Jesus said to His disciples: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in His love.
"I have told you this so that your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give to you. This I command you: love one another."
The Gospel of the Lord.
The Book of Signs deals with the three years of the public life of Jesus and the Book of Signs with the last week of the life of Jesus. A major part of the Book of Glory is the Final Discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper. As Moses passed on the Ten Commandments so Jesus passes on God's commandment of perfect love. of all-encompassing love. What Jesus has done is take all the commandments and boil them down to one. If we love one another as Jesus has loved us, then we will indeed keep all the commandments. It should be a love which shows itself in action and sacrifice, deeds and self-sacrifice. "friends" from "philoi" meaning "loved ones", or those we share our thoughts with. "friends" is never a title used for the divinity. "friendship" in the Near East meant reciprocity with each required to meet the needs and expectations of the other.
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