Show Notes
The word “Commandment” with the definite article appears in three places in the Gospel of John.
John 10:18, “I have authority to lay my soul down and authority to take it up again. This is the commandment that I received from my father,” says Jesus.
John 12:50, “The commandment of the Father is eternal life,” says Jesus.
John 15:12, “This is the commandment of me, that you love one another as I have loved you,” says Jesus.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says, “This is the great and first commandment, “You will love...” He doesn’t say “you should” love, but “you will.” It’s not only a commandment; it’s a Promise, like a Seed. It’s the Word of God.
In Genesis 1 on the Sixth Day of Creation, God blesses the Adam and speaks His commandment to them, saying, “Be fruitful... and exercise dominion (Care for the garden.)”
There are different ways to “exercise dominion.” Some are death; some are life. Now that I’m older, I actually enjoy mowing the lawn. It’s fun. And, “Be fruitful and multiply”? That commandment can actually feel like the reward — even, “the substance of things hoped for... (Hebrews 11:1).”
At the beginning of Day 6 in Genesis 2, the Adam couldn’t fulfill the commandment; he didn’t know how, and he was alone. To fulfill this commandment, you need a “Helper (ezer in Hebrew, as in Eliezer, “God is my help.” Throughout Scripture, God alone is our “ezer.”)
The Adam can’t find his Helper who is with him, just as infants can’t find their helper who constantly holds them in arm. They can’t find their helper, for they don’t know what a helper is, let alone, who their helper is. The Adam is not free to obey the Commandment. So, God puts the Adam to sleep and makes a particular adam, named “Adam,” and Eve. He makes male and female. And they were both “naked and unashamed” in the Garden of Delight (Eden).
“This mystery is a profound” writes St. Paul “It refers to Christ and the Church.”
As we’ll soon see, Eve is not Adam’s “ezer,” and Adam (this particular adam) is not Eve’s “ezer.” But they soon meet their ezer, although they don’t know what or who He is. They meet “The Good” and “The Life.” He’s hanging, like fruit, on a tree in the middle of the garden — a tree that looks like the tree in the garden on Mt. Calvary. In the fruit is seed. God had said, “I will make a helper fit for the Adam.”
Eve and Adam take the fruit . . . and invent clothes. They gird their loins with fig leaves and cover the very place where they were commanded to commune in order to fulfill the commandment. They are no longer in the garden of Delight. They suffer the curse: dust and pain. They feel shame: a blessing that feels like a curse for one does not have a will that’s free to obey the command. If Love is not free, it’s not Love but law written in hearts of stone.
The Commandment is Covenant Love, Eternal Life — that is, Mutual Self-Sacrifice in perfect freedom.
John 13:1-4a, literally translated (Please check me on this!), “Now before the Feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them into completion [telos: the End). And becoming supper (This is The Last Supper: Communion), when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, is raised from the supper.”
If any man ever had “free will,” it would’ve been Jesus. He is the Word of God that is God, that wills creation into existence. He is literally the Judgment of God in flesh. He is the Eternal Life that wills us into existence. He is the Commandment of God. Not even death can stop him. He has made Himself Supper, and He is Risen. He can do what he wants to do . . . so what does he do?
John 13:4, “Risen from the supper, He laid aside his garments and taking a towel, he girded himself. Then he poured wat
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