I’ve read it many[, many] times. What do you say it says? How does v. 13 demonstrate morality? It’s hyperbolic, grandiose to the point of meaninglessness. I’ve been saying v. 12 recently here. That’ll do. v. 13 ruins v. 12. It’s not love.
[I recognise in many Christians, the power of the Passion. I felt it myself many, many times. Still do. (That immensely moving scene near then end of Ben Hur, where the blood of Jesus washes down in the rain and heals his mother and sisters of leprosy.) Innumerable times. The courage of Jesus during his three and a half year mission. The compassion. The emotional intelligence. Yes, one can easily build morality on that. A devout friend expressed it all very well some months ago; it’s necessarily messy, the divine commingling with the human, in suffering, in love.
I want that.
Where is it?
Apart from in faith?
[It’s CERTAINLY not in any expression of Christianity, by anyone]]
Someone once wrote: “Gratitude is the basis of any rational morality.”
That line has always struck me.
For Christians, that gratitude doesn’t begin in abstract principles — it begins at the Cross. The Cross is where God’s gift meets human need, and gratitude becomes the seed of a transformed life.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The first seven words are universal, as he said earlier,
John 13:34-35 NIV
34 “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.”
This is the pivot of history. Working that out. Applying that universally.