As mentioned in the prior chapter, the New Covenant includes two parts: “[1] believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and [2] love one another as He gave us commandment (1 John 3:23). Throughout the New Testament we are repeatedly reminded of faith and love.
Faith alone isn’t enough to life a full New Covenant life. Scripture tells us, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20), and “faith work[s] through love” (Galatians 5:6). But what are these loving works? How do they come about?
How does Jesus want us to love one another? It certainly isn’t by loving God and our neighbor as spelled out in the Old Covenant. Even with God in our spirit, the law is still impossible to obey. Just because we have a born-again spirit does not mean that our soul surrenders its independent ways.
On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of “the new covenant”(1 Corinthians 11:25). On that same night, He also gave His New Commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). Later in the evening, Jesus repeated: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”(John 15:12).
I first heard the emphasis on this truth in 2007 when I listened to a message by Gaylord Enns.1 When I realized that my love for others comes from Jesus’ love for me, I knew it was God’s deep solution to my problem of not loving. For me, this truth was the vital, missing piece of how God designed us to love—by sharing His love with others.
Yes! Now loving is possible because it doesn’t depend on the independent soul. We aren’t the source of the love. It is not about trying to love God “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:5)as the law demands. It is about receiving the love Jesus has for us; it is about believing that He loves us.
The two greatest commands in the Old Covenant and Jesus’ New Command all have to do with love. But there are vast differences between the Old and New. Jesus commands a love that we don’t have to work for. God’s love for me is not conditional upon my performance, nor my obedience. I don’t earn God’s love by doing good things. He loves me because His nature is to love. He made me to receive his love, not as a human doing— but as a human being.
Under the Old Covenant, the independent soul is responsible for the impossible task of generating love for God and others. In the New Covenant we love with the love God first gave to us. John writes, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins”(1 John 4:10). “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In the New Covenant, love starts with God. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”(Romans 5:5). God pours His love into our hearts (spirit and soul together) so that we can share it with the world. We are meant to be channels for His love. His love flows through us—through our spirit, soul and body.
The love the Holy Spirit pours into our soul from our Spirit-to-spirit relationship with God does not have a form the world can understand. But when it passes through our soul, and expresses itself out through our body, that love takes on a physical form. It becomes a servant. It washes dirty feet. It feeds the poor and visits the sick. It is a friend to the person who needs one. We understand the language of God’s love because that love died on a cross for us.
The soul was created to be loved and to pass that love along to others. When we come to know and believe in Jesus’ love for us, our soul surrenders to the Spirit’s leading and we come to live life on earth as God intends. Our souls are renewed as God’s nature floods our mind, will and emotions. In relationship with God—as His love flows through us—we come to be the people He created us to be. Spirit, soul and body are aligned with God.
After that day at Edna’s in 2004 and the understanding of John 13:34 in 2007, I began to see what Scripture was repeating over and over. Somehow, through the ongoing trials of life, I began to know and experience God’s love for me in deeper and deeper ways. And as this happened, I began to see His love-promises. The second step of the New Covenant comes with amazing promises—not for up in heaven, when we die—but for down here on earth, as we live.
In John 13:34–35 Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to 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.”Love marks us as disciples of Christ.
First John 4:16–17 tells us, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Because as He is, so are we in this world.” When we believe and experience the love God has for us, we come to be like Him in this world.
In Ephesians 3:14–19 Paul prays, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” In coming to know the love of Christ, we will be filled with the essence of God.
The diagram below shows the state of one who believes in Jesus as the Son of God and who has come to know God’s love. The spirit is filled with God’s love, the soul knows His love, and the body expresses that love to the world. The framework of our nature is transformed.
The chart below shows the promises that come with the first and second commands of the New Covenant. Faith Promises come from believing in Jesus as the Son of God. Love Promises come from knowing and experiencing the depth of God’s love.
Working to gain God’s love or trying to love others as rules or traditions demand might help us to live “good” Christian lives, but they definitely will not aid us in experiencing the glorious life God promises. We were created to be filled with the nature of God so that His love flows through our spirit-soul-body channel to others. Jesus made a way for us to live as He did—in perfect, unbroken relationship—in oneness with our Father.
Reflection Questions:
- What ideas presented in this chapter are new to you?
- How does Jesus’ command in John 13:34 (to love one another as He first loved us) differ from the two greatest commands in the Old Covenant (to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself)?
- Ephesians 3:19 ends with the phrase, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Imagine and describe what living such a life on earth might look like.
- The 3-heart diagram illustrates how God’s love transforms our entire nature. In what ways is God’s love transforming you?
- In your Christian experience, have you been more aware of Faith Promises or Love Promises? Why are both important?
- Gaylord Enns, Love Revolution: Finding the Lost Command of Jesus, https://jesusonline.com/forever-loved/love-revolution/.