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Our Saviour having mentioned his departure from his disciples in the former verse; I go away, and, whither I go ye cannot come: in this and the following verses, he gives them a strict charge, that in his absence they should love one another.
This he calls a new commandment: not that it was new in regard of institution, but of restitution: not new in regard of the substance of it, for it was a branch of the law of nature, and a known precept of the Jewish religion; but he calls it a new commandment:
1. Because purged from the old corrupt glosses of the Pharisees, who had limited this duty of love, and confined it to their own countrymen; whereas Christ enlarges the object, and obliges his disciples to love all mankind, even their very enemies.
2. Because this duty of love was so greatly advanced and heightened by our Saviour, as to the measures and degrees of it, even to the laying down of our lives one for another.
3. It is called a new commandment, because urged from a new motive, and enforced by a new example. As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Never was this duty so effectually taught, so mightily encouraged, so much urged and insisted upon, by any teacher, as our Saviour; and never was there such an example given of it as his own.
4. It is a new commandment, because with the rest it was never to wax old; but to be always fresh in the memory and practice of Christ's disciples to the end of the world.