The Last Command of Jesus

How many times has the resurrection been preached on Easter Sunday?

Millions. Tens of millions. Across centuries, continents, and every denomination that confesses Jesus as Lord. And it should be preached — it is the message. It is what Paul resigned himself to understanding above all else. It is the hinge of history.

But I found myself sitting in church this Easter thinking a different question: how many times has the last command of Jesus been preached? Not the Great Commission — that gets plenty of airtime. I mean His actual final command to His disciples, spoken in the upper room on the night He was betrayed, hours before the cross:

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

He said it again in John 15:12:

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

And again in John 15:17:

"These things I command you, so that you will love one another."

Three times in one evening. The night before He died. This wasn’t a passing thought. This was the thing He wanted ringing in their ears when everything fell apart.

And yet, in my decades of attending church, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard a sermon series — or even a single sermon — that genuinely explored the depth of this command. We hear about faith, trust, sin, repentance, spiritual gifts, end times, and church growth constantly. But the last command of Jesus? The one He chose to give when He knew His time was almost over? It barely registers.

"As I Have Loved You"

The phrase that elevates this command beyond every other instruction about love is the qualifier: “as I have loved you.”

Jesus didn’t say “be nice to each other.” He didn’t say “tolerate one another.” He didn’t say “love one another when it’s convenient.” He said love one another the way He loved them — and then He went to the cross to show them exactly what that looked like.

The standard is not human affection. The standard is sacrificial, others-first, die-to-self love. The kind that washes feet. The kind that serves the betrayer at the table. The kind that looks at Peter — who will deny Him three times before morning — and still calls him friend.

This is the most demanding command in the New Testament. And we barely preach it. Maybe because it’s harder to preach than eschatology. Harder to preach than sin. It’s certainly harder to live.

Work Out Your Salvation — Together

Sitting in church this Easter, thinking about the last command, my mind went to Philippians 2 — the passage that has shaped my life conviction of “others first.” And for the first time, I noticed something in verse 12 that I’d never caught before.

Here’s how most people hear it:

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12)

The way I’ve always heard it preached — and probably the way you have too — is as an individual command. Examine yourself. Get your personal holiness in order. Make sure you’re right with God. It’s framed as a solitary spiritual exercise.

But when I looked at the Greek — and this is one of those moments where a word study changes everything — I discovered that every key word in this verse is plural.

Let me take a detour for a moment. I've heard from people I respect — strong believers, people who love the Word — that we shouldn't bother looking at the original languages. That it makes no difference. Just focus on the English. And make it King James, please.

Here's the thing: the very people who make those statements don't realize that understanding the original language can completely change how we read, understand, and apply Scripture. Not in a way that undermines it — in a way that deepens it. And when those people are in teaching and preaching positions, unbeknownst to them they may be giving misguided direction.

I've written previously about 2 Timothy 2:15, where Paul supposedly tells Timothy to "study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." That's the KJV rendering, and it's the one most of us grew up hearing. The problem is, that's not what Paul said. The Greek word is spoudazō — and it doesn't mean "study." It means "be diligent," "make every effort," "do your best." Paul wasn't telling Timothy to study harder. He was telling him to give everything he had. Despite everything I'd been taught about how that passage is a call to spend more time in the Word, the actual command is far bigger than that. It's not about the books on your desk. It's about the life you bring to the table.

So back to the passage. The verb “work out” (katergazesthe) is second-person plural. The pronoun “your own” (heautōn) is plural. “You obeyed” (hypēkousate) is plural. Paul is not telling individual Christians to individually work out their personal salvation. He’s addressing the church as a community.

And the context confirms this. The verses immediately before Philippians 2:12 are the Christ hymn — the passage about Jesus emptying Himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself to the point of death. The verses before that (2:1–4) are Paul’s appeal for unity, humility, and counting others as more significant than yourselves. The whole flow is communal: be of the same mind, look to the interests of others, follow the example of Christ’s self-emptying love, and therefore — as a body — work out what it means to live together in the salvation you’ve received.

One scholar put it this way: Paul is not telling the Philippian Christians to accomplish personal salvation. He is concerned about the well-being of their common life together as a community. The “fear and trembling” is not anxious self-examination — it’s a sacred reverence for the holy responsibility of walking together in Christ.

Read that way, Philippians 2:12 is one of the most “others first” verses in the New Testament. It’s not about your private spiritual fitness. It’s about how you treat the person next to you in the pew.

The Thread That Ties Them Together

Do you see the thread?

Jesus’s last command: love one another as I have loved you. Paul’s instruction to the Philippians: work out your salvation together, in community, with the same self-emptying humility that Christ modeled. These aren’t separate teachings. They’re the same conviction flowing from the same source.

And they’re both desperately under-preached.

We preach faith. We preach salvation. We preach sin grace and doctrine and eschatology and spiritual warfare. All important. But when was the last time your church did a series on what it actually looks like to love one another the way Jesus loved His disciples? When was the last time Philippians 2:12 was taught as a communal instruction rather than a personal guilt trip?

I think if the church recovered the depth of these two passages — Jesus’s last command and Paul’s communal reading of “work out your salvation” — it would change how we do everything. How we lead. How we structure community. How we treat the person who disagrees with us. How we respond when someone asks a hard question at a board meeting. How we welcome someone whose baptism happened in the wrong building.

Others first. Not as a personal discipline. As a way of being the body.

What I Did Next

After church, I went home and started building. I opened Appostolic and began putting together a deep study on the last command of Jesus — connecting John 13 and 15 to Philippians 2, tracing the “others first” thread through the New Testament, and exploring what it would look like to actually teach this as a series.

I don’t know yet what that study will become — a curriculum, a multi-week teaching arc, maybe a QuickStudy that any small group could pick up and work through. But I know that this Easter Sunday gave me something I wasn’t expecting: not just the resurrection, but the command that preceded it.

Love one another. As I have loved you.

That’s the last thing He said before the cross. Maybe it’s time we started preaching it like we mean it.

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Appostolic’s Word Study and Research tools helped surface the communal context of Philippians 2:12 that changed how I read the passage. Tools like these are available to every teacher on the platform.