Radical Disciples – A Remnant Revolution

The NEW COMMANDMENT
as compared to the OLD ONES
Are they really the same?
John 13:34

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

As I wrote this paper, I asked myself whether anyone would understand this. Especially given the fact of my diminished level of ability to communicate in writing. The answer came back that anyone with the Spirit would understand. Well of course, but then why write something for those who already understood? As I typed these thoughts, this was my dilemma.

When the Savior speaks of a “New Commandment,” what does He mean? Is it really just a refurbishing of the old ones? Is His New Commandment simply the Ten Commandments gussied up in a new fashion? Is there really anything new about the New Commandment? Perhaps its man’s renewed attempt to keep them that makes them so new.

Or perhaps He calls them “New” because He intends to make the old ones more presentable now? Having somehow lost their original luster, they need to be made more attractive. Salesmen understand this principle. Every year they offer the same old product by advertising it as NEW AND IMPROVED. Was this the ploy the Savior used?

Was it the Savior’s mission to help man bear a burden that our Father’s had never been able to bear—the keeping of the commandments? Acts 15:10.

The New Commandment to love one another was not part of the old law. It would only come with the Spirit—the “law of the Spirit” Romans 8:2.

The Savior explained it this way. John 16:7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” When the Spirit would come to them, then it was that they would experience the New Commandment to love. Without the indwelling Spirit, this is impossible.

The disciples had long had the commandments of course, but this was to be something new. Something entirely new—the New Commandment. They didn’t have the Spirit. If His disciples already had the Spirit, He would not have told them of the necessity of His going away. They had the commandments, but if they had the Spirit He would not have had to “go away.”

What would it mean to have His Spirit? He explained to them what this would mean. “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” He would come to them in a way in which He could not come to them while physically present here on earth. How was that? While walking with them on earth, He could not indwell them. The indwelling as He described it, would be far more “expedient,” for them.

All this was part of the “new commandment” that he would give them. These He said were “My Father’s commandments.” And these were what He said He kept. This is what the Savior intended that man would enjoy when he had received the Spirit of His Father. It would be the law of the Spirit, Romans 8:2. Not something a little better than what man already experienced. Not a reworking of the old, but something new altogether. It was to be so great a difference as between light and darkness. It was so new that it would be the difference between life and death.

The new commandment was to love one another. The reason it was so new was because the old one did not have this ability. Wonderful principles that they were, they lacked this quality. This was to be no magnifying of the old. The old commandments were helpless in this regard. This is why the old were to be abolished for the believer, not renewed. The old ones had no life giving power whatsoever.

Thus we see there is no comparison between the old commandments and the new one. Just as there is no relationship between the new covenant and the old one. The one was to replace the other. In 2 Cor. 3, we see them compared, the one written in tablets of stone (the Ten) was called the “ministration of death.” The law (ministration of death) cannot be changed (to make it give life.) The Savior’s new commandment to love had a ministration to life. Big difference. So we see then that the two commandments are not compatible.

Further, we are told that the commandments written in tablets of stone had a ministration of condemnation. And this particular quality could not be changed or improved upon. The new commandment ministers freedom from condemnation. It provides the “justification of life eternal to every man.” The old commandments could only provide death. Death was their ministry.

The Savior often made comparison of the two commandments. Whenever He did so, it was not to magnify the old ones, beautify them or to change their ministry. It was always to show their vast deficiency, by comparison.

When He spoke of the seventh commandment for instance (adultery,) He did not say how wonderful it was. He did not claim to magnify it, deepen its level, nor heighten it as many imagine. No, but instead of that, He showed how awful it was. He showed that those with the “good intention” of keeping it were really breaking it.

Mat. 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

With this, He ruined it. For those keeping it, it was now ruined. Why did He say this? In His day as in ours, there are many who go long periods without committing the act of adultery with one of their neighbors. Some have never “broken” the letter of this commandment. How comfortable they are with their performance. They feel no guilt in their keeping the Ten Commandments this way. They figure it’s the fornicators who are failing and lost. With this saying, the Savior dashed their hope. He ruined their religion. And He said it with that purpose in mind—the dashing of their commandment keeping hope. Why would He do such a thing?

Everybody knows that keeping the commandments is considered good religion, especially if you have heard a sermon on TV or in person. The Savior came to destroy the TV evangelist’s old theme. Peter says it this way:

Acts 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

The apostles had to decide what to require of the new converts. Paul is referring to the yoke of commandment keeping which the other apostles (to the Jews) wanted to place on the gentile converts. (The other apostles intended to require the new converts to be circumcised and keep the commandments. They came to the Galatians 2 meeting for instance with that in mind.) But Paul knew that the Savior’s intention was “to break every yoke.” This of course would include the Ten Yokes to which Paul referred–the ones “written in tablets of stone.”

When the Savior spoke of the old law and law keeping, he did not mean for man to keep the letter of it. Though He never sinned, He didn’t keep it to the letter. Instead, He obeyed the Spirit of God that indwelt Him. For instance, the old law says that on the Sabbath, “Thou shalt not do any work.” How many know of this plain injunction? Is there any room here for equivocation? “Not Any Work” does not leave any room for “any work.” But the Savior worked. John 5:17, 18. And so does His Father work on the Sabbath. This is what Jesus and John say. Read the two texts carefully. Don’t read your own ideas into it.

So we see plainly that neither He nor His Father are concerned with the letter. This means they are not concerned with what is written in the old law. The reason they are not concerned with the letter is because they have something better. According to the letter, they both break the Sabbath commandment, just as John and the Savior describe it.

We see this breaking of the commandment (without sin) all through the Saviors ministry. For instance, with regard to the seventh commandment again (about looking at women) said the Savior, Mat 5:29, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

This is another plain statement. How many really understand it? Its just as plain as “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” Men do not understand it because they are legalists. They teach that men should keep the law, but then they don’t keep this law. Strange. It says if your eye offends you pluck it out. Is there a question about how it is stated? No, any child can understand what He said to do.

Expert law keepers should obey this commandment. Just as they teach others to obey the other plainly written laws. This reveals the failure and hypocrisy of their good intentioned religion. They don’t keep this law and they don’t really keep the others either. And this was the Savior’s message to them.

The commandment to pluck out your eye is no different than any other. To keep it to the letter will blind you. Those who have obeyed it spend the rest of their days blind in that eye. Gal 5:3,4. Paul says to keep any of the law written in stone will kill you. The letter blinds. The letter kills. The letter is not just one thing of many that kills, it is the only thing that kills. But without the new commandment, the letter is the only option men have. And those that don’t pluck out their eye are guilty of disobeying the commandment as they teach it should be kept.

The Savior came to destroy the popular and legalistic teaching to keep the commandments. His message is the good news that through love, the commandments have been kept now. By love, He fulfilled every one of them for us. Love is the fulfilling of the whole law. The attempt to keep one of the commandments puts one under obligation to keep the whole letter of the law which not even the Savior tried to do. Love, upon this commandment hang all the law and the prophets. And this is how He kept them all. Not by the letter.

If men are not going to obey to pluck out their eye, and then the other eye when it too offends, they should confess their religion has failed them and keep the new commandment instead—to love.

The Savior did what we could not do for ourselves. He did not come to help us do what was impossible, (old law keeping that had never worked). He did not come to help us bear a burden that neither we nor our Fathers could bear. He came to free us of that burden by replacing it with His new commandment.

It is the good intention to keep the commandments that makes Christ of none effect and destroys the blessing of the cross for such a person. In the new commandment, the intention is to obey the Spirit, every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. They proceed today. Today, moment by moment.

The Spirit may tell us to do something against the letter of the law as in the Savior’s case. How many times this happened.

His accusers were correct in their charge against Him, He had broken the Sabbath commandment and others on occasion, yet without sin. And He never challenged those charges. But He did challenge the idea that He and His disciples had committed a sin thereby.

It is by faith that we are to “keep the new commandment,” in other words, not by a good intention. And it is by love that faith works. How many understand this? How many realize the meaning of the cross? All those who are indwelt moment by moment and kept by the Spirit. We don’t keep anything, the Spirit keeps us. And how many are still in the old covenant, law keeping mode–the one so prominent before the coming of the Savior.