The Command

5 min read

21  “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

John 14:21

The command to love one another is still ringing in our ears. The importance and the significance of the “love one another” command cannot be emphasized enough. It is the “royal law” (James 2:8), and it is the command that is referenced the most in the Bible. It would be ignorant and irresponsible to take it lightly.

Many Christians have an attitude that prioritizes the understanding of all the particulars of the gospel message—that gaining such understanding is basically the endgame of our practice of faith. In particular, they seem to feel that the harder edge of the gospel message that glorifies God’s wrath—especially toward those whom God has selected beforehand to go to hell—is critical to grasp and accept Those who have such an attitude, of course, would exclude themselves from experiencing His wrath, since they have been selected beforehand to go to heaven by God’s grace. So it’s very easy for them to accept the doctrine of God’s wrath. In their hearts, it doesn’t really impact them, so it’s easy to talk about.

In my mind, understanding the particulars of the gospel message—even with respect to the reality of God’s wrath—is important, but what are we supposed to do with that understanding? If that understanding does not lead us to the practice of loving one another and loving our neighbors as ourselves, we are really misunderstanding THE key particular of the gospel message: God is love.

Those who emphasize the wrath of God (toward others) might also see Jesus’s statement here as a “condition” of our salvation. Actually, they understand that our salvation is by grace alone, but they might say that those who refuse to keep Jesus’s commands have been unconditionally elected for perdition rather than salvation.

But I think that it is important to understand that the teachings of Scripture are more rhetorical than they are theological. Yes, we get theology from the Bible, but God’s purpose for giving us His word is not to teach us what to think theologically. It is to teach us how we ought to live—not with theology, but with faith.

And so Jesus’s statement is not a condition for our salvation, but an invitation to live in the joy of our salvation. We can only experience the love of God when we exercise love in Christ Jesus toward one another. That’s God’s economy.

Father, Thank You for Your word that teaches and transforms. Give me and give us eyes to see and ears to hear—not merely to be filled with theology in our heads, but with the Spirit for living in faith. May we love one another biblically so that we might experience Your love deeply. In Jesus’s name. Amen.