Topic
Commandment, the New
24 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Exodus 17:1ISBE
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink.
- Exodus 34:28ISBE
And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
- Leviticus 19:18ISBE
¶ Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
- Deuteronomy 4:2ISBE
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
- Deuteronomy 6:5ISBE
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
- 2 Kings 17:37ISBE
And the statutes, and the ordinances, and the law, and the commandment, which he wrote for you, ye shall observe to do for evermore; and ye shall not fear other gods.
- 2 Kings 18:36ISBE
But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not.
- 2 Kings 23:35ISBE
And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto…
- Esther 1:12ISBE
But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him.
- Psalms 51:1–19ISBE
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is…
- Jeremiah 31:31–34ISBE
¶ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the…
- Matthew 5:17ISBE
¶ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Show 12 more
- Matthew 5:19 ISBE
- Matthew 11:27 ISBE
- Matthew 22:34–40 ISBE
- Mark 7:8–13 ISBE
- Mark 12:28–34 ISBE
- John 10:18 ISBE
- John 12:49 ISBE
- John 13:34 ISBE
- 1 Corinthians 12:3 ISBE
- 1 John 2:7 ISBE
- 1 John 2:8–11 ISBE
- 2 John 1:5 ISBE
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 25 references
nu (entole kaine): The word "commandment" is used in the English versions of the Old Testament to translate several Hebrew words, more especially those meaning "word" (dabhar) as the ten words of God (Ex 34:28) or king's "command" (Es 1:12); "precept" (mitswah) of God (De 4:2), of a king (2Ki 18:36); "mouth" or "speech" (peh) of God (Ex 17:1), of Pharaoh (2Ki 23:35). They express theocratic idea of morality wherein the will or law of God is imposed upon men as their law of conduct (2Ki 17:37).
1. Christ and the Old Commandment:
This idea is not repudiated in the New Testament, but supplemented or modified from within by making love the essence of the command. Jesus Christ, as reported in the Synoptics, came not "to destroy the law or the prophets .... but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17). He taught that "whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:19). He condemned the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments of God as given by Moses (Mr 7:8-13). There is a sense in which it is true that Christ propounded no new commandment, but the new thing in His teaching was the emphasis laid on the old commandment of love, and the extent and intent of its application. The great commandment is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, .... (and) thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets" (Mt 22:34-40; Mr 12:28-34; compare De 6:5; Le 19:18).
2. Principle instead of Law:
Whey the law realizes itself as love for God and man in men's hearts, it ceases to bear the aspect of a command. The force of authority and the active resistance or inertia of the subject disappear; the law becomes a principle, a motive, a joyous harmony of man's will with the will of God; and in becoming internal, it becomes universal and transcends all distinctions of race or class. Even this was not an altogether new idea (compare Jer 31:31-34; Ps 51); nor did Christ's contemporaries and disciples think it was.
3. Christ's Love Fulfilled in Death Becomes the Law of the Church:
The revolutionary factor was the death of Christ wherein the love of God was exemplified and made manifest as the basis and principle of all spiritual life (Joh 13:34). Paul therefore generalizes all pre-Christian morality as a system of law and commandments, standing in antithesis to the grace and love which are through Jesus Christ (Ro 5-7). Believers in Christ felt their experience and inward life to be so changed and new, that it needed a new term (agape = "love") to express their ideal of conduct (see CHARITY). Another change that grew upon the Christian consciousness, following from the resurrection and ascension of Christ, was the idea that He was the permanent source of the principle of life. "Jesus is Lord" (1Co 12:3). Hence, in the Johannine writings the principle described by the new term agape is associated with Christ's lordship and solemnly described as His "new commandment." "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (Joh 13:34). To the Christians of the end of the 1st century it was already an old commandment which they had from the beginning of the Christian teaching (1Jo 2:7; 2Jo 5); but it was also a new commandment which ever came with new force to men who were passing from the darkness of hatred to the light of love (1Jo 2:8-11).
4. The New Revelation:
The term in the Gospel we may owe to the evangelist, but it brings into relief an element in the consciousness of Jesus which the author of the Fourth Gospel had appreciated more fully than the Synoptists. Jesus was aware that He was the bearer of a special message from the Father (Joh 12:49; Mt 11:27), that He fulfilled His mission in His death of love and self-sacrifice (Joh 10:18), and that the mission fulfilled gave Him authority over the lives of men, "even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The full meaning of Christ's teaching was only realized when men had experienced and recognized the significance of His death as the cause and principle of right conduct. The Synoptists saw Christ's teaching as the development of the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. Paul and John felt that the love of God in Christ was a new thing:
(a) new as a revelation of God in Christ,
(b) new as a principle of life in the church, and
(c) new as a union of believers with Christ. While it is love, it is also a commandment of Christ, calling forth the joyous obedience of believers.
See also BROTHERLY LOVE.
T. Rees
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.