This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.
Read Chapter 15
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Where then love is, what can be wanting? Where it is not, what can profit? But this love is distinguished from men’s love to each other as men, by adding, As I have loved you. To what end did Christ love us, but that we should reign with Him? Let us therefore so love one another, as that our love be different from that of other men; who do not love one another, to the end that God may be loved, because they do not really love at all. They who love one another for the sake of having God within them, they truly love one another.
Having said, This is My commandment: that you love one another, even as I have loved you (1 Jn 3);it follows, as John said in his Epistle, that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we should laydown our lives for the brethren. This the martyrs have done with ardent love And therefore in commemorating them at Christ’s table, we do not pray for them, as we do for others, but werather pray that we may follow their steps. For they have shown the same love for thei...
1. You have just heard, beloved, the Lord saying to His disciples, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might be in you, and that your joy might be full. And what else is Christ's joy in us, save that He is pleased to rejoice over us? And what is this joy of ours which He says is to be made full, but our having fellowship with Him? On this account He had said to the blessed Peter, If I wash you not, you shall have no part with me. His joy, therefore, in us is the grace He has bestowed upon us: and that is also our joy. But over it He rejoiced even from eternity, when He chose us before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:4 Nor can we rightly say that His joy was not full; for God's joy was never at any time imperfect. But that joy of His was not in us: for we, in whom it could be, had as yet no existence; and even when our existence commenced, it began not to be in Him. But in Him it always was, who in the infallible truth of His own foreknowledge rejoiced that we shou...
And the Lord has bidden us with His own voice, saying, "This is my command, that ye love one another.".
Discord cannot attain to the kingdom of heaven; to the rewards of Christ, who said, "This is my commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you: ".
Also in the same place: "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love than this has no man, than that one should lay down his life for his friends."
He now makes clearer by the illustration here given the meaning of the preceding passage; that is, the necessity of His disciples having His joy in them; and clearly says, "I give you this injunction, and teach those who think they ought to follow Me to do this, and be thus minded to practise such manner of love towards one another as I have heretofore shown and fulfilled." How great a measure can a man then find to the love of Christ, He Himself shows when He says that nothing can be greater than such love, which excites to forsake life itself for those one loves. And by all this He not only exhorts His own disciples that it becomes them so little to shrink from fearing to encounter dangers for those they love, but that also He Himself without shrinking held Himself in utmost readiness to undergo the death of the flesh. For the power of our Saviour's love attained so great a measure. And these words were borne out by His action, and by His encouragement to His disciples to attain an e...
But when all our Lord’s sacred discourses are full of His commandments, why does He give this special commandment respecting love, if it is not that every commandment teaches love, and all precepts are one? Love and love only is the fulfillment of every thing that is enjoined. As all the boughs of a tree proceed from one root, so all the virtues are produced form one love: nor has the branch, i.e. the good work, any life, except it abide in the root of love.
The highest, the only proof of love, is to love our adversary; as did the Truth Himself, who while He suffered on the cross, showed His love for His persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Of which love the consummation is given in the next words Greater love has no man than this, that aman lay down his life for his friends. Our Lord came to die for His enemies, but He says that He is going to lay down His life for His friends, to show us that by loving, we are able to gain over our enemies, ...
All things, i.e., all things that they ought to hear. I have heard, shows that what Hehad taught was no strange doctrine, but received from the Father.
Having said, If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, He shows what commandments they are to keep: This is My commandment, That you love one another.
As if He said, The servant knows not the counsels of his lord; but since I esteem you friends, I have communicated my secrets to you.
