The New Commandments of Jesus

The New Commandments of Jesus any teach that Jesus substituted some sort of “new” commandments to take the place of the Law of His Father. What is the Truth? Are the Ten Commandments still to be obeyed? This is an age of rebellion against all law and constituted authority. Nations and governments are being overthrown, and homes and schools thrown into chaos by various forms of rebellion. A revealing insight into modern man’s reaction to the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,” was given by an Ohio minister several years ago, who wrote: “We do not mean it. We don’t like authority, nor will we give in easily even if He is the King of heaven… It is all too obvious that most men over most of the years have prayed earnestly: ‘Thy kingdom not come, my will be done.’”

The Ten Commandments abolished?

In the previous chapters of this booklet, we have explored the positive application of the Ten Commandments to every aspect of our personal lives as living, active laws. But today, many professing ministers and Bible teachers are wrongly proclaiming that the Ten Commandments are “done away”—as they say—or that they have been replaced by the “new” commandments of Jesus.

What are these “new” commandments? Do they replace or contradict the Ten Commandments? What does the Bible reveal on this important subject? First of all, let us notice one of the all-important purposes for Jesus’s coming to this earth in the human flesh. Isaiah prophesied of Jesus: “He will exalt the law and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21). Here we find that Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to “magnify” it (KJV).

To exalt, or to magnify, has just the opposite meaning of changing or abolishing something. It means to reveal in the most minute detail—to enlarge upon. Certainly the life and teachings of Jesus do just that with the Father’s law. Jesus said: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). Jesus did just what these words imply. Both in His life and teaching, he fulfilled the law. He magnified it by His perfect example. He filled it to the full, passing beyond the mere letter to observe even the minutest spiritual intent and purpose of the Father’s perfect law.

Those who knew Him as a teacher could never charge Him with having substituted the traditions of men for the commandments of God. He obeyed the Ten Commandments in word and in deed. He taught and lived them as the perfect way of life. He said: “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whoever does and teaches them [even the “least” commandments], he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). Certainly, we should all aspire to be “great” in God’s Kingdom.

For we should want to overcome as much as we can, and have the opportunity to serve the most we can! Therefore, we should earnestly and fervently strive to do and teach even the “least” of God’s commandments. Do you think the Sabbath commandment is “least”? If so, you had better do and teach God’s Sabbath just as He commanded, following Jesus’s perfect example in keeping holy the seventh day—not the “day of the sun”!

The Ten Commandments

The Way to eternal Life When a young man came to Him asking the way to eternal life, Jesus said: “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:16–18). The young man asked, “Which?” Jesus answered: “‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery…’” and proceeded to list several of the Ten Commandments. Jesus knew the way to salvation! He said that way was obedience to the law of God the Father and surrender to His will. Jesus declared: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Far from abolishing the Ten Commandments, Jesus obeyed them (John 15:10). Jesus was the “light” that God sent into the world to show men how to live. After His death and resurrection, Jesus sent the Apostles out with this command: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20). The Apostles had been there when Jesus told the young man: “Keep the commandments.” They had heard Him magnify the commandments of God in what is called the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). The Apostles had witnessed the obedience of Jesus to the Ten Commandments, and knew that His was the perfect example. Therefore, when Jesus sent them out to every nation with the order to teach them all things He had commanded them, there could be no possible doubt in their minds but that this included the Ten Commandments of God.

Obedience to the Ten Commandments, then, was the very basis of the teaching of Jesus and of His original Apostles. But what about the “new” commandments of Jesus? Did they not alter or abolish the necessity for literally keeping the Ten Commandments that were revealed in the Old Testament? The New Commandments of Jesus a “New” Commandment Actually, in spite of what many think, there is only one place in the entire Bible where Jesus said He was giving a “new” commandment. The other references—by the Apostle John—are to the exact same principles, as we shall see. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). Jesus gave this “new” commandment during the last night of His physical life on earth. He had—by teaching and example— already shown the disciples that keeping God’s commandments were simply an expression of love.

We show real love toward God when we truly worship and obey, allowing no other “gods,” idols, pictures or anything else to come in His place, and always honoring His name and keeping holy His seventh-day Sabbath—which He made holy, and which Jesus and the Apostles always kept! And we show love to those around us when we zealously obey the last six commandments. Jesus had already summarized God’s law into the two great principles: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind… You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). In fact, in the latter part of this summary of God’s law, Jesus quoted directly from the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18)! What, then, was “new” about Jesus’ command to love our neighbors? The answer is plain. The principle of loving our neighbors was not new, but Jesus’ magnification of that principle in His own perfect life shed a completely new light on the spiritual intent and depth of this commandment. Remember Jesus’ emphasis—“As I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Jesus’ own perfect example of love and service was the greatest and most meaningful magnification of the love of neighbor as The Ten Commandments commanded by God. In His life, He demonstrated how that love actually functions in day-to-day life. How to Love Your Neighbor Three times the Divine voice broke the usual silence of the heavens in announcing the satisfaction of God in the life of Jesus.

Even the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, declared: “I find no fault in Him” (John 19:4). This was because Jesus lived a life of giving to others. Whether in His constant teaching of the multitudes, His healing of the sick, His feeding of the hungry crowds or in an act of humility such as washing the disciples’ feet, He was always giving of Himself. This loving and giving Jesus also said to the religious leaders of His day, “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33).

Are these strange words from a man of love? No. Rather, they are manifestation of how perfect love sometimes says and does things for the good of others which at the time they may not appreciate. Jesus loved these Pharisees! It was in love that He thundered these words to wake them up from a life of religious hypocrisy and perversity that was damning their souls. Remember, it was also for these same Pharisees that Jesus died. It was for these men and others like them that Jesus prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). It was in that perfect, understanding love that Jesus withdrew Himself occasionally from the multitude to rest, to meditate or to pray. For He knew that only by keeping close to the Father and being an instrument in His hands could His human presence and teaching enrich the lives of others.

Jesus did not just act like He loved others. He did love them with a perfect love. Through God’s Holy Spirit within Him, He desired from the heart to love and serve His fellow beings for their highest good. He literally lived the words Paul later showed He uttered: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). In this way, His command that men love one another “even as I have loved you,” The New Commandments of Jesus certainly does become a “new” and more all-encompassing command in governing human relationships. Did Jesus Literally Obey the Ten Commandments?

Many religious people think that Jesus had a sentimental type of “love” in His heart, but that He did not really obey God’s commandments literally. The truth is that Jesus kept and obeyed every one of the Ten Commandments in the letter and in the Spirit—just as His followers today should do. As we have already seen, He declared that He had obeyed the Father’s commandments (John 15:10). To make it perfectly clear, Jesus never had another god before the true God. He never committed idolatry, or blasphemed God’s name. Jesus kept holy the Sabbath that God had made holy and often worshipped in the synagogue on that day as was His custom (Luke 4:16).

Jesus honored His parents, and He never killed, committed adultery, stole, lied or coveted. He set us an example, that we should follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:21). Today, a true Christian is one so surrendered to God that Jesus is actually living His life in that person through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. For the Apostle Paul said: “I am crucified with Jesus: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Jesus liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, KJV). A true Christian should not only have faith in Jesus, but should live by the very faith of Jesus placed in him by the Holy Spirit. Jesus—through the Spirit—should literally be living in the true Christian. Remember, Jesus will live the same life in you today that He did more than 1,900 years ago—setting an example. “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Jesus, in His flesh, “was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Tempted, yes, but in His fleshly life He obeyed the Ten Commandments. Dwelling now in His true disciples through the Holy Spirit, He will keep the commandments in The Ten Commandments them. It is Jesus’s love. It is His power in us that can keep the spiritual law of God. For Jesus was, and is, obedient to God the Father.

Did John give a “New” Commandment? In an epistle of John—the Apostle Jesus loved—we also find reference to a “new” commandment. “Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now” (1 John 2:7–9).

Here the Apostle refers his flock first of all to the “word” of God which they had from the beginning. But then he mentions one “new” thing. He proceeds to explain this is the deep spiritual love which brethren in Jesus should have for one another. There is simply no room in this love for hate, envy or malice. But does this Christian love “do away” or change the Ten Commandments of God? Of course not! It only emphasizes and magnifies the personal love Christians must have toward their fellow men. This love goes far beyond the letter of the Ten Commandments—but by no means replaces them! As John wrote in his second epistle: “And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments.

This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it” (2 John vv. 5–6). Here John very plainly defines Christian love as keeping the commandments! We are not just to love the persons of God and Jesus. We are The New Commandments of Jesus to love their way—their very character—which is expressed in the Ten Commandments. Jesus not only taught obedience to the commandments, He lived them! And so John adds: “Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Jesus does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Jesus has both the Father and the Son” (v. 9).

What the “New” Commandments actually Teach When we examine the positive side of the “new” commandments, we find that they simply reinforce and make more binding the old! They outline a way of love—of giving—of serving, which can only be attained through Jesus Himself living in us. In perfect unselfishness, we are to learn to love others as Jesus loved us. That is New Testament doctrine! It is far more binding than the letter of the commandments stated in the Old Testament. But it does not replace them. Rather, it magnifies them to their full spiritual intent. And these “new” commandments themselves refer to the perfect magnification in the life of Jesus. And Jesus obeyed the Ten Commandments literally in spirit as well. He is to be our “light,” our example. Describing the principle of how we should love our neighbor, the Apostle Paul stated: “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). For God’s spiritual love flows down the riverbed, or channel, of the Ten Commandments. In perfectly obeying the Ten Commandments—in their every phase and facet—Jesus’ entire life was a radiant life of love itself, and love is the fulfillment of law. The “new” commandment He gave called attention to His perfect example of obedience to the Father, and of kindness and service to all men.

Millions of professing Christians have been taught that all they need to do is to “love Jesus” or to have the “love of God.” What is that “love”? How does God Himself tell us how His love is to be expressed? At the very end of the Apostolic Age, decades after Jesus’ resurrection, God inspired the Apostle John (Jesus’ dearest friend among the Apostles) to tell us: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

Remember, Jesus lived God’s law in everything He thought, said and did. In this flesh, none of us will keep God’s law perfectly. But God’s law must be our “pattern” of life. We are commanded to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus” (2 Peter 3:18)—patterning our lives after Jesus’s life ever more perfectly as each year goes by. May God help you to follow the example of His Son in obeying His law. And may you, through surrender and obedience, develop the very character of God. Thus, by His mercy through Jesus’s sacrifice, and through your total surrender to let Jesus live His obedient life within you through the Holy Spirit, you may be granted everlasting life in the Kingdom of God!

The Ten Commandments