Let’s summarize: Black lives matter, blue lives matter, all lives matter, gay pride, straight pride, two genders, fifty-six genders, three modes of baptism, five views of hell, three views of the millennium, Calvinists, Arminians, Wesleyans, Catholics, Orthodox, evangelicals, fundamentalists, mainline, the one-percent, the middle class, the poor, introverts, extroverts, omniverts, conspiracy theorists, pragmatists, idealists, teetotalers, alcoholics, hunters, animal rights activists, socialists, capitalists, monetarists, Keynesian economists, Austrian economists, Marxists, new-agers, hedonists, stoics, epicureans, pro-choice, pro-life, dog people, cat people, plant people, vegans, ketos, people who play chess, people who play checkers, and people who play poker. This list is not exhaustive.

A New Commandment and a Reminder

In John’s gospel, John records that Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34, ESV) [emphasis added].

Jesus gives a “new commandment,” and, in 2 John 4-6, John reminds¹ the people to love one another and says it is not a new commandment.

“I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady²—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (ESV) [emphasis added].

Since John wrote that it’s not a new commandment but one they’ve had from the beginning, and Jesus gave it as a new commandment, “from the beginning” probably refers to the beginning of Jesus’ work on earth, the beginning of the New Testament church. However, one can make the argument that “from the beginning,” goes back to Moses.

In Leviticus 19:18, we’re given the commandment, “Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh” (HCSB) [emphasis added]. Jesus picked up that second clause as part of His answer to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?”

“And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39, ESV).

God’s people are required to love one another. We can debate any and every issue, controversy, and point of view endlessly—and we should—but we may not hate each other—not if we want to obey the command of our Lord Jesus.

Regardless of whether John’s “from the beginning” refers to Jesus’ new commandment or His reference to Moses, there is one practical and unavoidable conclusion for the reader: God expects us to love one another, and He always has.

A Commandment, Not a Suggestion

Looking again at 2 John 4-6, we see a different emphasis. John called it a commandment four times.

“I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (ESV) [emphasis added].

Here’s the difficult part. The command to love one another has no qualifiers. It’s not “Love one another if you agree on politics” or “Love one another if your personalities click.” It’s not even “Love one another if you like each other.” It’s “Love one another.”

Consider where in John the “new commandment” is placed. In John 13:34, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (ESV). This commandment is placed right between two predictions: Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial.

The command to love one another has no qualifiers. It’s not “Love one another if you agree on politics” or “Love one another if your personalities click.” It’s not even “Love one another if you like each other.” It’s “Love one another.”

Jesus says someone will betray him, Judas leaves, Jesus gives the new commandment, and then says Peter will deny him. He taught “love one another” in the context of someone betraying Him and someone else denying Him. Jesus loved Judas and Peter. Jesus loved a betrayer and a denier.

No matter what you and I as believers feel or think about any issue, we cannot be biblical Christians and disobey the commandment to love one another, even if we don’t like the person and disagree with him or her about anything and everything.

A Three-Fold Truth

The apostle John took three ideas and remixed them a dozen ways.

1. If we love God, we’ll keep his commandments.

2. Jesus commanded His followers to love each other.

3. If we love God, we’ll love each other.

All these teachings come from the books of Moses and from Jesus, but John was especially enamored with them. They appear in various forms throughout the five books he wrote in the New Testament.

Immediately after giving the “new commandment” in John 13, three times Jesus states some form of “If you love God, you will obey the commandments.”

John 14:15 - “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

John 14:21 - “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”

John 14:23a - “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…” (ESV)

Jesus then adds twice in the same verse that God will love and take care of those that do.

John 14:23 - “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (ESV) [emphasis added]. 

Moving from John’s gospel to I John, we read the same idea again and again.

1 John 2:5-6 - “...but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

1 John 5:3 - “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (ESV).

The End of the Matter

God said through Moses, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus reiterated that law and said, “Love one another,” and then John revisited it 1 John and 2 John. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, it is unambiguous. God’s people are required to love one another. We can debate any and every issue, controversy, and point of view endlessly—and we should—but we may not hate each other - not if we want to obey the command of our Lord Jesus.

Grace and peace to you.

¹ Some sixty years later.

²  “Lady” probably equals the church in a time of persecution so that the letter is “disguised” if it should fall into the wrong hands.