Mystery doctrine is introduced with the greatest command - Love one another as I have loved you. John 13:27-34

John 13:27And after the morsel, Satan then entered into him [verb means to come inside]. Jesus therefore said to him, "What you do, do quickly." 

 

Judas is offered the place of honor at the supper and he takes it. This shows the depth of his reversionism.

 

When Jesus commanded Judas to leave He was commanding the devil to leave, and the principle is quite obvious: the Lord Jesus Christ in His humiliation is infinitely more powerful than all of the power that Satan has or ever will have, and right now Satan is the ruler of this world.

 

Never forget that you are in union with the One who has this power. Nothing can happen to you or enter your life unless it is allowed by God.

 

Jesus, your Advocate, sits at the right hand of God in His humanity and there He constantly intercedes on your behalf.

 

No matter what evil plans satan and the kod are devising to destroy you, all their power combined does not add up to a fraction of a percent of the power of Jesus Christ - in His humanity even.

 

So satan must obey the command of the Lord to leave, and to do so quickly.

 

That means from sundown until about midnight the Lord Jesus Christ will be alone with the disciples. Satan will not be there and neither will Judas Iscariot. Satan has to stay with his reversionist until the betrayal and therefore he stays inside Judas Iscariot during the critical time when the Lord Jesus Himself will present the whole outline of the Church Age.

 

He will introduce the mystery doctrine; He will introduce the Church. Remember that the Gospels do not contain Church doctrine, except John chapters 14-17.

 

John 13:28Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him.

 

No one of those reclining at the table” indicates complete privacy to Judas Iscariot.

 

Apart from Peter and John the disciples did not know from the observation of the morsel incident exactly what was going on, and they didn’t have any clue that Judas was a traitor.

 

And again, all of them dipped the morsel after Judas did, so there is enough ambiguity to protect the privacy of Judas.

 

Jesus respected both the volition and the privacy of Judas even though he was a traitor, and He did not publicly rebuke him nor condemn him.

           

John 13:29For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, "Buy the things we have need of for the feast"; or else, that he should give something to the poor.

 

It was common to go out on the night of the Passover and give to the poor. It was also common to go out and buy more supplies for the feast.

 

Either way, the Lord gave a command and so their speculation is meaningless.

 

A quick principle here: Believers may speculate on why another believer is doing what they’re doing. Baseless speculation can often turn to judging, gossiping, or maligning. Every believer is a priest and therefore has privacy to carry out the commands of God in the way he sees fit to do so. The Bible is very clear about judging the actions of another. We never have all the facts.

 

The exception to this is the parents’ authority over their children. Parents must evaluate motivation in their kids and determine blessing or discipline accordingly.

 

The most important thing a child can do to secure their future blessing is to obey their parents.

 

John 13:30And so after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.

 

The afternoon events of the upper room have terminated and Judas, the Satan-possessed unbeliever, has been eliminated and has departed into the night.

 

Night is symbolic of the darkness in the heart of man that remains when he rejects Christ.

 

John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

 

John 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

Therefore the only unbeliever is removed so that the mystery doctrine can be unfolded to the disciples.

 

The plan of God the Father with regard to the Church age is now outlined. At this point the upper room discourse actually begins.

 

Emphasis will be placed on the Father’s plan of glorifying Jesus Christ, plus the intensification of the angelic conflict.

 

Satan is also removed from hearing both the upper room and the Gethsemane discourse.

 

Therefore the Church Age will come as a shock to Satan (he cannot be in two places at one time, he has now made his command post in Judas Iscariot). Satan is doing something from which he will never recover; he is going away from the amazing doctrine that will be taught in the upper room as well as in Gethsemane.

 

Before he knows what’s happened the first invisible hero will be produced (possibly the deacon Stephen) making for the second witness in the angelic conflict which seals his doom in the Supreme Court of heaven.

 

 In Jewish Law, God’s Law, there must be at least two eye witnesses in any case for the condemnation of a defendant. Three witnesses are even better.

 

TLJC is the first witness. The first invisible hero is the second witness. With that the victor in the trial is all but concluded. The third witness, being Christian marriage most likely also occurred before any part of mystery doctrine was made known to satan. This is because the first epistles are not written until almost 2 decades after the beginning of the church.

 

But it is also God’s heart to bring many sons to glory. The trial doesn’t just end with three witnesses, but many more of the second and third types of witness are continually brought forward all throughout the age. Many more invisible heroes and many more winner marriages are called forth to the witness stand. So many that satan’s head must be spinning from his inability to stop it.

 

Our goal as believers is to be that second witness by becoming invisible heroes by exploiting the grace of God and sharing God’s happiness in this life and being occupied with the person of Christ.

 

The third witness is rarer because two invisible heroes must come together in humility and grace. Be that as it may, don’t base your success in the CWL on the third witness. It’s not necessary, but it is icing on the cake, so to speak.

 

John 13:31 When therefore he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him;

 

We call this large section of John’s Gospel the upper room discourse (13:1—16:33). Here the Lord gave final instructions to the apostles. In prologue to this discourse, He spoke of His departure (13:31—35).He refers to it as His glorification, saying, “Now is the Son of Man glorified” (v. 31).

 

The Son had glorified the Father by revealing Him to people (1:18). By His life, words, and works Jesus had revealed all that it was possible to reveal about the Father to people.

 

He had glorified the Father through His revelation of the Father. Now through Christ’s death and resurrection the Father would confirm to people that the Son was who He claimed to be. Thus Christ could refer to the coming events as God’s glorification of the Son.

 

As God reveals through this means the identity of the Son, God Himself would be glorified as the One who sent Him.

 

Christ said plainly to the disciples that in a few hours He would leave them and that it would be impossible for them to come with Him (v. 33).

 

He must go alone. This revelation completely overwhelmed the Eleven. During the years’ of their relationship with Him, they had come to trust Him completely for every need. He had assumed a role like that of a father, providing, protecting, guiding, and instructing these men as children.

 

They had come into an inti­mate fellowship with Him. The proof that they desired to see it continue was their willingness to accompany Christ to Jerusalem even though they felt this journey would involve their own deaths (v. 37), which Peter would say falsely, but what they all concluded back in chapter 11 when they left Perea.

 

John 11:14-16

Then Jesus therefore said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him. "  16 Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him."

 

Thus when Christ told them that they could not accompany Him when He departed from them, they felt utterly desolate. But Christ gave them a commandment: “Love one another” (v. 34). They had been bound by a mutual love for Him, and now they were to be bound by a mutual love for each other. Christ said this was “a new-commandment.”

 

And it is through this commandment that the world will know that we are his disciples.

 

The Old Testament demanded that one not only love God but one’s neighbor as oneself. Thus the command to love was old. Christ not only commanded them to love but to do so “as I have loved you” (v. 34), and the latter part was new.

 

So when the Lord was asked by the scribe as to which was the greatest commandment, He said:

 

Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! [hear is first - PV] The Lord our God is one Lord; 

 

Mark 12:30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

 

Mark 12:31"The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

 

He combines the commands because they cannot exist without each other. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself unless you love God. The same is true of the command that the Lord gives in John 13.

 

That was the greatest command up to that point. But now that the Lord is beginning to teach the mystery doctrine of the church age, a greater commandment is given.

 

John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

 

John 13:35"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

Under the old commandment the test of love for one’s neighbor was one’s love for oneself. The test under the new commandment was to love as Christ had loved them.

 

Christ had just demonstrated the kind of love’ that He had as well as the degree of His love (13:1—20). His love had brought Him from heaven’s glory to this earth. His love had brought Him from His’ position at the right hand of the Father to the position of a Servant. His love motivated Him to offer the honor of the morsel to the betrayer.

 

Therefore, the love of Christ directly motivates sacrifice of one’s own comfort for the benefit of another.

 

The love of Christ is the loss of one’s own life for the benefit of another.

 

That love sometimes has to be tough when certain types of giving would only hurt or hinder rather than benefit another.

 

Christ demanded this kind of love of these men. As His love had made Him a Servant, so their love for each other was to make them servants of one another.