Main news for 21 December 2026

Jesus calls His words "love one another, as I have loved you" a "new commandment." But what is new in it, if the call to love God with all one's heart, all one's soul, and all one's strength, and one's neighbor as oneself, had been spoken at least six or seven centuries before Christ's coming? John connects love with the Kingdom, just as his Teacher did.

First of all, John draws attention to the fact that hatred belongs to the fallen world, while love, at least the love Jesus speaks of, does not. That is precisely why the world accepts neither Christ Himself nor His followers. The problem, however, is broader: the hatred of the fallen world has long opposed every manifestation of love in this world; already Cain's conflict with Abel was an example of such opposition. Love can be present in the world, but as something alien to its nature. But the Kingdom too is alien to the fallen world's nature; in the Savior's words, it is "not of this world."

Yet the connection between the Kingdom and love is not shown only in this; it goes much deeper. Love could be called the nature of the Kingdom, insofar as one can speak of nature at all with reference to the Kingdom. Of course, the world that is being transformed and becoming part of the Kingdom enters there whole, with all its nature. Only evil remains outside, the evil that distorts the nature of the world, not nature itself. But the transformed nature's relation to God changes. God, of course, is present even now in every particle of His creation.

His presence more often turns out to be impersonal and remains unrecognized. God, as it were, hides from the world, present in it but not revealing Himself. The Kingdom is different: there He no longer hides. And there His presence reveals itself precisely as love, which becomes as integral a part of the life of the Kingdom as natural energy is here. God's breath, permeating the Kingdom, becomes for its inhabitants the energy of love. Love without which life in the Kingdom is impossible.

The language of the First General Epistle of the apostle and evangelist John is so close to the language of his Gospel that the question of authorship looks completely idle. It is all the more interesting how the beloved disciple uses the Teacher's expressions. In the Gospel the Lord says: "he who believes Him who sent Me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life" (John 5:24). In today's passage from the epistle we read: "we know that we have passed from death into life." We have every right to think that with this Greek expression in both cases the apostle is accurately conveying the words of Christ that he remembered. Why then, as the apostle says, do we know that we have passed from death into life? Because we love the brothers.

To be honest, these words sound somewhat shocking. The turns of history make us think that the reason for confidence in the accomplished passage from death into life lies in other things. Yet for the apostle everything is so simple: we know that we have passed from death into life because we love the brothers. It is even a little painful, because this is precisely what, as a rule, we do not know how to do... At the same time, reading these words is very joyful, because Christianity turns out to be a much more living faith than one might think by looking at ourselves.

As in his Gospel, the apostle John the Evangelist defines here the true love through Christ's sacrifice, His death for our salvation. So if we accepted this witness, accepted the fact that God's love is manifested to us, then rises naturally the question about our answer to Him. How can we answer to His love? The apostle John answers: love in return, and it should, if it is a true love, - be our sacrifice. It seems everything is clear: He laid down His life for us, we also lay down our life for Him. However John writes something else: our sacrifice will add nothing to God; our sacrifice has a meaning when will bring for those, for whom Christ laid down His life. Therefore we can become copartners of the salvation of the world, partakers of His love.