As I Have Loved You

In the Old Testament the Law of Moses included these words: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18).  During His ministry the Savior affirmed that the second great commandment was to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt. 22:39).  And yet despite the fact that to love one’s neighbor was a well-known commandment that had been around at least for 1000 years in the Law of Moses, just before His death the Savior told His disciples, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).  On the same night He repeated the same injunction: “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  So what was new about this commandment?  Clearly it wasn’t the requirement to love others but rather the need to love as Christ had loved while on the earth.  Elder Oaks commented on this invitation of the Savior saying, “The commandment to love others as He had loved His flock was to His disciples—and is to us—a challenge that was unique.”  So how is loving others as He loved different than the commandment simply to love one’s neighbor?  The change from the Leviticus commandment to the “new” commandment was a change from “as thyself” to “as [Jesus] loved.”  So perhaps we can say that the new commandment was a higher law because Jesus loved others more than He even loved Himself.  He put others before Himself in all things, and ultimately He laid “down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  Loving others like we love ourselves is hard enough, but loving others in the perfectly unselfish way that the Savior did is the quest of a lifetime.  Elder Oaks put it this way, “Our Savior’s command to love one another as He loves us is probably our greatest challenge” (Ensign Nov 2014, “Loving Others and Living with Differences”).