Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2936
“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another: as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34,35.
I CAN never doubt, or for a moment distrust the affection of my dear people to myself. I certainly do not ask for any more of your love, for I have as much as one man ought to have—perhaps a little more—certainly a great deal more than I deserve. I can now fairly turn round and say to you, putting myself altogether on one side, “Let brotherly love continue and let the warmth of your affection towards one another increase.” And I can say this, too, without anybody daring to insinuate that there is something wrong in the Church—some division or schism here. Blessed be God, I do not think that a microscopic eye could discover anything of the kind! There may be some of you who do not like certain persons quite as much as you like other people. I do not wonder at that, for there will always be some partialities even among the best of friends. Our Lord Jesus, Himself, had 12 Apostles and out of the twelve, three especially favored ones. and out of the three, one who leaned upon His bosom. There are some people who are more lovable than other people and we can hardly help loving them more than others. Still, I know of no special reason of that kind why I should preach this sermon. I bless the Lord that you are as loving as you are and pray that you may increase more and more in your love to one another.
I am going to speak upon our text thus. First, the title which our Lord gave to this commandment. He called it “a new commandment.” Secondly, the example by which He expounded it—“That you love one another as I have loved you.” And thirdly, the result by which He enforced it—“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
I. First, then, THE TITLE WHICH CHRIST GAVE TO THIS COMMANDMENT—“a new commandment.”
Many of you, I do not doubt, have heard the story of Archbishop Usher and Mr. Rutherford. But it is so appropriate to this subject that I cannot help telling it again. The archbishop had heard of the wondrous power of Rutherford’s devotion and of the singular beauty of the arrangement of his household, and he wished to witness it himself. But he could not tell how to do so until it occurred to him that he might disguise himself as a poor traveler. Accordingly, at nightfall, he knocked at the door of Mr. Rutherford’s house and was received by Mrs. Rutherford. He asked if he could find lodgings there for the night, to which she answered, “Yes,” for they entertained strangers. She placed him in the kitchen and gave him something to eat. It was a part of her regular family discipline, on Saturday evening, to catechize the children and the servants and, of course, the poor man in the kitchen came in among them.
Mrs. Rutherford put to all of them some questions concerning the commandments and to this poor man she put the question, “How many commandments are there?” And he answered, “Eleven.” “Ah,” she said, “what a sad thing that a man of your age, whose hair is sprinkled with gray, should not even know how many commandments there are, for there is not a child above six years old in our parish who does not know that.” The poor man said nothing in reply, but he had his oatmeal porridge and went to bed. Later, he rose and listened to Rutherford’s midnight prayer. He was charmed with it, made himself known to him, borrowed a better coat from him, preached for him on the Sunday morning and surprised Mrs. Rutherford by taking as his text, “A new commandment I give unto you,” and by commencing with the observation that this might very properly be called the eleventh commandment. By-and-by the archbishop went on his way and he
and Rutherford had been refreshed together. It is the eleventh commandment and if, the next time we are asked how many commandments there are, we answer, “Eleven,” we shall reply rightly enough.
But why is it a new commandment? Is it not included in the ten? You know how our Lord approved the lawyer’s summary of the Ten Commandments—“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” How is this a new commandment then—“That you love one another”?
It is new, first, as to the extent of the love. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we are to love our fellow Christians as Christ loved us—and that is far more than we love ourselves. Christ loved us better than He loved Himself, for He loved us so much that He gave Himself for us, so that now no one of us is to say, “I am to love my friend, my brother, my fellow creatures as I love myself,” but to interpret Christ’s command thus, “I am to love my fellow Christians even as Jesus Christ who died for me, has loved me.” This is a nobler kind of love altogether to the love which we are to manifest to our neighbors. That is the love of benevolence, but this is a love of affinity and close relationship and involves a higher degree of self-sacrifice than was enjoined by the Law of Moses, or than would have been understood by the bulk of mankind to have been intended by the precept which bids us love one another even as we love ourselves.