John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
When Jesus made this statement, what do you think He meant? The easy answer is that He would literally sacrifice His life to keep us from losing ours. His sacrifice doesn’t prevent us from physically dying. What it does do, once we believe, is it opens a door to our spirit to be reborn and reconnect us now and on into eternity with the Father.
Consider the possibility that Jesus’ interpretation of this statement to “lay down” one’s life extends beyond the literal translation of physical death. We all would like to think that if confronted with a life or death situation, we would stand in front of those we loved and sacrifice ourselves if it meant that our loved ones might live. It could be viewed as the ultimate test of love and devotion. But consider this – try inserting “way of” in between Jesus’ words “his” and “life”. In other words, how would our interpretation of the verse change if it said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s way of life for his friends?” It changes, doesn’t it?
The ultimate physical sacrifice of death is an extreme act of love. To lay down someone’s way of life as a demonstration of his/her love involves a continuous effort to give up those things that are getting in the way of offering the kind of love Jesus is talking about in this verse. In other words, it is an ongoing commitment – not just a single heroic act. If we think about it, yes, our single act was an amazing single sacrifice, but the loved one left behind is left to grieve and live on without our love. That’s not the case with Jesus. His sacrifice on the cross was His single action that saved our spiritual lives, but because of His resurrection and sending us the Holy Spirit, He extends His love to us from the day we believe on into eternity. He died, so we may live. He lives, so we may now love.
So what should it mean to us to “lay down our way of life”? Ultimately, that’s a discussion each of us needs to have with God. However, the initial steps are universal. The first step is found in Luke 9:23 when Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This means we need to continuously come before the Lord and confess our sins and all things that prevent us from loving in a Christ-like manner. That is what the Apostle Paul meant in Philippians 1:21, “ For me, to live is Christ.” Because of our sinful nature, this is not easy to do – we are resistant to change – especially painful change. We need to recognize that the resistance is a form of self-love. That is not God’s love. It’s not the way He loves us, and it is not the way He wants us to love.
When we struggle with laying down our lives, and we will, we need to go to our Role Model to see how He did it. Jesus is God, so the core of His character is love (see 1 John 4:16). However, He gave us insight to the steps He took that gave Him the power to go to the cross and lay down His life. His first step is found in John 15:9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Jesus believed with all his heart, mind, and soul that His Father loved Him supremely.
Because of His confidence and security in that love, it gave Him the ability to withstand the consequences of His mission – to become the lone and acceptable sacrifice that would give eternal life to those who believe in Him. He offers evidence of this confidence in verse 10 when He says, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.” His faith in His Father’s love leads to obedience – He equates obedience to acts of love. We must ask ourselves, “Have I ever loved someone so much and felt so secure in that love, that I would to anything for him/her?”
Jesus’ final statement before getting to John 15:13 is this, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” That first step of love for us was Him going to the cross and laying down His life. If we truly believe He did this for us, we will never experience any greater love. That security gives us the peace that passes all understanding and will give us the confidence to daily pick up our cross and lay down the ways of our lives that prevent us from loving like Jesus did. He took the first step. Will you take the next?