John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. We all know the Ten Commandments, is there another besides? Yes, says — I. THE WORLD. "Thou shalt not be found out in breaking any of the ten." It acknowledges their excellence, breaks them, and strives to conceal that it has done so, wishing above all things to escape detection. This is the object which the bad part of the world pursues with all its cleverness and energy. II. THE CHURCH. It is remarkable that in the version of the Ten Commandments by the oldest of existing sects, the Samaritans, this is added, "Thou shalt build an altar on Mount Gerizim, and there thou shalt worship." And for commandments such as this, half the energies of Christendom have been spent, and spent in vain. III. CHRIST. "Love one another." We can imagine the surprise of the apostles, "What I are not the ten enough, or the two; may we not rest and be thankful in these?" True in these are the substance of all duty; but there is a craving in the human heart for something beyond mere duty, for a commandment which should be at once old and new — new with all the varying circumstances of time and thought and feeling, and which should give a new, fresh, undying impulse to its ten elder sisters. The ten older commandments were written on blocks of stone, as if to teach us that all great and good works were like that primeval granite of Sinai, more solid and enduring than all the other strata, cutting across all the secondary and artificial distinctions of mankind. As that granite block itself had been fused and wrought together by the central fire, so the Christian law of duty, in order to fully perform its work in the world, must have been warmed and fed at the source of a central fire of its own — love of God and love of man. And that central fire itself is kept alive by the consciousness that there has been in the world a love above all other love — the love of Christ. Learn the importance — 1. Of personal kindness. 2. Systematic beneficence. 3. Making the most and the best of everyone. (Dean Stanley.) Parallel Verses KJV: A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. |
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