“By this all people will know that you are my disciples…”
What is the “this” here in John 13:35? Jesus completes the sentence with “if you have love for one another.” The scene is Christ’s last night, alone with his disciples in the upper room. He has just washed their feet as an example and in the previous verse given them the ‘new’ commandment that they love one another.
This is Christ’s new commandment, the sign by which the world (“all people”) will know we are his, by our love for His people – the church. There seems to me to be two important points this brings up.
First, it seems like we have morphed Christ’s words today so that what he meant was “by this the world will know that you are mine, by your love for them“. We have to be very careful here and pull our meaning from the context – Jesus is not talking about general love for all mankind here; he is talking to his disciples about the way the world will really know who the Christians are and it is by their love for the church, the “one another’s” that are fellow members of His body. That does not mean we are not to love all others; He tells us to love even our enemies. This is about a specific love for other believers in the church body.
A biblical example from Hebrews 10:32-34 puts this front and center for me and is a rubber meets the road kind of brotherly love. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, (so this is after true salvation) you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction (this is in a time/place where Christianity comes at a cost of affliction), and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property…
“Being partners with those so treated…had compassion on those in prison”. So I ask myself, if members of my local church were being sent to prison for the crime of being a Christian, would it not be the sign to the world that we are Christ’s true followers if we made it known we were a partner of the prisoner, visiting them in prison to meet their needs and let them know they are not alone, and therefore putting a bullseye on our own backs? Would you self-identify like this with persecuted members of the church when it shouts to the world you too are one of them and comes at the cost of the plundering of your own property? Sounds like a big, flashing, neon sign to “all people” that we belong to Christ when it costs us like this to say these are my people that I love.
We try to make it all rainbows and unicorns type of love today, but we must keep in mind Christ is saying this the night before he’s arrested, rejected by his own nation as they cry out for his torture on a cross, and beaten unrecognizable and sentenced to death for the crime of being Jesus Christ. If we see something in a store today we know a brother would like and we buy it and give it to them as a gift, we feel good that we’ve loved the brethren. I’m not knocking that and it certainly is a good and loving thing to do, I’m just saying that’s probably not the sign to the world that you belong to Christ. Why? Because the world also does that for one another – you do not have to be a Christian to do this. Just look at all the non-Christians at Christmas who love to do this. But stand with a brother who is standing for Christ and His truth in a hostile situation; well that’s another matter.
Let’s bring this to today to something that happened in Atlanta just in the recent past. “Kelvin Cochran understands a thing or two about being persecuted for his beliefs. The Atlanta fire chief was sacked for authoring a men’s devotional on his own time. “I never imagined that writing a book for a Christian Bible study would actually end my childhood dream come true — [my] fairy-tale career after 34 years of faithful service. But it absolutely did end my career.”
Imagine you are also a Christian firefighter in the same department with him when this is going on. The question for us is do you love him or abandon him? Do you risk it becoming known you are like-minded with him? Or do you suddenly act as if he never existed, changing the subject anytime it goes anywhere near this incident?
Gives a whole new meaning to “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
If we look at our world, believers face this daily with far more extreme consequences. This is an excerpt from a December 2023 Voice of the Martyrs newsletter: ‘In northeastern Nigeria, where Pastor Ishaku Manawa serves, death is never far away. “There are many people I know that Boko Haram has killed or kidnapped,” he said. “I cannot count the number of people I know that Boko Haram has killed.”’ Let it be known by associating with your Christian brothers that you are one, and the very real threat of being murdered is now yours. This pastor goes on to state that in one congregation, 37 members had been killed.
Would I get up on Sunday morning and attend the church knowing that I’m probably being watched and marked as I gather with my “one anothers” and very well could be #38 as I leave?
If I’m willing to pay the cost of associating with Christ’s own in these kinds of situations, it sure is a sign that I’m truly His. All the people will really know who are His.
Second, if the sign Christ gave was love for the church, it means that true believers aren’t going to be characterized by mumbling and complaining about it or neglecting it. They will know, as people justified but still grappling with indwelling sin until glorification, that it is a very imperfect body but on its way to utter perfection one day. Again from Hebrews 10:25, we long to obey “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.“
We don’t neglect meeting together. These are “our people”. We meet to encourage one another and all the more as society darkens around us. They do it in parts of Nigeria under threat of death. We just might abandon it under threat of catching a cold.
Reminds me of this meme I’ve seen posted by a Texas pastor. Its one of those that causes a snicker…and then the truth of it hits and brings conviction:
I really have to watch what I call my “chronological and geographical snobbery” when I contemplate verses like John 13:35. I immediately think of them only in terms of right now and my zip code. But the real meaning comes as I lay aside my current timeframe and zip code and think about what it meant to them that night, or what it means in Nigeria today, and I get a far fuller understanding of what Christ is saying is “the sign” and how love for the church is the sign to the world we are His.