Just what is the difference, I asked myself, between the second great commandment and the new commandment that Jesus gave to us? I must admit I had rather confused the two. I knew that when Jesus stated his second great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" ^{Mark 12:31;} in his answer to the scribe, he was really quoting Leviticus 19:18, in which that exact statement appears and with which his questioner would have been familiar.

Then in his last discourse with his disciples just before Gethsemane, why did he say, "A new commandment I give unto you,That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another"? ^{John 13:34;} If he meant just that we were to love each other, isn't this what he had stated as the second great commandment? Then why call it a new commandment?

I knew there must be some difference between the two commandments. What could it be? Well, when there is something we need to know, there is one sure place to go for it. I did some quiet praying and then waited for divine Mind to unfold the answer. The word "as" stood out to me. I looked it up in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and found that the Greek word kathos, which is translated "as" in this verse, can also be translated more fully "according as," "how." If we take this expanded meaning, we could translate this commandment as requiring that we love one another in the same way that Christ Jesus loved his followers.

And this is just the way some careful students of the old manuscripts have translated this passage! R. A. Knox in his translation of the New Testament states it thus: "I have a new commandment to give you, that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you."

And how did Jesus love his followers? In John 15:9 he says, "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." ("My love for you is the same as the Father's love for me," according to The New Testament, A New Translation by William Barclay.)

Now, this really is a new commandment and not merely a rephrasing of the old. It is of tremendous spiritual significance. We are required to love one another the way Jesus loved us, and he loved us the way God loved him. So our love for one another must be like the love God has for us. It must reflect the divine.

But can we really expect to be able to reflect God's love? Actually that is the only real love. All other love is a groping toward this reality, a faint hint of the divine. There is but one God. God is Mind. There is but one real Mind. There are not many minds, limited and imperfect. God is Life. There is but one real Life. Not many kinds of life, animal, vegetable, chemical, biological—insofar as these proclaim life in matter, they are counterfeits of Life. God is Love. There is but one real Love, the Love that is God Himself.

Human affection, the love of a friend, the love of a mother for her child, of a man for a woman and a woman for a man, is a very precious and wonderful thing. Christian Science does not discard such love; it cherishes and appreciates its promise, and raises it to a far higher level by evangelizing and spiritualizing it. Human love does not always bless, and in and of itself it never has the power to heal. But divine Love always blesses, and it always heals. Let us then yield our human love to the divine and love as Jesus has commanded us.

This new commandment is the summation of the Master's teaching. The law said love God and love man. Jesus said yes, love—but express God's love. This is the ultimate spiritual purpose of every experience we have—that we learn to express divine Love.

Christian Science comes as the Science of the Christ, showing us how to love one another as God loves us. It throws fresh light on the Scriptural teaching concerning God, declaring, in the words of Mrs. Eddy, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." ^{Science and Health, p. 465;} Each of these seven definitive terms for God includes all the others; each can be defined in terms of each of the others. We can understand more fully what divine Love is by defining it in terms of these other synonyms for God.

Thus, to express God's love for man is to love him understandingly, intelligently, wisely, spiritually, surely, unwaveringly, realistically. In order to love man in a Godlike way, we must know man in the light of God's knowing. We must see his true, real, actual, spiritual, eternal selfhood. See him as God made him. Then we cannot help but reflect God's love for him.

How this can transform human experience! Think of what it means really to express God's love for one another. To love every man the way Jesus loved him and the way God loved Jesus.

Thinking along these lines, I came upon a passage in Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1902, beginning on page 7, in which she gives a fresh and inspiring view of this commandment of the Master's. She says, "It is obvious that he called his disciples' special attention to his new commandment. And wherefore? Because it emphasizes the apostle's declaration, 'God is Love,'—it elucidates Christianity, illustrates God, and man as His likeness, and commands man to love as Jesus loved."

Loving as Jesus loved, we will be able to do the works that Jesus did. To reflect the love of God is to embody the infinite healing power of divine Love, Principle, Truth, and Spirit. This is what makes possible the greater works that Jesus promised would be done by those who followed him, who were obedient to his commandments (see John 14:12).

Mrs. Eddy summarizes it all in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, in her revealing statement: "Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus' teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit,—the law of divine Love." ^{p. 19 ;}

A young mother, a friend of mine, had an occasion to test this law of divine Love. The various members of her family had had successive bouts with what is popularly referred to as the flu. The others had quickly recovered, entirely through reliance on Christian Science. But her three–year–old son suddenly took a turn for the worse. He was unable to take nourishment, and his breathing became very labored and difficult. The parents were both unwavering in their conviction that God could and would heal their child, and that Christian Science, as the Science of the Christ, was the best care he could have. They asked a Christian Science practitioner to give the child treatment, and resolved that they would love their son the way Jesus had loved, that they would work to gain a divine sense of love for him.

They made a conscious and consecrated effort to keep their love for the child wise, spiritual, fearless, discerning, divinely tender, but strong and intelligent. There was an immediate turn for the better, and within hours the child was happy and eating normally. The next morning he was out of bed and perfectly well. Love divine reigned supreme.

Jesus' last crowning prayer for his followers ends with the words, "that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." ^{John 17:26.} As we reflect divine Love in loving our neighbor, the true idea of God, of Love, the Christ is expressed in us. Then we work, we love, and we heal with the power of the Christ.