What is New In Christ?
““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”” (John 13:34-35)
Introduction
The question about what is “new” in Jesus’ famous commandment was raised in a recent Bible study. (A study comprised of very working-class male “rough diamonds” who talk openly about loving one another “heterosexually”.) A full answer to this question about “newness” is beyond me, but there are in fact two Greek words for “new”, νέος (neos), meaning new in time, and καινός (kainos), meaning new in quality. In this case it is kainos. The love Jesus exhorts the disciples to share between each other is of such a quality as to be universal and eternal. It is one with the revelation that “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). A revelation that was hidden for ages in God (Col 1:26-27) until the coming for death of the Word as flesh (John 1:14). This love is the substance of the imperishable new creation (Rev 21:1-5), which is wholly “in Christ” (2 Cor 5:17). What makes the new commandment “new” is that it is spoken with the authority of the perfectly glorified human Lord for whom all things were first made (Col 1:16).
Incarnational Authority
The so-called two “dominical commands” of Jesus, from dominus = Lord, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19), and, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19) are applicable to all Christians in all places at all times until the Lord Returns in glory. Obedience to these commands conforms us to his likeness. This is indisputable, but I discern that the new commands of Jesus possess a higher authority than any old covenant commands, including the Ten Commandments. Whilst these Ten were given at Sinai by the Creator, both verbally and then by his “finger” (Exodus 31:18, Deut 9:10), the “finger of God” by which Jesus cast out demons and forgave sinners (Luke 11:20; John 8:6) is the finger of the mediator (1 Tim 2:5), God in the flesh, whose hands will be nailed savingly to the tree of Calvary. The “As I have loved you” imparts a love tested, matured and “made perfect” (Heb 5:9) as a human being by the trials and torture of the cross. Whereas most “Bible Christians correctly lay great stress on the death of Jesus they tend to minimise the whole saving life of Christ. This is a serious deficniency! (For an outstanding exception to this rule see https://growrag.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/the-ontological-character-of-sin-and-the-atonement-of-jesus-christ-why-tf-torrances-offering-is-so-much-better-than-federal-theologys/
Incarnate Love
Torrance speaks more eloquently than myself: “The atoning exchange, then, embraces the whole relationship between Christ and ourselves, between his obedience and our disobedience , his holiness and our sin, his life and our death, his strength and our weakness, his grace and our poverty, his light and our darkness, his wisdom and our ignorance, his light and our darkness, his joy and our misery, hi peace and our dispeace, his immortality and our mortality, and so on….the offering of his life…outweighs the whole universe.” (T.F. Torrance) In other words, the entire holy life of Christ reverses for us all the power. Pollution and penalty of sin resident in our old Adamic nature (https://cross-connect.net.au/vicarious-humanity/). As Paul puts it, in comparing Jesus to Adam, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (superabounded)” (Rom 5:20). Given that this is so, why do so many believers like Adamic-like lives?
Preferring the Old?
Jesus said, “And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:39)., This preference for vintage beverages, is a virtual truism when it comes to strong drinks, like alcohol or coffee, and ancient religious habits. So powerful was the lure of going back to old ways that Paul warns the Galatians, “even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” (Gal 1:8) This strong language is not used of the cross; ““Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Gal 3:13 altering “anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse” (Deut 21:23)), But such vehemence is used on believers in danger of going back to law-keeping, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.” (Heb 6:4-8). Despite the plain teaching of Scripture, “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. (Rom 5:20), confused Christians keep reverting back to useless legalisms (https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-instructs-texas-schools-display-ten-commandments-accordance-texas-law). We oppose the grace of Christ because law keeping is something we can do and of which our conscience can boast (1 Cor 1:29). The way forward into the newness that Christ decreed can only come from the ministry and power of the Holy Spirit
The Ministry of the Spirit
Paul, the apostle of “the heart set free” (2 Cor 3:17), strikingly declares: “Does he who (keeps on) supplying the Spirit to you and (keeps on) working miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—?” (Gal 3:5). The evidence of the newness of grace-filled love is seen in the ongoing powerful agency of the Spirit of God. Where acts of power are exceedingly rare, as in the Western Church today, we must confess that the signs of the new creation are absent because striving in the flesh is dominant. Powerlessness indicates a failure to keep the new commandment. Only by “abiding in the Vine” (John 15) can we truly believe Jesus for his ongoing kingdom fruitfulness.
Conclusion
The love of Christ which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor 13:7) prophetically points to the restoration and renewal of all created reality. Signs of this coming kingdom will be regularly manifested in a Body where the newness of love is found. Please pray for the triumph of Jesus’s sacrificial love amongst us. The Spirit of the Lord is telling me that the new era of intimate love in Christ includes loving discipline, the following scriptures came to mind: “great grace” precedes the Spirit killing Ananias and Saphirra (Acts 4:33; 5:1-11); discipline includes “handing (sinful believers) over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so the spirit might be saved” and their falling ill to the point of death (1 Cor 5:5; 11:27-32). Nearness to “the Father of spirits” means submission to holy divine “punishment” (Heb 12:6.9). “Those I love I rebuke and discipline” with visitations of sickness, and, if repentant, death (Rev 3:19; 2:5, 23). Only wise and powerful love moulded through sacrificial obedience can bear such intensities (1 Cor 1:24); like it or not, this is the destiny of the Church in Perth in the new love commanded by Jesus.