It's testimony of the love of Christ which was showed once and for all on the cross. And that is our example of love. How far does love go? Peter asked Jesus, if I'm slapped on one cheek, how many times do I have to turn it? Seven times or 70 times seven? Here we find that love goes all the way to the cross. That's the love of Christ. And that's our calling.