Jesus had said, "If you love me you will keep my commandments" and the command He gave was to 'love one another'. John, the beloved disciple, never tires of this theme. He reproves those false Christians who claim that their new knowledge frees them from the ordinary moral obligations, and insists that the only real test of whether we love God is that we show its effects in our lives by keeping His word. 'Knowing God' for John, is not a mere intellectual exercise, but an experience that reaches to the core of our being and changes our whole lives. If we really have the truth, it will shine forth in our behaviour, and by imitating Christ we come to knowledge of God; by doing the truth we come to the light.

In the details of the circumcision of Jesus, the purification of Mary and the offerings to the Temple we see the Holy Family's observance of the Mosaic law. Jesus, who was to be the fulfillment of that law was careful all His life to respect it as the school of obedience which produced people like Mary His mother, Joseph, John the Baptist, Simeon and Anna.