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Last week, Pastor Mark shared that Jesus had become troubled in spirit. The disciples are together in the upper room and the end is getting closer and closer for Jesus. There was a betrayer among the disciples and the disciples were confused with each one wondering if it was them. Peter asked the pointed question, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus gave a morsel of bread to Judas indicating it was he who would betray Jesus. Satan enters the body of Judas to take possession of it, and the disciples are confused over the meaning of the morsel. Judas leaves the meeting and enters the night. This morning, we’re still in the upper room and Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment.
Take a look at our passage that’s found in John 13:31-35.
After Judas left the meeting, “Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” All that Jesus has taught, all the places He has gone, all the words that have been spoken, all the people He has met have led to this moment in time. This moment in time is connected with the departure of Judas and sets us up for a summary of the introduction to what is known as the farewell cycle that follows. Jesus is left with eleven disciples. They have just finished a meal together and Jesus took the form of a servant by washing their feet. Everything in Jesus’ life has been orchestrated for this moment. All the anticipation, the dread, the heartache, the sorrow is set in motion by the time phrase, “Now.” John speaks often of Jesus’ glorification. When Jesus became flesh in Jo. 1:14, John said, “We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus gets His glory from God in Jo. 5:40, 8:54, and 17:5. Jesus consistently directs glory to God in Jo. 7:18, 8:50, 11:4, 13:31, 14:13, and 17:1 which indicates that what He accomplishes is for God’s glory and not His own. Jesus has chosen the way of obedience. As painful and heart wrenching as this is, the glory of Jesus will usher in the coming of the Spirit of God when Jesus will return to the right hand of God from which He came.
As we saw in Chapter 12, glory is the Greek word doxazo which means praise. While we are all familiar with that word, it is difficult to define. Praise is to cause someone to have glorious greatness, to make gloriously great or to glorify. According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, glory denotes divine and heavenly radiance, the loftiness and majesty of God, and even the being of God and His world. That dictionary goes on to say, “in relation to God it implies that which makes God impressive to man, the force of His self-manifestation.” To help us understand this very challenging concept, the Bible often uses the power of nature. To get an understanding of the power of God in nature, take a look at Ps. 97:1-6. Incredible. In Ezekiel’s vision, he saw the heavens opened and saw, “A storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire.” (Ez. 1:4) Ex. 24:17 speaks of the glory of God that looked like a consuming fire on the mountain top. One more in Ps. 29:3-9. the glory of God is nearly impossible to define because our efforts fall short to describe what is indescribable.
And if it weren’t challenging enough, Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.” This seems like a circular explanation. Jesus is glorified. God is glorified in Jesus. The verb glorified here is passive and intransitive. That means the actions of God are not separate from the actions of Jesus. Jesus acts as God’s representative on earth. Anything that Jesus does brings credit to God. In other words, God has revealed Himself in the person and work of Christ. God has revealed His willingness and desire to see the process of redemption affected by Jesus. In Jesus’ walk of obedience, God is glorified. The end does not have to arrive for the glorification to occur. It is an immediate result. Time is running out. As the time for reflection draws to a close, Jesus tells His disciples, “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’” Little children is a term of affection. He’s speaking to them with love, tenderness, and compassion. In just a little while, He will no longer be with them. This is an undefinable period of time. It’s relative. As I get older, things I think happened a few months ago actually occurred a couple of years ago. Jesus is preparing them for His departure. This isn’t like taking a short trip. See you soon. Jesus is preparing to leave and they will not see Him again. The disciples do not have the luxury we have. They are not aware of what John writes in 14:1-3. Jesus told this same thing to the Jews. You will seek me. He told this to the Pharisees in 7:34 when He was teaching in the temple and again when they brought the woman caught in adultery in 8:21.
“You cannot come” relates to the word now. Now is in this present moment. It is separate from the past and to the future, but connected to both. Jesus has a mission. The disciples have a mission. Jesus’ time on earth is coming to the end, but the disciple’s lives are not. The work of Jesus will continue through the disciples. The testimony of Jesus will continue through the disciples. The teaching of Jesus will continue through the disciples. This would better be translated, “You cannot come right now.”
As the disciples ponder the idea of not being able to follow Jesus where He is going, Jesus lays a new commandment on them. This new commandment has to do with community. Community in our culture is a pretty big deal. Community can be defined as a group of people living together in one place practicing common ownership. We have community college, community libraries, community parks, and community centers. We have community policing. At Three Rivers, we have community groups. As new communities are established, those communities develop standards for interaction with one another. These standards take the form of laws, covenants, and ordinances. These are boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. We see these boundaries on the local, state, and national levels. Rules and restrictions designed for the common good of the people and they can be written and unwritten. When new people come into a neighborhood, a school, a city, or a church, they try to bring their ways to what has been established. They want things done the way they are used to and this can result in confusion, tension, and chaos. When you get a large influx of people from elsewhere, those boundaries are sometimes disregarded.
The new commandment Jesus gives comes with a basic premise. He provides a foundational assumption that enables this new commandment. Sometimes it’s quite necessary to state the assumptions. When I first began searching for a position in ministry, in most of the ads I looked at, there was an assumption made. When you think of the qualifications for pastor, what are the characteristics churches look for? Education, experience, dynamic speaker, good communicator, a history of compassionate character one ad listed. To see if this trend continued, I looked at some job postings on a popular ministry job website. I looked at ten ads and only two mention something that I think most churches take for granted. The churches assume that someone applying for the office of pastor would have a credible confession of faith in Jesus Christ, but it is not listed. To be fair, the Bible is filled with assumptions based on the context of what it’s saying. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy when he annotated the qualifications for pastor, the assumption is that the person has a credible confession of faith, but Paul clarified the qualification by saying, “Not a new convert.” (1 Tim. 3:6) In going back to the Old Testament and Ex. 20, the assumption is the Ten Commandments were given to those people in a covenant relationship with God. Ex. 20:2 says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” That’s where the Ten Commandments start. Then v. 3 says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
The assumption Jesus makes before He gives the new commandment is that the people He is talking to have a credible confession of faith which enables them to fulfill the commandment He is about to give. Here it is: “That you love one another.” This seems simple enough and pretty straight forward. Jesus will explain this command in the next phrase, but let’s look at the four words in the command, “You love one another.” You refer to the disciples specifically, but is applied to all followers. Men who have made a profession of faith. Men who have walked with Christ. Men who are growing in Christ, developing spiritual maturity and wisdom. Love is the Greek word agape that many people are familiar with. It is a present tense verb meaning it’s an action word with no assessment of completion. It is in the subjunctive mood meaning the action is probable or likely and it is also intentional. One another is one word in Greek and means another person. Love is one of the most common words used to describe an affection for something. It comes as no surprise to you that I love donuts, coffee, and chocolate, but you know that’s not what Jesus is talking about. Our frequent usage of the word love has watered down the actual meaning of the word. Websters give us nine basic definitions for the word love and then has 11 other sub-definitions. It’s a pretty complex concept.
In order to get a handle on this new commandment, let’s go to the greatest description of love known to man: 1 Cor. 13. The church at Corinth was a mess. Corinth was the chief city of Greece. The city was known for intellectualism, athletics, and culture. But the city had serious issues with idolatry and paganism. This was reflected in the church and divisions arose among the people prompting Paul to write the letter. In his letter, Paul addresses at least 15 specific issues and provides the solution to those problems. Before Paul defines love, he establishes what it’s like to be devoid of love. Look carefully at 1 Cor. 13:1-14. There’s a lot there to take in. Anything done without love, while it may not be sinful, is not necessarily Christlike. If the Corinthians would simply have demonstrated love to one another, a lot of the problems they had would not have been problems.
Too often in our society, we have allowed people that are incapable of biblical love to define what love is. 1 Jo. 4:19 says “We love, because He first loved us.” Apart from Christ, we can only demonstrate an incomplete form of love. Jesus qualifies the love by adding, “Even as I loved you, that you love one another.” How does Jesus love? Perfectly, completely, with no limitation, no restriction. Unconditionally, sacrificially, eternally. This new command to love is not so everyone will get along with each other although that is a really great idea. Love doesn’t mean no conflict as some may suggest. “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” (Gal. 2:11) Paul referenced the disagreement he had with Peter in Antioch. There was such, “A sharp disagreement” (Acts 15:39) between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark that they determined to go their separate ways. Love doesn’t mean always agreeing. Jesus’ primary reason for issuing this new commandment is given when He says, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” A demonstration of Jesus’ love is what separates us from others, it’s what we should be known by. But you also need to understand other passages of Scripture that have to do with this same topic. In Mark 12, a scribe asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Jesus answered with, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Now is the time that God is glorified in Jesus. Jesus is only going to be with His disciples a little while longer. He takes the time to teach them a new commandment that will truly demonstrate that they are one with Him. The disciples were to love one another the way Christ loved them. Christ’s abiding love is the reason they can actually achieve this level of love. It is something we should seek to do. It is not some intangible, unattainable goal. We are to love. All men will see the love of Christ that is in us and that will tell everyone who we belong to.
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