31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. 32 If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him at once. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 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. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We can only imagine what the atmosphere in the Upper Room was like by now. This was a Passover meal the disciples would never forget, as Jesus had washed their feet, and then stunned them by saying one of them would betray Him. After Judas was identified as the traitor, he left, so there must have been a very awkward silence and a fair amount of navel-gazing among the disciples. They’d have been relieved that Judas had left, but you could probably cut the atmosphere with a knife as they wondered just what would happen next.
John tells us that as soon as Judas left, Jesus began teaching the remaining eleven about the glory of God. Verse 31: “When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.’”
Jesus had just been talking about His betrayal. He knew the cross was only a matter of hours away, but in the cross He saw His glorification. Here again, we see what is known as the paradox of the cross. From the perspective of sinful human beings, the crucifixion of Jesus was the ultimate humiliation. The Roman soldiers mocked Him with a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe. Matthew 27:27-30 says, “The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and put a reed in His right hand. And kneeling before Him, they mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on Him and took the reed and struck Him on the head.”
For those who don’t understand the Gospel message, Jesus is still regarded as a weak and somewhat tragic person who was unable to prevent His torture and execution, but the truth is that the cross of Jesus Christ is our deepest humiliation, not Christ’s. God sent His own Son, full of life and light, and sinful man abused, rejected and executed Him. The cross proclaims both the glory of God, and the shame of sinful man at the same time. As Jesus said to Nicodemus in 3:19, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” The Cross of Calvary stands in judgment against the horror of human sin, yet incredibly, it is in that same cross that Jesus is glorified.
But how is that possible? The Roman cross was an instrument of torture and death, so just how is Jesus glorified in the cross?
Firstly, although we might not think so and the non-believing world cannot understand it, Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection on the third day is the central and most significant point in history. No other event ever has, or ever will come close to it.
James Montgomery Boice wrote, “Nothing that has happened in the world’s history from the beginning of creation until now, or will ever happen before that day when all things will be wrapped up in Christ, is as significant as the crucifixion. Here that great drama, which God had planned from before the foundation of the world, was brought to its focal point and acted out. Men of all races, social status, and levels of understanding have been saved by it.”
Jesus is glorified because His atoning death is the central moment of all history. It is through the cross of Christ alone that Jesus fulfilled the only hope of our salvation from sin and its devastating consequences.
Secondly, Jesus is glorified in His cross because it was there that He reversed the curse of human sin. Paul writes in Romans 5:12, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Because of the curse of original sin, we are born with the curse of a death sentence hanging over us. That’s the bad news, but Jesus, through the cross, has reversed that curse as Paul writes in verses 17-19. “If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Jesus is glorified in His cross because it is there where we receive forgiveness and mercy.
And thirdly, He is glorified because it is through the cross that Jesus destroyed our greatest enemy, the devil. 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” We still live in a fallen and sin-sick world. It was Martin Luther who was credited with saying, “the dragon has been slain but his tail still swishes,” but we know how the story ends. When Jesus returns, Satan will be destroyed and bound in hell forever.
So, in verse 31 Jesus tells His disciples that He is glorified, but He also says that the Father is glorified. John Calvin wrote, “In the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theatre, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world.”
The cross reveals much about the perfect nature of God, beginning with His perfect justice. The Bible tells us that God cannot and will not overlook sin. He is perfectly just, so if He were to sweep our sins under the carpet as it were, He would be denying His justice. Such an action would contradict His nature, so justice must be served. Sin must be punished. Yet, He is also perfectly merciful, so as Jesus bore the guilt of our sin on Himself, God shows both justice and mercy. We may think that justice and mercy are equal opposites, but in the most glorious way, God brings them together at the cross.
Sin is punished in Christ, and we, the guilty ones, are set free from the condemnation we deserve. Romans 3:26 tells us that God is both just and the justifier at the same time. The cross of Jesus Christ shows us that God is perfectly just, because He has passed judgment on His Son, who died in our place.
God is also glorified at the cross in His perfect faithfulness. Throughout the Old Testament, God promised a solution to the problem of sin, and this promise is seen for the first time all the way back in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, God said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15) This verse is known as the protoevangelium, a Latin word which means quite literally, the “first Gospel.” How ironic it is that it was the devil who heard the very first promise of the Saviour who would defeat him.
The Old Testament prophets all spoke of the coming Messiah. All of the Old Testament sacrifices do the same thing - they promise that God will be glorified as He provides not only the solution to the problem of human sin, but also the perfect sacrifice which makes our redemption possible.
This again, is why the Cross of Calvary is the central point of human history. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “All the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory.” John MacArthur writes of this verse, “All God’s Old Testament and New Testament promises of peace, joy, love, goodness, forgiveness, salvation, sanctification, fellowship, hope, glorification, and heaven are made possible and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.”
We’ve looked very briefly at how God’s attributes of justice and mercy are seen in the cross, and there are many others, such as His perfect power, holiness, wisdom and sovereignty, but as Jesus continues to teach His disciples in John 13, He glorifies one attribute of God above all the rest in the cross, and that is the love of God.
The other attributes of God all describe how He offered His Son to die for our sins, but it is His love which explains why He would do such a thing for us.
God so loved the world that if the only way for sinners to be redeemed from the penalty of sin was for His Son to suffer divine wrath in their place, God was willing to do it. And so He did just that.
1 John 4:9-10 says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
The simple answer to the question, why would God do for us what He did at the cross, is His great love for us. This is what Jesus was talking about in verses 31 and 32. “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 glorify Him at once.”
We are the great beneficiaries of the cross. In this life we are only able to understand just the tiniest fraction of what God has done for us, and who knows? Maybe eternity itself will not be long enough for us to fully comprehend the depth of His love and the full meaning of the cross. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Now there’s a promise we can take to the grave!
So even though we receive so much through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, it is still the glory of God which is magnified above all other things. The greatest significance of the cross is the glory it brings to God the Father and God the Son.
J. C. Ryle wrote, “The Son shows the world, by His death, how holy and just is the Father, and how He hates sin. The Father shows the world, by raising and exalting the Son to glory, how He delights in the redemption for sinners which the Son has accomplished.”
And what is our response to all of this? Quite simply, as the redeemed, we should be living our lives to His glory.
And how do we do that?
Jesus has the answer in verses 34 and 35. “ 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.” Jesus had just given His disciples a practical demonstration of humble servanthood by washing their feet, and He was about to take this sacrificial love to an infinitely higher level on the cross, and the lesson He goes on to teach is that as wonderful as it is for us to think about and study the love of God, the best way for us to glorify God’s love is by putting it into practical action in our own lives by loving one another. Remember, we are family.
It is at this point in the Biblical narrative that Jesus begins what is known as His Farewell Discourse. It begins in the closing verses of chapter 13 and carries on through to the end of chapter 16.
Jesus was about to be separated from these men who had followed Him for three years. He said in verses 33 and 36 that they would not be able to follow Him. He was the only example they had of the love of God, so how were they, and every subsequent generation of His followers including us, to know the great love of God if He was about to leave?
The love of God shown in and through Jesus was something unique. As we know, and sadly, as our own lives make the point too, the disciples had hardly shown anything like Jesus’ love. One of the reasons Jesus washed their feet was because each of them had walked straight past the bowl of water as they entered the Upper Room. They had just been arguing about their own importance, so stooping to do the work of a servant was way beneath them.
And so, not for the first time, Jesus challenged them with a radical lesson by saying, “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)
The first thing we need to consider is in what sense this commandment is new, because this is not the first time that the Bible commands God’s people to love. We first read it in the times of Moses when God says, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” in Leviticus 19:18.
So it is clear that this commandment is not new in the sense that we don’t find it in the Old Testament. Jesus made this point when He said to one of the Pharisees in Matthew 22:37-40, “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 neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The Law and the Prophets is what we know today as the Old Testament, so Jesus was teaching this Pharisee an ancient Old Testament lesson.
So then, what did He mean then by giving His disciples this “new commandment?” Think of how the New Covenant doesn’t replace the Old Covenant, but how it perfects the old. In much the same way, the new commandment to love brings to true fulfillment the obligation that believers have always been called to be a people of love. Jesus, in calling this a new commandment, was underlining and re-emphasising an existing command.
J. C. Ryle put it like this: “It is called a ‘new’ commandment, not because it had never been given before, but because it was to be more honoured, to occupy a higher position, to be backed up by a higher example than it ever had been before.”
The commandment to love in Leviticus was within the context of the Jewish community. They were God’s covenant people in Old Testament times, but now, the death of Jesus makes it possible for people of all nations, tribes and tongues to be saved. We are to love the world, in the sense that our love for our fellow human beings is to be for everyone, but as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we are to have a special love for those of the faith. You might remember we looked at Galatians 6:10, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
This is where the world will see the authenticity of our faith. This is what Jesus meant when He said in verse 35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The world today is as torn apart by racism and hatred as much as it has ever been, but as the Church we are called, no, commanded, to be different. Paul was writing to the Church when he said in Ephesians 2:13-14, “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility.”
He wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”
He goes on in the next chapter to write about Christian love. 1 Corinthians 13 has become one of the most mangled and misinterpreted passages of Scripture, and pastors who use it at weddings are not helping - they just add to the confusion.
The context of 1 Corinthians 13 is not a wedding ceremony. The Corinthian Church was extremely divided, and they had serious problems within their membership, and it was this that inspired Paul to write, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Those words were never meant to be written in a pretty font on a wedding card. They were a stinging rebuke to a Church which was ignoring Christ’s command in John 13:34. “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.” At the time, the words of verse 35 most certainly did not apply to the Corinthian Church: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The problem is that we don’t fully understand the concept of love from a Biblical perspective. In the world, love is regarded as something which is passive, instead of active. Love is something that happens to us over which we have little or no control. We “fall” in love, which means that we associate love with a particular feeling or emotion. This kind of love is not a conscious act of the will, because we don’t make the choice to fall in love with someone. Rather, it is something which just happens to us.
The Bible, though, speaks of love in far more active terms. Biblical love is a verb, not a noun. It is a duty. It is an action we are obliged to perform. God commands us to love our neighbour, to love our spouse, and even to love our enemies. It is one thing to have feelings of love and affection for others, but it is entirely another thing to act in a loving manner toward others.
Greek is a far more precise language than English. There are 3 Greek words that describe love. Firstly, phileo (which roughly translated means companionship or brotherly love). Then there is eros, from which we derive the word erotic. Eros describes romance and the love between a husband and wife. And then there is agape love. Whenever the Bible talks about the love of God, it uses agape love.
Generally speaking, human love is restricted to phileo or eros love. Agape love is reserved for how God loves us.
An exception is found in 1 Corinthians 13. Here, when Paul tells Christians to love each other, he uses the word agape. Another exception is in Galatians 5:22, where Paul names love as the first attribute of the Fruit of the Spirit. He doesn’t use the words phileo or eros. He uses agape.
And of course, we see the same in John 13. When Jesus tells His disciples to love one another as He has loved us, John uses the Greek word agape.
The most distinguishing feature of Christian, Biblical love is a lack of self-interest. It grows out of a heart of care and concern for others. This means that the love we are to have for one another, which Jesus teaches about in John 13 is more than a mere emotion. It is active. The calling of the Christian is not so much to develop feelings of love for others. Instead, we are to mirror the selfless love of God, which is why Paul said at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 that the greatest Christian characteristic is love.
Of course, as we know, the Church does not have a very good track record when it comes to loving one another, so how do we do it? Is it even possible? The short answer is yes - Jesus would not have commanded us to love one another if it were not possible, so He goes on later to teach that after He has ascended to Heaven, that we would receive the Holy Spirit. The love we are to have for one another is a supernatural love, and it is He, the Holy Spirit who enables and equips us to obey Jesus’ new commandment.
When a repentant sinner is born again and believes in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives birth to the life of Jesus and one of the benefits of this new birth is that we are then able to love one another with the love of the Lord. It is the Holy Spirit of God who makes it possible for us to love as we have been commanded.
The key in this command are Jesus’ words in verse 34, “just as I have loved you.” This humbles us, because we, as sinners, are incapable of loving with the love of Christ, but as we grow in the grace and knowledge of God, we learn to love Him more, which enables us to love each other more.
We cannot afford to miss the importance of the commandment to love one another, because it is a tangible sign to the world of the truth of who Jesus Christ is, and why He came into the world. Christian, agape love is how they will know we are His disciples.
William MacDonald wrote, “The badge of Christian discipleship is not a cross worn around the neck or on the lapel, or some distinctive type of clothing. Anyone could profess discipleship by these means. The true mark of a Christian is love for his fellow Christians. This requires divine power, and this power is only given to those indwelt by the Spirit.”
As we love one another, we not only reflect the truth of Christ, but He will continue to be glorified in and through His Church.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 13:31-35
Roman crosses were torture and execution devices, yet Jesus teaches that it was through the cross that both He and the Father would be glorified.
How is this possible?
We tend to think that justice and mercy are complete opposites. Discuss how, at the cross, we see the perfect justice and perfect mercy of God in perfect harmony.
God commanded His people in Leviticus 19:18 to love one another, so love within the family of God is an ancient commandment.
What then, did Jesus mean by saying in verse 34 that He was giving the disciples a “new” commandment?
Read verse 35 again.
Discuss how, as the Church, we both succeed and fail in this area.
What are some of your own struggles when it comes to loving with the love of Christ?