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I. THE LOVE OF CHRIST. Remember —

1. How free it was. We did not merit it, ask for it, nor even desire it. And here is the wonder of it. It is love which found nothing to draw it forth. It was entirely self-moved. Disinterestedness then must be one main ingredient in the love we are to bear our fellow men. It is not to stop and ask, "Why should I love that man? What has he done for me?" That is a love like Christ's, which rises up spontaneously. It does not wait to be bought or won.

2. How costly. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor." Moved by His grace, He paid for our redemption the price that His law demanded. And what a price! Oh to find a man who will break through any thing but the law of God for his fellow man! That is the man, who embodies this precept of our Lord; a self-denying man, one who even in his love is willing to take up his cross and follow Christ.

3. How compassionate and tender! In looking at its greatness, we often lose sight of this. But the softness of a mother's love never equalled our Lord's. Read His life. It is not here and there that His compassion comes out, it is everywhere. And this is the point in which the love of many real Christians is most deficient. Our neighbours want our hearts as well as our hands. There is ten-fold more sorrow in men's minds, than pain in men's bodies, or sickness and poverty in men's houses. Would you show it mercy? Then carry a feeling heart through it. This will do more for the world's comfort than the richest purse.

4. How bountiful! "No good thing will He withhold from us." "Freely ye have received, freely give." The measure of what our love is to do for others and give to others, is simply this, the measure of our ability to give and do. That is Christ's standard in His love; it must be our standard in ours.

5. How extensive! It is discriminating. It took almost as many forms as love could take. The love of country was strong in Him, and the love of kindred and the love of friends. But then look, at the same time, at its extent. Who was excluded from it? His enemies? No, with His last breath He prayed for the very men who murdered Him. Or the world? There is not a guilty being on the wide earth whom He does not pity, and load daily with benefits. His love is like the sun in the heavens — they who are the nearest to it are warmed, and gladdened by it the most, but they who are the farthest off from it behold its light. And this is the unfailing character of all true Christian love. Worldly love is narrow, and generally becomes more so as we grow older. This is expansive. No one object can absorb it; no one house or family can hold it; no sect or party can confine it.

II. THE CHARGE OUR LORD GIVES US TO IMITATE HIM IN HIS LOVE.

1. There is a commandment in the case. It is remarkable that our Lord, who seldom uses this word on other occasions, uses it again and again in reference to this love. Here, you observe, is authority pressing down on us. We are to be without this love at our peril. We little think what we are doing when we keep back the helping hand or the pitying heart from a suffering brother. We are setting up once more for our own masters.

2. It is Christ's commandment. He stamps it with His own authority. Viewed in this light, there is an appeal in this charge to our gratitude and affection. When our Lord calls it a commandment, He says, "Dread to dispise it;" and when He calls it His commandment, He urges us by His mercies towards us to obey it. And there may be a reference here to a custom of the times. Each of the different sects among the Jews had some particular tenet or practice to distinguish it. "Now I," says our Lord, "fix on this as the mark and badge of My followers — mutual love. You shall be as well known by this love, as the priests of the Temple are by their garments, or the Roman soldiers by their standards."

3. It is His last and great commandment. Herein He shows us —

(1) The amazing tenderness of His own love. His love for them triumphs over every other feeling and desire.

(2) The importance in itself of this mutual love. Our all-wise Lord would not have spoken thus emphatically of a trifle. St. Paul says that this love is "the fulfilling of the law," and "the end of the commandment." Just so our Lord speaks of it (ver. 17).

(C. Bradley, M. A.)

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KJV: This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

WEB: "This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.