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John 13:31-38
Recap of 10/21/12 (John 13:31-35):
1. After Judas’ departure Jesus began to teach the remaining 11 disciples in earnest. Bible scholars call His teaching the “Upper Room Discourse.” Of this teaching Everitt F. Harrison writes: “These precious words of Christ were spoken in the light of His impending departure to the Father and had in view conditions under which the Lord’s followers would have to carry on without His personal presence (16:4). Three principal strands of teaching are discernible: (1) commands and concerning the task set before the disciples, which was a fruitbearing witness undergirded and permeated with love; (2) warnings about the opposition to be faced from the world and from Satan; and most of all (3) an exposition of the divine provisions by which the disciples would be sustained and made triumphant in the coming days.”
2. Jesus would glorify God the Father and Himself be glorified by His acceptance of the Father’s will for Him especially seen in the cross. When we think of glorifying God we often think of it as some expression of verbal praise. But to glorify God is to give Him His rightful place as sovereign over our lives, to have His work displayed in our lives as in the man born blind (John 9) or the death of Lazarus (John 11). It’s not my words lifted to Heaven alone that glorifies God but my life offered to His will on earth.
3. The disciples were weak, immature, dis-united and disheartened. There love for Jesus had bound this dispirit group together, now He would be gone from them so it would be necessary for them to be “bound by a mutual love for each other.” In the dark days following the cross the thing that would keep this group from splitting was their love and commitment to each other. So Jesus gave them a new commandment that they love one another on the basis and by the example of His love for them.
