1 John 2:7

The seventh verse may be supposed either to look backward to what immediately preceded (and then it is walking as Christ walked that is here represented as no new, but an old commandment; it is that which the apostles would certainly inculcate wherever they brought Christ's gospel), or to look forward to what the apostle is now going to recommend, and that is the law of fraternal love; this is the message heard from the beginning (Jo1 3:11), and the old commandment, Jo2 1:5. Now, while the apostle addresses himself to the recommendation of such a practice, he is ready to give an instance thereof in his affectionate appellation: "Brethren, you who are dear to me in the bond of that love to which I would solicit you;" and so the precept of fraternal love is recommended,

I. As an old one: I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which you had from the beginning, Jo1 2:7. The precept of love must be as old as human nature; but it might admit divers enactions, enforcements, and motives. In the state of innocence, had human nature then been propagated, men must have loved one another as being of one blood, made to dwell on the earth, as being God's offspring, and bearing his image. In the state of sin and promised recovery, they must love one another as related to God their Maker, as related to each other by blood, and as partners in the same hope. When the Hebrews were peculiarly incorporated, they must accordingly love each other, as being the privileged people, whose were the covenants and the adoption, and of whose race the Messiah and head of the church must spring; and the law of love must be conveyed with new obligations to the new Israel of God, to the gospel church, and so it is the old commandment, or the word which the children of the gospel Israel have heard from the beginning, Jo1 2:7.

II. As a new one: "Again, to constrain you to this duty the more, a new commandment I write unto you, the law of the new society, the Christian corporation, which thing is true in him, the matter of which was first true in and concerning the head of it; the truth of it was first and was abundantly in him; he loved the church, and gave himself for it: and it is true in you; this law is in some measure written upon your hearts; you are taught of God to love one another, and that because" (or since, or forasmuch as) "the darkness is past, the darkness of your prejudiced unconverted (whether Jewish or Gentile) minds, your deplorable ignorance of God and of Christ is now past, and the true light now shineth (Jo1 2:8); the light of evangelical revelation hath shone with life and efficacy into your hearts; hence you have seen the excellency of Christian love, and the fundamental obligation thereto." Hence we see that the fundamentals (and particularly the fundamental precepts) of the Christian religion may be represented either as new or old; the reformed doctrine, or doctrine of religion in the reformed churches, is new and old - new, as taught after long darkness, by the lights of the reformation, new as purged from the adulterations of Rome; but old as having been taught and heard from the beginning. We should see that that grace or virtue which was true in Christ be true also in us; we should be conformable to our head. The more our darkness is past, and gospel light shines unto us, the deeper should our subjection be to the commandments of our Lord, whether considered as old or new. Light should produce a suitable heat. Accordingly, here is another trial of our Christian light; before, it was to be approved by obedience to God; here by Christian love. 1. He who wants such love in vain pretends his light: He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even unto now, Jo1 2:9. It is proper for sincere Christians to acknowledge what God has done for their souls; but in the visible church there are often those who assume to themselves more than is true, there are those who say they are in the light, the divine revelation has made its impression upon their minds and spirits, and yet they walk in hatred and enmity towards their Christian brethren; these cannot be swayed by the sense of the love of Christ to their brethren, and therefore remain in their dark state, notwithstanding their pretended conversion to the Christian religion. 2. He who is governed by such love approves his light to be good and genuine: He that loveth his brother (as his brother in Christ) abideth in the light, Jo1 2:10. He sees the foundation and reason of Christian love; he discerns the weight and value of the Christian redemption; he sees how meet it is that we should love those whom Christ hath loved; and then the consequence will be that there is no occasion of stumbling in him (Jo1 2:10); he will be no scandal, no stumbling-block, to his brother; he will conscientiously beware that he neither induce his brother to sin nor turn him out of the way of religion, Christian love teaches us highly to value our brother's soul, and to dread every thing that will be injurious to his innocence and peace. 3. Hatred is a sign of spiritual darkness: But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, Jo1 2:11. Spiritual light is instilled by the Spirit of grace, and one of the first-fruits of that Spirit is love; he then who is possessed with malignity towards a Christian brother must needs be destitute of spiritual light; consequently he walks in darkness (Jo1 2:11); his life is agreeable to a dark mind and conscience, and he knows not whither he goes; he sees not whither this dark spirit carries him, and particularly that it will carry him to the world of utter darkness, because darkness hath blinded his eyes, Jo1 2:11. The darkness of regeneracy, evidenced by a malignant spirit, is contrary to the light of life; where that darkness dwells, the mind, the judgment, and the conscience will be darkened, and so will mistake the way to heavenly endless life. Here we may observe how effectually our apostle is now cured of his once hot and flaming spirit. Time was when he was for calling for fire from heaven upon poor ignorant Samaritans who received them not, Luk 9:54. But his Lord had shown him that he knew not his own spirit, nor whither it led him. Having now imbibed more of the Spirit of Christ, he breathes out good-will to man, and love to all the brethren. It is the Lord Jesus that is the great Master of love: it is his school (his own church) that is the school of love. His disciples are the disciples of love, and his family must be the family of love.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7. Brethren] The true reading is Beloved. This form of address is specially suitable to this section (1Jn_2:7-11), in which the subject of love appears. In the second part of the Epistle, in which love is the main topic, this form of address becomes the prevailing one (1Jn_3:2; 1Jn_3:21, 1Jn_4:1; 1Jn_4:7; 1Jn_4:11).

I write no new commandment] The order of the Greek is worth keeping: not a new commandment do I write. What commandment is meant? To imitate Christ (1Jn_2:6)? Or, to practise brotherly love (1Jn_2:9-11)? Practically it makes little matter which answer we give, for at bottom these are one and the same. They are different aspects of walking in the light. But a definite command of some kind is meant, not vaguely the whole Gospel: had he meant the latter, S. John would rather have said ‘the word’ or ‘the truth’. See on 1Jn_2:11.

from the beginning] As already noticed on 1Jn_1:1, the meaning of ‘beginning’ must always depend upon the context. Several interpretations have been suggested here, and all make good sense. (1) From the beginning of the human race: brotherly love is an original human instinct. Christian Ethics are here as old as humanity. (2) From the beginning of the Law: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Lev_19:18) was commanded by Moses. Christian Ethics are in this only a repetition of Judaism. (3) From the beginning of your life as Christians: this was one of the first things ye were taught. On the whole this seems best, especially as we have the aorist, which ye heard, not the perfect, as A. V., ye have heard (see on 1Jn_2:18): comp. 1Jn_2:24 and especially 1Jn_3:11; 2Jn_1:5-6. The second ‘from the beginning’ is not genuine.

7–11. Love of the Brethren

7–11. Walking in the light involves not only fellowship with God and with the brethren (1Jn_1:5-7), consciousness and confession of sin (1Jn_1:8-10), obedience by imitation of Christ (1Jn_2:1-6), but also love of the brethren. In nothing did Christ more express the Father’s Nature and Will than by His love: therefore in obeying the Father by imitating Christ we also must love. “This whole Epistle which we have undertaken to expound to you, see whether it commendeth aught else than this one thing, charity. Nor need we fear lest by much speaking thereof it come to be hateful. For what is there to love, if charity come to be hateful?” (S. Augustine). Comp. 1Jn_3:10, 1Jn_4:7.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn_2:7-11

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandments

The old and new commandments

He had been telling them that they were to keep the commandments if they would know God.

Now those people who boasted that they had discovered quite another road to the knowledge of God than this had an especial dislike to the Old Testament. So they would be sure to turn upon him and say, The commandments! What commandments do you mean? Not those old commandments, surely, which were given to the Jews! You would not bring us back to the law, would you? He faces them boldly. I do mean those old commandments, he says; I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. I mean, distinctly, that I look upon those old commandments, if they were faithfully kept, as a way to the knowledge of God. But how? He does not say for a moment that a person merely regarding the commandments as written on stone could keep them. But he says, The old commandment is the Word which ye have heard from the beginning. Here is the secret of the whole matter. The commandments were a word proceeding from a living God; a word addressed to the hearts of human beings. As long as the commandments were looked at only as written and graven in stone they belonged to Israelites. When they were regarded as the words proceeding from the Word which was from the beginning it was intelligible how God had been speaking to other nations; how, though they had not the law, they did by nature the things contained in the law; how they showed the work of the law written in their hearts; how they, as well as the Jews, might seek by patient continuance in well-doing for glory, honour, and immortality. But was there nothing gained by this revelation of the Word in the flesh, by this gospel of His life? Was it not a good thing to be born under the New Testament instead of the Old? Again, says St. John, a new commandment I write unto you; which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He is a teacher of progress much more truly than those who treated all the past as worthless or evil. He had brought forth a new commandment, not inconsistent with the old, scarcely an addition to it, rather the very essence of it, which yet it was unable to express. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. What was there new in this statement? There was nothing new in the commandment, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. That was old; that St. Paul declares, that St. John declares, that our Lord declares, is implied in all the commandments. Men knew that they ought not to hate their neighbours; that is, men who dwelt near them, who belonged to their own tribe or nation; however often they might do it in spite of their knowledge. The code could not bid them to do more than this. We may say it boldly, no mere code can. But there must be a bond between man and man; there must be a power to make that bond effectual, or the law concerning neighbours will be most imperfectly heeded. The revelation of Christ explains the secret. When He came forth, when His light shone upon men, then it was seen that there is a common Brother of Men; of men, I say, not of Israelites merely. He is the Universal Brother. Therefore, says John, this thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. As if He had said, Now we are come into a new and higher state; the state not only of neighbourhood but of brotherhood. Are we no more under an obligation? Nay, verily, we come under a new commandment, under a wider and deeper obligation. It is a sin; a sin which punishes itself. For to hate a brother is to walk in darkness. It is to hide ourselves from Him who is our great common brother. It is to live as if the Lord had not appeared. For us to hate our brother--to hate any man--is nothing less than to deny the man, the Son of Man; the common light of men. For us to love our brother is nothing less than to walk in the light of Christs presence, nothing less than to be free from all occasion and danger of stumbling. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)

Brotherly love

I. Brotherly love is an old commandment (verse 7) This verse is often represented as though it referred to what the apostle had before said, and not to that which he was about to utter. To me it seems clear that he speaks by anticipation. He adopts a manner of writing which suggests the introduction of a new topic--Brethren, I write (or am about to write) no new commandment. Besides, brotherly love is a subject of which such a declaration might with great propriety be made. In making it the apostle imitates the example of his beloved Master, when, in His memorable Sermon on the Mount, He warned His hearers against supposing He was introducing any new doctrine (Mat_5:17). Brotherly love was no novelty. It arose of necessity out of the relation in which men stood to God and to one another. He was their Creator and they were brethren. Brotherly love was the doctrine of the Old Testament as well as of the New. It need not be added how powerfully these views are enforced when men are regarded as the subjects of grace. They become thus doubly the children of God and brethren one of another.

II. Yet there is a sense in which it is a new commandment (verse 8). The apostle delights to imitate his Master. He does so not only in his own conduct, but in his very manner of teaching. Of this there is an interesting example in the subject now before us. Of it Jesus said (Joh_13:34-35). It is after this model John says of brotherly love, A new commandment I write unto you. How is this saying to be understood? In one sense it was an old commandment, and in another it was new. It was old, necessarily arising out of the relation of men to one another, and required by the oldest revelation of the Divine will. But it was also new, as it was republished under the Christian economy. It should be more intense than it ever had been. It was hereafter to be formed on the model of Christs love. It should be wider in extent as it should be deeper in feeling. Hitherto the Jew confined his regards to his own nation. But in future all such national and sectarian distinctions were to be done away. It should be as high in its motives and aspirations as it was deep in feeling and wide in extent. Both would bring it into fellowship with heaven. Thus it should become the badge of the Christian economy. Judaism had been distinguished by its formal ceremonies, but Christianity would be distinguished by its generous and enlarged catholicity. Taking hold of a few hearts it would bind them together as one man. Thus united, they would operate on the mass of society around them.

III. Such love is a reality, and is exemplified in Christ and in them that are his (verse 8) As for Christ, His whole life was one burning flame of holy love. And be it observed, all this is summed up by the apostle as an argument for brotherly love in us (Php_2:4-11). If we have the mind of Christ it is clear what that must be. A similar account may be given of His early disciples. Like their Master, they denied themselves that they might benefit others. How incredible the hardships they endured! This was the spirit that pervaded the early Church. No other could have sustained it in those days. It was full of the tenderest sympathy, the most ardent love, and the severest self-denial.

IV. It ought to be so, considering the light we enjoy (verse 8).

1. The darkness is past.

(1) The darkness of Judaism. It served its purpose.

(2) The darkness of heathenism. The address of the prophet has been made to us (Isa_60:1-2).

(3) The darkness of unaided and perverted human reason (1Co_1:21).

2. The true light now shineth.

(1) The light of the Word shineth, a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

(2) The light of the spirit shineth (2Co_3:18).

(3) The light of ordinances now shineth, so that, as of old, of many places it may be said (Mat_4:16).

(4) The light of Christ shineth (Joh_12:36). These are our privileges. What then must be our responsibilities?

V. The apostles enforcement of brotherly love by a strong denunciation of its violation and a high commendation of its excellence. (James Morgan, D. D.)

The commandment of love--its oldness and its newness

These words stand between two commandments--that in the sixth verse of the chapter from which my text is taken, to walk as Christ walked, and the commandment of brotherly love contained in verse the ninth. To which of these does the apostle refer here? To both, for in their deepest meaning the two are one. If we walk in the light as Christ walked, then shall we love our brethren, for He loved us and gave Himself for us. Having ascertained what the commandment is, let us consider the two things mentioned concerning it its oldness and its newness. The law of love is as old as human nature itself. First, the faculty of love belongs to man as man--is part of his nature. Second, man has the sense or feeling that love is right, that it is a duty; and that to hate others, or even to be indifferent to them, is wrong. This is the Divine testimony in mans conscience, a silent commandment which makes itself heard and felt without the use of words. But the precept of love is new as well as old. It was Christ Himself that first called it new. A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

1. The prominence and oneness which our Lord gave to it made it new.

2. The perfect realisation of the precept of love in the life of Christ was new. It filled His Spirit, possessed His soul, appeared in His words and works, and was made manifest forever in His passion and death. He did justice to love, honoured it, and showed how beautiful, how noble, and how divine a quality it is; and thus the old commandment was arrayed in new glory.

3. The old precept of love has also a new inspiring power, as seen in the life and character of our Lord.

4. Again, Christ made love the symbol or badge of the Christian Church. It is not by any system of theology, forms of worship, learning, or social position that the true Church is known; but by all that is implied in the great word love as it is used in the New Testament.

5. There is an undying freshness in love which makes it ever new. Consider the working of love anywhere, and you will find in it a beauty that never fades, a newness that never withers, a fragrance that never departs. (T. Jones.)

No new commandment

It is scarcely too much of a paradox to say that new knowledge is for the most part a discovery of old truth; we talk in popular language of the discovery of electricity, but the electric power lurked in those same substances since the world began; we talk with delight of the wonderful discoveries made by the spectroscope, but after all those colours were in the sunlight, those elements in the starlight, long before; we discover the marvellous power of steam, but many an earthquake and volcano might have told us something of the power of steam centuries ago; no new law I write, the steam engine, the electric current, the light seem to say as they pass on their rapid flight, but an old law which ye had from the beginning. And yet as we watch them at work it is a new one; the steam engine is changing the course of commerce and the face of society; the electric current puts a girdle round the world; we know something of the stars and the sun now we never knew before; our ignorance, our darkness is passing away, and the true light is beginning to shine. Can we wonder, then, when we turn from the physical to the moral world, the same truth holds good? But our paradox carries us further than this; it is not only true that new knowledge is often only a discovery of old truth, but surely it is also true that not infrequently progress in the worlds best life is only made by the rediscovery of old knowledge. What are we doing in sculpture, except trying to discover how to reach the perfect outline of the Greeks? In painting we still study the old masters; and old inscriptions are showing us how much the ancients knew which we thought once we were discovering for the first time. So also in the moral and religious sphere, what have all the great Christian movements been except re-proclamations of forgotten truths? The Wesleyan movement was but the re-proclamation of the necessity of conversion; the so called Oxford movement was but the calling emphatic attention to the neglected Sacraments; and this at least can be said of the Salvation Army, that it does remind us in the midst of our culture and education of the fact of perishing souls. What, then, is the upshot of all this? First, that we should expect to find Gods final word for the world no new one; we should expect to find His great revelation something which focussed into a new force the scattered rays of old truth; and secondly, we should expect to find that in course of time, from human frailty, fragments even of this great revelation should be forgotten, and that consequently, welling forward, as it were, from its central depths, would have from time to time to shine the forgotten truth.

I. Now the great commandment, ever old and ever new, is the law of love.

1. Is it true to history; is it true that Christianity gathers together and focuses scattered rays of old truth? In dealing with sceptics it is often found that if a saying of our Lords can be shown to distantly resemble the saying of some philosopher centuries ago, if the teaching of Plato, or of Seneca, or of Epictetus can be quoted as anticipations or echoes of the Sermon on the Mount or the letters of St. Paul, if sentences of the Lords Prayer can be shown to be embedded in Jewish liturgies, therefore it is supposed that a damaging blow has been dealt to His uniqueness and originality. Why! on the contrary we glory in it; we trace in it the action of the Incarnate Word before He is Incarnate; we see Him immanent in the world from the beginning, teaching, controlling, guiding: it is the very thing we are looking for to confirm our faith; and if one thing more than another could be discovered to send home this teaching of brotherhood into our hearts, it is to find that it is no new commandment He gave us when Be came in the flesh, but an old one He had given us from the beginning.

2. It is true to human nature. A planet in our system, says Bishop Barry, has three influences playing upon it--it has first its own centrifugal force which bears it on its way, and which if left unbalanced would carry it forward in a straight line; it has on it next the great central influence of the sun, and thirdly it has on it the influence of the other planets, and he goes on to remind us of the remarkable fact that the planet Neptune was discovered not at first by immediate observation, but by the effect which it had, though unseen, on the orbit of another planet. Now with that picture before us it is not difficult to see that Christianity recognises self. Not afraid of the shallow taunt of selfishness it tells man plainly that his own personality is a treasure committed to his charge, and that he simply fulfils a law of his being in educating it to perfection, and therefore to happiness in this world and the world beyond the grave. In other words, we are called by Christianity to self-sacrifice, but we must have a self to sacrifice. A question was asked the other day after an address to some Oxford undergraduates which goes to the root of the matter. Was it wrong to educate a taste for art? was it wrong to go to Venice in the vacation? or to buy a beautiful picture for ones room? The sincerity of the question was beyond dispute. Putting aside all obvious cautions about extravagance or over-indulgence of taste or cases where, on account of the present distress, it becomes right to waive our rights, as a broad principle, is self-development right or wrong? And we may surely venture most emphatically to answer that it is a duty; that balanced duly by the other influences, the instinct of self-development--the centrifugal force of the planet--must have its place; that it is a short-sighted policy even looked at from the point of view of the human race to crush individuality; that mind and powers developed will have more to give, not less, in the days to come; and that we shall be untrue to history and human nature if we ignore the last revelation we have received--worked out too by human sacrifice and human effort--of personal and individual freedom, for which martyrs have fought and died. But does this contradict or interfere with the law of love? Not for a moment, if we remember whose we are and whom we serve.

3. But is it practicable? Does the law work? And it is a relief to turn away from general principles to reporting of the thing in action; after all, the only true gospel is the gospel of life. Now in obedience to the law of love a certain number of the sons of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford come each year to live in the centre of East London; they do it simply and naturally; they make no parade of virtue in doing it; their labour is a labour of love. What is the effect? Does it destroy self? By Gods blessing it helps to destroy selfishness, but not self; it develops self; it transfigures self. It makes men of them; the calls upon their judgment, the claims upon their sympathy, the education of their powers of government, insensibly and slowly make character; they lose their lives only to find them. Has it any effect on their belief in God? We know the dreamy haze in which many of us leave the University: is the old gospel true after all, we ask ourselves, or have we lost it among the maze of modern speculations? What effect upon this haze has obedience to the law of love? It gives a man back his faith in God; the darkness passes away and the true light begins to shine; and he finds by practical experience the truth of the old saying, He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And if it ennobles self and clears the vision of God, what has it to say to man? It wins man; man is unable to resist it; it makes him believe in a brotherhood of which he has heard but never seen before; this is a music he can understand.

II. This brings us to the second thing we might expect to find; we saw that we might expect to find from time to time forgotten depths of even a final revelation swelling forward into the light of day. So weak is human nature, so small its capacity to hold infinite truth, that it has from time to time to relearn piecemeal the faith once delivered to the saints; just as clouds keep gathering round the sun, and then being dispersed, so the darkness of prejudice and selfishness keeps gathering round the sun of revelation; again and again that darkness has to be dispersed, and the true light again and again to shine. Now as we look out upon the world, it is perfectly certain that something has begun to shine which was not there before. Ask people who have been abroad for fifteen or twenty years, and then come back to England, and they will tell you that they are perfectly astonished at what they see. But these things, they will tell you, are but symptoms of an inner change; they find the whole tone different; they find the old class feeling vanishing; they find the heart of one half of the world has begun to go out towards the other. What is the meaning of it? It fronts us, it judges us, it is a fact; and the question is this, Is it to be sneered down as a passing whim or is it part of the life of God? And in upholding that it is part of the life of God which has again found its way through the mists of human selfishness, we may take our stand on three grounds.

1. It was time for it to come; we had learnt the last lesson, we understand the freedom of the individual.

2. It is too strong to be a whim; the true diamond and the diamond of paste are like enough to look at, but you can cut with the one and not the other; this diamond cuts.

3. The colour of the light bears witness to its source; we all may mistake many things at times and many colours, but when we see it in action there is no mistaking the white light of love. And so, in conclusion, we have to ask ourselves, What is to be our attitude towards this brightening light?

(1) And first, surely at any rate, not an attitude of opposition; the most cautious of us can hardly refuse to accede to the counsel of the cautious Gamaliel.

(2) But secondly, the very words of Gamaliel show us that we cannot stop there; if it is of God, and we as Christians are fellow workers with God, then God expects us, He must expect us to help it on. (A. F. W. Ingram, M. A.)

Which thing is true in Him and in you--

The law of love true to the requirements of life

What does he here mean by true? In Scripture, as in our daily speech, the word stands not merely for the giving over unchanged by our mind to the mind of another, by words or otherwise, of something we know, so that he shall get it just as we have it. It means often the real instead of the seeming--that which is, not that which we think to be. Not so often it must be taken, as in this place, for that which fits, as a key the lock which it opens, or a medicine the disease which it heals, or a plan the difficulty it solves. That, in short, which puts things right which are wrong, which, disentangling confusion brings about order, supplying wants, stopping gaps, knitting together broken links, making useful that which without it is useless, or beautiful that which by itself is uncomely. That which does this in each case is the true. What the apostle, therefore, here means is that the great law of love fits into the facts, the realities, of human nature in the best way, giving it a finished beauty, and putting into it what it lacked for its smooth working. Nothing else, the apostle would tell us, could bring about so much good; and he is sure that we can see this clearly to be the case in Christ and in ourselves. This law of love, he says, is true in Him and in you. Without this love all the glory of the life of Christ would be gone. We see how it was needed to make perfect all that He was and did. We see the boundless usefulness of that life to us and to the world. But what good could that life or that death have done but for the love which ruled Christ in both? Think next of yourselves, saith St. John; think how your thoughts, your feelings, your lives, your treatment of others, are all changed. You are happier, you are in all ways better than you were; your old difficulties in dealing with others you now no longer feel. Doubts as to the things it were best for you to do are gone. Whence the change? Has it not clearly followed on your obedience to the law of love? (C. Watson, D. D.)

The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth--

The darkness passing--the light shining

I. In Christ personally this is true, that the darkness is passing and the true light is shining. In so far as this is a continuous process, or progressive experience, it is true of Christ only as He walked on earth. Darkness is upon Him, around Him, in Him; the darkness of the sin with which He comes in contact, the sin which, in its criminality and curse, He makes His own. But, on the other hand, the true light is ever shining upon Him, around Him, in Him; the light of the Fathers loving eye bent upon His suffering Son; the light of His own single eye ever bent upon the Fathers glory. In Him this darkness and this light are incessantly meeting; present always, both of them, vividly present to His consciousness; felt to be real, intensely real--the darkness, however, always as passing; the true light always as now shining.

II. What is true in Him: should be true in us, and should be realised by us as true in us as in Him. That is the apostles new commandment. For we enter into the position of Him in whom, in the first instance, that is true. The commandment to us is to enter into His position. And it is a new position. It is new to everyone with whom the commandment finds acceptance and in whom it takes effect.

1. The darkness is passing. Is it so with me, to me, in me? Then all that pertains to the darkness, all that is allied to it, is passing too. It is all like a term in course of being worked out in an algebraic question; a vanishing quantity; a fading colour. Plainly there is here a thoroughly practical test. This darkness is the absence of God. Now I come into contact with this darkness on every hand, at every point. Places, scenes, companies, from which God is shut out; works and ways from which God is shut out; people from whose minds and hearts God is shut out--I am in the midst of them all. Worse than that, they are in me, as having only too good auxiliaries in my own sinful bosom. How do I regard them? Do I cleave to them, to any of them? Would I have them to abide, at least a little longer? Would it pain me to part with them and let them pass? The darkness is passing. Is that true in me, as in Christ, with reference not merely to the darkness of this world that has such a hold on me, but also and chiefly to the darkness of my own shutting out of God; the darkness of my shutting out of God from my own conscious guilt and cherished sin? That is darkness indeed. Is it passing? Am I glad of its passing? Or am I in some measure so loving it that I would not have it all at once pass?

2. The true light is now shining. This is not represented as a benefit to be got, or as a reward to be reached, after the darkness shall have passed. It is a present privilege or possession. It is true, as a great fact, in you as in Christ, that the true light now shineth. And the fact of its now shining while the darkness is passing is the thing which is to be recognised as true in you as in Christ. That is the new commandment; a commandment always new; conveying in its bosom an ever-fresh experience, pregnant with ever-fresh experimental discoveries of Him who is light and who dwells in light. Only act up to this commandment; be ever acting up to it more and more. Enter into the spirit of it, and follow it out to its fair and full issues. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 2:7-8. I write no new commandment — Ministers must avoid all suspicion and affectation of novelty in their doctrine. But an old commandment — Concerning holiness of life, and loving one another. Which ye had from the beginning — Which was given to your fathers at the first forming of your commonwealth, Lev 19:18. The old commandment is the word — The doctrine of the gospel also; which ye have heard from the beginning — Which was delivered at the first publication thereof, and has been insisted upon ever since, Mat 5:43; Joh 15:12. Again, a new commandment I write unto you — Namely, with regard to your loving one another; a commandment which is true in him and in you — It was exemplified in him, and is now fulfilled by you, in such a manner as it never was before. “The new commandment,” says Macknight, “of which the apostle speaks, is that contained in 1Jn 2:6. That Christ’s disciples ought to walk even as he walked; and in particular that, as Christ laid down his life for his people, they ought to lay down their lives for one another, chap. 1Jn 3:16. Thus, to walk as Christ walked, St. John, with great propriety, termed a new commandment, because, notwithstanding the precept to love one another was strongly enjoined in the law of Moses, consequently was not a new commandment, the precept to love one another as Christ loved us, was certainly a new commandment, and so is termed by Christ himself, (Joh 13:34,) and is thus explained and inculcated 1Jn 3:16 : He laid down his life for us, therefore we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Which thing is true — This translation is exact; for the word αληθες, being in the neuter gender, cannot agree with εντολη, commandment, which is feminine; we must

“therefore supply πραγμ, (action or thing,) or some such general word, expressive of the subject of the command. By saying that the thing enjoined in the new commandment was true, concerning the persons to whom the apostle wrote, he perhaps meant that some of them had already hazarded their lives in assisting their brethren.” Because the darkness is past, &c. — The apostle not only means the darkness of heathenism, but that of the Mosaic dispensation, together with the corrupt doctrines and practices of the Jews under that dispensation; and particularly the impious notion that they were commanded in the law to hate the Gentiles, Mat 5:43. This darkness was gradually passing away by means of the shining of the light which was true; that is, by the publication of Christ’s doctrine and example in the gospel. The Mosaic law, with its obscure types, was likewise ready to vanish, in consequence of the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish nation; which events were soon to take place.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

1Jn_2:8. New commandment.—St. John seems to refer to his demand of love to the brethren, as the satisfactory sign of heart-obedience, son-like obedience to the Father. And this was new in the sense that no previous religious or ethical system had made such a demand. The common law of humanity is, “Serve yourself first, and then serve others, if you can.” The Divine law of humanity is, “Serve others first, and serve yourselves only when you are quite free of all brotherly obligations.” Darkness is past.—Which hid from men the Fatherhood of God, and prevented them from realising their brotherhood. True light.—It is the light of Christ’s ideal sonship and brotherliness.

1Jn_2:9. Hateth.—This is a word which has changed its meaning since the A.V. was made. The Bible word means, “love less”; “put second”; “show indifference to.” The Christian hates self when he puts self second. The worldly man hates his brother when he puts him after self.

1Jn_2:10. None occasion of stumbling.—I.e. the self-seeking principle is constantly putting men in peril of doing wrong and unjust things to their brethren. The love which “seeketh not her own” never urges any man to do anything that is unkind or unworthy. “Love to the brethren is a proof of uninterrupted abiding in the light, and of a blameless course in the way of righteousness.” St. John evidently had to deal with teachers who urged that love to Christ was enough to secure all the Christian blessings. He counteracts such mischievous teachings, by thus firmly asserting that love to Christ is absolutely inseparable from love to the brethren; there cannot possibly be the one without the other.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Jn_2:7-11

A New, yet Old, Commandment.—The new life in Christ will always find expression in two forms—in righteousness, and in charity. Or, to state the same thing in concrete form, in the obedience of sonship to God, and in the service of brotherhood to men. The apostle has been dealing with the first of these; he now turns to the second, beginning a new section by the direct address “Brethren,” or more precisely, “Beloved.” There are senses in which the love of the brethren is the oldest of old commandments. And there are senses in which the old commandment has been given anew; a fresh glow, and force, and meaning have been put upon it, and it comes to us like a new commandment, when we receive it from the lips of our Divine Lord and Master. Think of it as old, or think of it as new, still it stands as the second great commandment for humanity, and it is, in fact, included and involved in the first. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is remarkable that counsels respecting the law of brotherly love should take such a prominent place in St. John’s epistles. The Churches of his day must have been failing in this duty. The spirit of self-seeking and rivalry must have been spoiling the Christian relations. It was not the wisest thing for the apostle to attempt dealing directly with cases of contention and misunderstanding. It is seldom possible to get such matters put straight by any interference from without. But it is always possible, and it is often effective, to deal with such matters by reaffirming and reimpressing general principles, and this course the apostle takes. There is a Divine atmosphere, in which alone the quickened and regenerate soul can breathe and thrive. It is the light, which is the atmosphere of God. And there is an earthly atmosphere, in which alone the quickened and regenerate soul can breathe and thrive. It is love—the love of the brethren, the spirit in a man towards the brethren which leads him to put the interest of his brethren before his own. Nothing but love will inspire that.

I. Love of the brethren is an old commandment.—“An old commandment, which ye had from the beginning.” It is as old as humanity. This was evidently in the apostle’s mind, for we find him presently referring to the first human brother, Cain, who failed in keeping this commandment in his day. When God made man, He designed for him fatherhood; and since this involved sonship, it also involved brotherhood. The Divine idea of society was brotherhood in the inspiration of family love, which would lead each brother to care for his brother, as much and as truly as he cared for himself. What would society have been if the Divine idea had never been disturbed, if the Cain spirit had never been introduced? What would society be to-day, if, everywhere, every man was as interested in the welfare of his brother-man as in his own? “Brotherly love is an original human instinct. Christian ethics are as old as humanity.” The “milk of human kindness” feeds every child at the breast of the great nature-mother. No man, the world over, needs to be told of this old commandment. It is recognised as the first of human laws in every clime and every age. If the appeal be limited to the Jews, as having received a special revelation from God, we can see another sense in which brotherly love is an old commandment. For Moses distinctly enjoined this rule for the guidance of all social relations, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Lev_19:18), and the law was never for one moment disputed; the only contention that arose was over the precise meaning to be attached to the term “neighbour.” It may, however, be, as some have thought, that St. John’s expression “from the beginning” has exclusive reference to the beginning of the Christian experience of those to whom he wrote. It was one of the first things they were taught; and it had been taught them as an essential feature of the Christian life. There can be no “sonship” without “brotherhood.”

II. Love of the brethren is a new commandment.—Two things make it a new commandment for Christian disciples.

1. It was announced afresh, on His own authority, by their Divine Lord and Master. It was a main point of His teaching. It never had been taught so clearly, or so forcibly; it never had been set in such a primary place, as moral duty. There was no conceivable possibility of any man’s being a disciple of Christ, if he failed to keep this commandment of the Lord. Jesus Himself called it a new commandment, because He put such freshness of meaning into it, when He commended it to His disciples, and because He put such new power of obedience into it, when He quickened souls with His Divine life (Joh_15:12).

2. It was embodied afresh in our Lord’s example. Taking upon Himself human sonship, He took on Himself human brotherhood; and He loved His brethren up to the very limits of self-sacrifice for their true welfare. The law of brotherly love is true for Christ, since He walked in the light. It will be true for us precisely in the measure in which we walk with Him in the light. The thing “is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.”

III. Love of the brethren is in full consistency with the Christian profession.—That profession is symbolically represented as “light.” It includes everything true, kind, right, pure, gentle, and helpful. Manifestly “love of the brethren” is in the fullest harmony with all these things. And the worldly life ruled wholly by self-interest, by self-seeking considerations, is symbolically represented as “darkness”; and hatred of our brother, in the milder form of neglecting him, or the harsher form of injuring him, is in full harmony with that worldly life of darkness. “The whole history of religious rancour has been a deplorable illustration of this ‘hating our brother.’ Controversy for principles honestly and reasonably held is one thing; prejudice, spite, private censures and condemnations, harsh words, suspicions, jealousies, misunderstandings and misrepresentations, are the chief props of the kingdom of darkness among Christian churches and nations.” (Compare Joh_13:34; Joh_15:12 1Co_13:2; 1Pe_1:22; 2Pe_1:7-9). St. John even suggests that keeping up the love of the brethren, by finding for it constantly active expression, is the very best way to keep in the light. Such a man “abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (1Jn_2:10).

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

1Jn_2:8. Right Estimate of Christian Times.—“The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” The apostle Paul calls the præ-Christian ages, “The times of this ignorance.” And of Galilee, upon which the light of Christ’s ministry shone, prophecy had declared, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.” We can get a right estimate of Christian times only by contrast with a right estimate of præ-Christian times.

I. Præ-Christian times are represented by the term “darkness.”—And—

1. Darkness implies the absence of light. No sun, or moon, or stars bring any relief. And these represent the revelations of God which alone can relieve the moral darkness of men. It is not advisable to speak in an exaggerated way on this matter, and to deny all Divine interest in heathen and pagan peoples. What may be clearly stated is that God was pleased to leave the world to itself, to its own natural developments, without direct and special Divine intervention and help. But it must be “darkness” for the creature made by God, and dependent on Him, to be wholly left without any sense of His presence. The creature could but be “feeling after Him,” groping for Him, in the dark.

2. Darkness implies foulness. And we could not exaggerate in any statement that we could make concerning the moral degradation of heathen and pagan nations; it would be difficult to exaggerate in stating the mental blindness and moral corruption into which the Jews had fallen in the ages between Malachi and John the Baptist.

II. Christian times are represented by the term “light.”—

1. If the earlier ages were characterised by the absence of revelation, this is characterised by the greatest of all the revelations that have ever come from God: the one that illuminates, explains, and renews every other Revelation 2. If the earlier ages were dark indeed with sensual vices and self-aggrandisements, these ages are light indeed with a higher morality, family purity, personal restraints, gracious relations, and brotherly love.

1Jn_2:10. Lore preventing Stumblings.—“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling [scandal] in him.” This verse is pointedly addressed to the members of the Christian Church, and has in view the fact that there had been stumblings, scandals, and that there was always more or less danger of such things. The tone of the epistle suggests, that St. John had been greatly distressed by the report of such things. He does not choose to refer directly to any particular cases; he prefers to treat the evil as a general one, and to meet it by the assertion of Christian principles directly applicable to the case. The idea in his mind, to which he gives expression here, is something like this: If a man walks in the light, he can see where he is going; he can watch the path of his feet, and there is no occasion whatever for his stumbling. But if he walks in the night and darkness, he must pick his way tremblingly, for there are likely to be, here and there, many occasions of stumbling. St. John’s words recall those of our Divine Lord: “If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him.” We have seen that the proper atmosphere for the Christian life, if regarded in relation to God, is light, and if regarded in relation to man, is love. Here St. John is thinking of the love. If a man love his brother, he will walk in an illuminated atmosphere, in which he can see his way, and carefully avoid all occasions of offence. But if a man does not love his brother, if he has any enmities cherished against him, he will walk in a darkened atmosphere, in which he will not recognise occasions of offence, and, in this mood of mind, he will not care to avoid them if he does see them. “It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh.” All family, all church, all society, quarrels come still, as they have always come, out of somebody’s unbrotherly moods. Somebody has been “walking in the darkness” of ill-will.

1Jn_2:11; 1Jn_2:15. An Important Distinction.—Light is often thrown on the meaning of passages by comparing scripture with scripture. That will reveal apparently striking distinctions and contrasts. The distinctions of inspired language are always carefully made, and they represent spiritual realities. Putting these two passages together, three things appear to view:

1. A distinction between “sinning” and “loving the world.” Sinning is a peril to which the best Christian stands exposed. Loving the world is essentially an un-Christian state. Sinning is an act. Loving the world is a spirit, an inward principle. Sinning is response to outward temptation. Loving the world is a personal choice.

2. A distinction between the effect of “sinning” and of “loving the world” on the religious spirit and life. Sin drives the soul to God. Loving the world draws the soul away from God. Sin makes precious the Father’s Comforter. Loving the world crushes out all love of the Father.

3. Loving the world is set forth as a more perilous thing than sinning. The one may be consistent with a real, sincere, and earnest religious life. The other is absolutely inconsistent with it. And yet, practically, we think but little of this “loving the world.” It is treated as quite a venial sin. It is more to be dreaded than any sinful act we could possibly commit.

1Jn_2:11. The Apostle’s Line of Argument.—God is light. Christ is that light revealed. The life of Christ was a life of obedience and a life of love. In order, therefore, to have fellowship through Him with God believers must obey and love. The state of things in which this is possible has already begun. Therefore I write to you a command which is both old and new; walk in the light by imitating the love of Christ. In this manner St. John lays the foundation of Christian ethics.—A. Plummer, D.D.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 John

THE COMMANDMENT, OLD YET NEW

1Jn 2:7-8.

The simplest words may carry the deepest thoughts. Perhaps angels and little children speak very much alike. This letter, like all of John’s writing, is pellucid in speech, profound in thought, clear and deep, like the abysses of mid-ocean. His terms are such as a child can understand; his sentences short and inartificial: he does not reason, he declares; he has neither argument nor rhetoric, but he teaches us the deepest truths, and shows us that we get nearer the centre by insight than by logic.

Now the words that I have taken for my text are very characteristic of this Apostle’s manner. He has a great, wide-reaching truth to proclaim, and he puts it in the simplest, most inartificial manner, laying side by side two artless sentences, and stimulates us by the juxtaposition, leading us to feel after, and so to make our own, the large lessons that are in them. Let me, then, try to bring these out.

I. And the first one that strikes me is--’the word’ is ‘a commandment.’

Now, by ‘the word’ here the Apostle obviously means, since he speaks about it as that which these Asiatic Christians ‘heard from the beginning,’ the initial truth which was presented for their acceptance in the story of the life and death of Jesus Christ. That was ‘the word’ and, says he, just because it was a history it is a commandment; just because it was the Revelation of God it is a law. God never tells us anything merely that we may be wise. The purpose of all divine speech, whether in His great works in nature, or in the voices of our own consciences, or in the syllables that we have to piece together from out of the complicated noises of the world’s history, or in this book, or in the Incarnate Word, where all the wandering syllables are gathered together into one word--the purpose of all that God says to men is primarily that they may know, but in order that, knowing, they may do; and still more that they may be. And so, inasmuch as every piece of religious knowledge has in it the capacity of directing conduct, all God’s word is a commandment.

And, if that is true in regard to other revelations and manifestations that he has made of Himself, it is especially true in regard to the summing-up of all in the Incarnate Word, and in His words, and in the words that tell us of His life and of His death. So whatever truths there may be, and there are many, which, of course, have only the remotest, if any, bearing upon life and conduct, every bit of Christian truth has a direct grip upon a man’s life, and brings with it a stringent obligation.

Now, the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ, ‘the Word which ye heard from the beginning,’ which, I suppose, would roughly correspond with what is told us in our four Gospels; the word which these Asiatic Christians heard at first, the good news that was brought to them in the midst of their gropings and peradventures, commanded, in the first place, absolute trust, the submission of the will as well as the assent of the understanding. But also it commanded imitation, for Jesus Christ was revealed to them, as He is revealed to us, as being the Incarnate realisation of the ideal of humanity; and what He is, the knowledge that He is that, binds us to try to be in our turn.

And more than that, brethren, the Cross of Christ is a commandment. For we miserably mutilate it, and sinfully as well as foolishly limit its application and its power, if we recognise it only--I was going to say mainly--as being the ground of our hope and of what we call our salvation, and do not recognise it as being the obligatory example of our lives, which we are bound to translate into our daily practice. Jesus Christ Himself has told us that in many a fashion, never more touchingly and wondrously than when in response to the request of a handful of Greeks to see Him, He answered with the word which not only declared what was obligatory upon Him, but what was obligatory upon us all, and for the want of which all the great endowments of the Greek mind at last rotted down into sensuousness, when He said, ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit’ and then went on to say, ‘he that loveth his life shall lose it.’

So, then, brethren, ‘the word which ye heard at the beginning,’ the story of Christ, His life and His death, is a stringent commandment. Now, this is one of the blessings of Christianity, that all which was hard and hopeless, ministering to despair sometimes, as well as stirring to fierce effort at others, in the conception of law or duty as it stands outside us, is changed into the tender word, ‘if ye love Me, keep My commandments.’ If any man serve Me, let him ... ‘follow Me.’ It is a law; it is ‘the law of liberty.’ So you have not done all that is needful when you have accepted the teaching of Christ in the Scriptures and the teaching of the Scriptures concerning Christ. Nor have you done all that is needful when clasping Him, and clinging simply to His Cross, you recognise in it the means and the pledge of your acceptance with God, and the ground and anchor of all your hope. There is something more to be done. The Gospel is a commandment, and commandments require not only assent, not only trust, but practical obedience. The ‘old commandment’ is the ‘word which ye heard from the beginning.’

II. The old Christ is perpetually new.

The Apostle goes on, in the last words of my text, to say, ‘Which thing’ {viz., this combination of the old and the new} ‘is true in Him and in you.’ ‘True in Him’--that is to say, Christ, the old Christ that was declared to these Asiatic Christians as they were groping amidst the illusions of their heathenism, is perpetually becoming new as new circumstances emerge, and new duties are called for, and new days come with new burdens, hopes, possibilities, or dangers. The perpetual newness of the old Christ is what is taught here.

Suppose one of these men in Ephesus heard for the first time the story that away in Judea there had lived the manifestation of God in the flesh, and that He, in His wonderful love, had died for men, that they might be saved from the grip of their sins. And suppose that man barely able to see, had yet seen that much, and clutched at it. He was a Christian, but the Christ that he discerned when he first discerned Him through the mists, and the Christ that he had in his life and in his heart, after, say, twenty years of Christian living, are very different. The old Christ remained, but the old Christ was becoming new day by day, according to the new necessities and positions. And that is what will be our experience if we have any real Christianity in us. The old Christ that we trusted at first was able to do for us all that we asked Him to do, but we did not ask Him at first for half enough, and we did not learn at first a tithe of what was in Him. Suppose, for instance, some great ship comes alongside a raft with ship-wrecked sailors upon it, and in the darkness of the night transfers them to the security of its deck. They know how safe they are, they know what has saved them, but what do they know compared with what they will know before the voyage ends of all the reservoirs of power and stores of supplies that are in her? Christ comes to us in the darkness, and delivers us. We know Him for our Deliverer from the first moment, if we truly have grasped Him. But it will take summering and wintering with Him, through many a long day and year, before we can ever have a partially adequate apprehension of all

that lies in Him.

And what will teach us the depths of Christ, and how does He become new to us? Well, by trusting Him, by following Him, and by the ministry of life. Some of us, I have no doubt, can look back upon past days when sorrow fell upon us, blighting and all but crushing; and then things that we had read a thousand times in the Bible, and thought we had believed, blazed up into a new meaning, and we felt as if we had never understood anything about them before. The Christ that is with us in the darkness, and whom we find able to turn even it, if not into light, at least into a solemn twilight not unvisited by hopes, that Christ is more to us than the Christ that we first of all learnt so little to know. And life’s new circumstances, its emerging duties, are like the strokes of the spade which clears away the soil, and discloses the treasure in all its extent which we purchased when we bought that field. We buy the treasure at once, but it takes a long time to count it. The old Christ is perpetually the new Christ.

So, brethren, Christian progress consists not in getting away from the original facts, the elements of the Gospel, but it consists in penetrating more deeply into these, and feeling more of their power and their grasp. All Euclid is in the definitions and axioms and postulates at the beginning. All our books are the letters of the alphabet. And progress consists, not in advancing beyond, but in sinking into, that initial truth, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.’

I might say a word here as to another phase of this perpetual newness of the old Christ--viz., in His adaptation to deal with all the complications and perplexities and problems of each successive age. It has taken the Church a long, long time to find out and to formulate, rightly or wrongly, what it has discovered in Jesus. The conclusions to be drawn from the simple Gospel truth, the presuppositions on which it rests, require all the efforts of all the Church through all the ages, and transcend them all. And I venture to say, though it may sound like unsupported dogma, that for this generation’s questionings, social, moral, and political, the answer is to be found in Him. He, and He only, will interpret each generation to itself, and will meet its clamant needs. There is none other for the world to-day but the old Christ with the new aspect which the new conditions require.

Did it ever strike you how remarkable it is, and, as it seems to me, of how great worth as an argument for the truth of Christianity it is, that Jesus Christ comes to this, as to every generation, with the air of belonging to it? Think of the difference between the aspect which a Plato or a Socrates presents to the world to-day, and the aspect which that Lord presents. You do not need to strip anything off Him. He committed Himself to no statements which the progress of thought or knowledge has exploded. He stands before the world to-day fitting its needs as closely as He did those of the men of His own generation. The old Christ is the new Christ.

III. Lastly, in the Christian life the old commandment is perpetually new.

‘Which thing is true ... in you.’ That is to say, ‘the commandment which ye received at the beginning,’ when ye received Christ as Saviour, has in itself a power of adapting itself to all new conditions as they may emerge, and will be felt increasingly to grow stringent, and increasingly to demand more entire conformity, and increasingly to sweep its circle round the whole of human life. For this is the result of all obedience, that the conception of duty becomes more clear and more stringent. ‘If any man will do His will’ the reward shall be that he will see more and more the altitude of that will, the length and breadth and depth and height of the possible conformity of the human spirit to the will of God. And so as we advance in obedience we shall see unreached advances before us, and each new step of progress will declare more fully how much still remains to be accomplished. In us the ‘old commandment’ will become ever new.

And not only so, but perpetually with the increasing sweep and stringency of the obligation will be felt an increasing sense of our failure to fulfil it. Character is built up, for good or for evil, by slow degrees. Conscience is quickened by being listened to, and stifled by being neglected. A little speck of mud on a vestal virgin’s robe, or on a swan’s plumage, will be conspicuous, while a splash twenty times the size will pass unnoticed on the rags of some travel-stained wayfarer. The purer we become, the more we shall know ourselves to be impure.

Thus, my brother, there opens out before us an endless course in which all the blessedness that belongs to the entertaining and preservation of ancient convictions, lifelong friends, and familiar truths, and all the antithetical blessedness that belongs to the joy of seeing, rising upon our horizon as some new planet with lustrous light, will be united in our experience. We shall at once be conservative and progressive; holding by the old Christ and the old commandment, and finding that both have in them endless novelty. The trunk is old; every summer brings fresh leaves. And at last we may hope to come to the new Jerusalem, and drink the new wine of the Kingdom, and yet find that the old love remains, and that the new Christ, whose presence makes the new heavens and the new earth, is ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’ the old Christ whom, amid the shadows of earth, we tried to love and copy.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 3

NEW COMMANDMENT

7, 8. Here is an apparent contradiction. 1Jn 2:7 says, “I do not write unto you a new commandment, but an old one.” 1Jn 2:8 says, “I write unto you a new commandment.” An infidel here finds a difference and rejects the Bible. These enigmas frequently occurring in Scripture are exceedingly helpful to our spiritual understanding, sharpening our wits, illuminating our perspicacity and intensifying our assiduity. What is this commandment which is not new but old, and still new and never old? It is, “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself, with divine love.” Human love gets old and stale. Divine love is the nature of God and always new. “Old” means infirmity. God and angels never get old. When we receive transfiguration we will

never get old, but bloom in immortal youth forever. Divine love, like God, never gets old. Hence it is new through all eternity. How is it “old”? This commandment was given in the Old Testament, hence it is historically “old,” but experimentally “new,” and will always be new and fresh, like the manna in the golden pot in the sanctum sanctorum.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:7-11 The disciples had the old commandment (to love one another) from the very beginning, from Jesus himself (John 13:34-35) and from the Old Testament (Lev 19:18, 33-34).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Jn 2:7. Ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning) the time when you first heard the Gospel of Christ: 1Jn 2:24, ch. 1Jn 3:11.—ὁ λόγος, the word) 1Jn 2:5.—ὃν ἠκούσατε, which ye heard) John did not deem it necessary to repeat this word, as already known. He frequently says, ye have heard, for they had heard, before even the apostles wrote.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn_2:7. ἀγαπητοί] Such a form of address does not necessarily indicate the commencement of a new section, but is also used when the subject of the discourse is intended to be brought home to the hearers or readers; this is the case here.

οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν γράφω ὑμῖν] certainly does not mean: I do not write to you of a new commandment; neither, however: I write (set) before you (Baumgarten-Crusius); for γράφειν has not this signification; it simply means: to write; when connected with an object, as here, it is = to communicate or announce anything by writing; comp. chap. 1Jn_1:4. The subject of his writing the apostle calls an ἐντολή; it is arbitrary to take the word here in a different meaning from that which it always has; thus Rickli: the whole revelation of divine truth as it has been brought to us in Jesus Christ[102] (similarly Flacius, Calovius, etc.); and Ebrard: the announcement, that God is light, chap. 1Jn_1:5; ἘΝΤΟΛΉ means commandment; this idea must not be confounded with any other. Most of the commentators (Augustin, Bede, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette-Brückner, Neander, Sander, Erdmann, Myrberg, Ewald, etc.) understand by it, according to 1Jn_2:9-11, the commandment of brotherly love; others, on the other hand (Socinus, Episcopius, Calovius, Schott, Lücke, Fritzsche, Frommann, etc.), according to 1Jn_2:6, the commandment of following Christ. These two views seem to be opposed to one another, but they really are so only if we assume that John here wants to emphasize a single special commandmentin distinction from other commandments. This supposition, however, is erroneous; the command to keep the commandments (or the word) of God after the example of Christ, or to walk in the light, is no other than the command to love ones brother. From chap. 1Jn_1:5 on, John is speaking not of different commandments, but of the one general commandment of the Christian life which results from the truth that God is light. It is to this commandment that reference is made when John, in order to bring it home to his readers, says: ΟὐΚ ἘΝΤΟΛῊΝ ΚΑΙΝῊΝ ΓΡΆΦΩ ὙΜῖΝ, so that by ἘΝΤΟΛΉ he does not indicate a commandment which he then for the first time is about to mention, but the commandment which he has already spoken of in what precedes (only not merely in 1Jn_2:6), but defines more particularly in what follows, namely, in regard to its concrete import.[103] Of this commandment John says, that it is not an ἐντολὴ καινή;[104] in what sense he means this, the following words state: ἈΛΛʼ ἘΝΤΟΛῊΝ ΠΑΛΑΙΆΝ, ἫΝ ΕἼΧΕΤΕ ἈΠʼ ἈΡΧῆς; it is not new, but old, inasmuch as his readers did not first receive it through this writing, but already had it, and indeed ἈΠʼ ἈΡΧῆς, i.e. from the very beginning of their Christian life; comp. chap. 1Jn_3:11; 2Jn_1:5-6; and, for the expression ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, 1Jn_2:24 (Calvin, Beza, Socinus, Episcopius, Piscator, Hornejus, Lange, Rickli, Lücke, de Wette-Brückner, Sander, Neander, Besser, Düsterdieck, Erdmann, Myrberg, Ewald, Braune, etc.). The imperfect ΕἼΧΕΤΕ, instead of which we should expect the present, either refers back to the time before John had come to his readers, or is to be explained: which ye hitherto already had. The latter is the more probable. Some commentators weaken this interpretation, which is demanded by the context, and hold that John calls the commandment (namely, the commandment of love) an old one, because it was already given by Moses; thus Flacius, Clarius, etc.; the Greek commentators even go beyond that, and refer it at once to this, that it was written from the very beginning in the heart of man;[105] the latter Baumgarten-Crusius maintains, and says: here, therefore, the ethics of Christianity are represented as the eternal law of reason, in which he explains ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς from the beginning of the history of man, and regards ye as men as the subject of εἴχετε.

ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ παλαιά ἐστιν ὁ λόγος ὃν ἠκούσατε] This addition serves for a more particular definition of the preceding; ἡ παλαιά is repeated in order to accentuate this idea more strongly. By εἴχετε it was only stated that the readers were in possession of the commandment; now the apostle defines it more particularly in this respect, that it is the word (not: the chief substance of the word, de Wette) which they had heard (comp. 1Jn_2:24; 1Jn_3:11; 1Jn_4:3), which, therefore, was proclaimed unto them (comp. chap. 1Jn_1:2-3), namely, by the apostolic preaching. The clause is therefore not to be taken, as Baumgarten-Crusius holds, as a correction of γράφω: not by him was it first given; it is from the beginning of Christianity, the λόγος, ὃν ἠκούσατε, namely, from Christ; for ἠκούσατε does not refer directly to γράφω (Bengel), but to εἴχετε.[106] On the addition ἈΠʼ ἈΡΧῆς (Rec.) after ἠκούσατε, which Ewald regards as genuine, see the critical notes.

[102] Ebrard wrongly maintains that ἐντολή is a truth including directly in itself practical requirements. Only the practical requirements contained in a truth can bewhen regarded as a unitycalled ἐντολή, but not the truth which contains them in itself. It is true the demand of faith in the message of salvation may be described as ἐντολή, but not the message of salvation itself; here, however, the context forbids us to take the expression in that sense (as Weiss), since neither in what precedes nor in what immediately follows is there a demand for faith expressed.

[103] This view is in accordance with that of Düsterdieck, who rightly remarks: The solution of the problem lies in this, that the holy command to walk as Christ walked, fully and essentially resolves itself into the command of brotherly love; it is also accepted by Braune. The objection of Brückner, that brotherly love is only a principal element, and not the complete fulfilment of following Christ, can only be regarded as valid if brotherly love is not viewed in its full, complete character; comp. Joh_13:34, and also the statement of the Apostle Paul: πλήρωμα νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη, Rom_13:10.The instances adduced by Ebrard against the reference to brotherly love can only have any force if the commandment which prescribes this is distinguished, as a special one, from the command to walk in light.

[104] Certainly what John here says reminds us of the statement of Christ in Joh_13:34; nor can it be denied that John was here thinking of that, as well as in the passage 2Jn_1:5; but from this it does not follow that οὐκ ἑντολ. καιν. γράφω ὑμῖν does not refer to what precedes, but only to what comes after (ver. 9).

[105] In the scholia of Matthaei it is thus put: εἰ μὲν Ἰουδαίοις ταῦτα γράφει, εἰκότος, τὴν περὶ ἀγάπης ἐντολὴν οὐ καινὴν εἶναι φησί. πάλαι γὰρ αὐτὴν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν ἐπηγγείλατο. Εἰ δὲ οὐκ Ἰουδαῖοι ἦσαν, μήποτʼ οὖν ἐντολὴ παλαιά … ἐστὶν ἡ κατὰ τὰς φυσικὰς ἐννοίας φιλικὴ διάθεσις, πάντες γὰρ φύσει ἥμερα καὶ κοινωνικὰ ζῶα ὄντες ἀγαπῶσι τοὺς πλησίον.Oecumenius and Theophylact combine the two together, holding that the Epistle was addressed to Jewish and Gentile Christians.

[106] Wolf assumes a peculiar antithesis between the two sentences: Ratio fortassis aliqua reddi possit, cur ἔχειν et ἀκούειν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς sibi invicem subjungantur. Prius enim ad illos spectaverit, qui ex Judaeis ad Christum conversi erant; illi enim jam ante praeceptum hoc de amore mutuo ex lege Mosis et prophetis cognitum habebant; posterius respiciet ex-Gentiles, qui idem inter prima evangelicae doctrinae praecepta acceperant; this amounts, partly, if not altogether, to what the Greek commentators adduce for explanation of the expression παλαιά. The arbitrariness of such an antithesis is self-evident.

1Jn_2:7-11. A more particular statement of the nature and import of τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ or of περιπατεῖν καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησε.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn 2:7-11 . A New Meaning in an Old Commandment. “Beloved, it is no new commandment that I am writing to you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye heard. Again, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you a thing which is true in Him and in yon, because the darkness is passing away and the light, the true light, is already shining. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in his way; but he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not where he is going, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”

St. John has lately discovered the supremacy of Love in the Christian revelation (see Introd. pp. 157 f.). His imperfect realisation of this has been the defect of his teaching hitherto, and he would now repair it: “It is not a new commandment that I am writing to you; it is part of the Gospel which I have been preaching to you all along. But I have never adequately understood it, and therefore it is new to your ears as it is to my heart.”

1Jn 2:7 . ἀγαπητοί , St. John’s favourite style ( cf. 1Jn 3:2 ; 1Jn 3:21 , 1Jn 4:1 ; 1Jn 4:7 ; 1Jn 4:11 ). About to enjoin love, he begins by loving. καινός , “novel,” “new in kind ” ( novus ) as distinguished from νέος , “new in time ” ( recens ). ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς , here not as in 1Jn 1:1 , but “from the beginning of your Christian life”. ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ παλαιά , cf. 1Jn 1:2 : τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Apostle going about to expound the commandment of charity one toward another, telleth first, that when he urgeth holiness bringeth no new trade of life (as they use to do which devise traditions, one after another) but putteth them in mind of the same Law which God gave in the beginning, to wit, by Moses, at that time that God began to give Laws to his people.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Brethren--The oldest manuscripts and versions read instead, "Beloved," appropriate to the subject here, love.

no new commandment--namely, love, the main principle of walking as Christ walked (Jo1 2:6), and that commandment, of which one exemplification is presently given, Jo1 2:9-10, the love of brethren.

ye had from the beginning--from the time that ye first heard the Gospel word preached.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. Brethren, I write no new commandment] There seems a contradiction between this and the next verse. But the apostle appears to speak, not so much of any difference in the essence of the precept itself, as in reference to the degrees of light and grace belonging to the Mosaic and Christian dispensations. It was ever the command of God that men should receive his light, walk by that light, and love him and one another. But this commandment was renewed by Christ with much latitude and spirituality of meaning; and also with much additional light to see its extent, and grace to observe it. It may therefore be called the OLD commandment, which was from the beginning; and also a NEW commandment revealed afresh and illustrated by Christ, with the important addition to the meaning of Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye shall love the brethren so as to lay down your lives for each other. See Clarke on Joh 13:34.

Instead of αδελφοι, brethren, ABC, thirteen others, with both the Syriac, Erpen's Arabic, Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian, Slavonic, and Vulgate, with several of the fathers, have αγαπητοι, beloved. This is without doubt the true reading.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7 Brethren, I write no new commandment This is an explanation of the preceding doctrine, that to love God is to keep his commandments. And not without reason did he largely dwell on this point. First, we know that novelty is disliked or suspected. Secondly, we do not easily undertake an unwonted yoke. In addition to these things, when we have embraced any kind of doctrine, we dislike to have anything changed or made new in it. For these reasons John reminds us, that he taught nothing respecting love but what had been heard by the faithful from the beginning, and had by long usage become old.

Some explain oldness differently, even that Christ now prescribes no other rule of life under the Gospel than what God did formerly under the Law. This is indeed most true; nor do I object but that he afterwards calls in this sense the word of the gospel the old commandment But I think that he now means only, that these were the first elements of the gospel, that they had been thus taught from the beginning, that there was no reason why they should refuse that as unusual by which they ought to have been long ago imbued. For the relative seems to be used in a causative sense. He calls it then old, not because it was taught the fathers many ages before, but because it had been taught them on their new entrance into a religious life. And it served much to claim their faith, that it had proceeded from Christ himself from whom they had received the gospel.

The old commandment The word old, in this place, probably extends further; for the sentence is fuller, when he says, the word which ye have heard from the beginning is the old commandment And as I, indeed, think, he means that the gospel ought not to be received as a doctrine lately born, but what has proceeded from God, and is his eternal truth; as though he had said, “Ye ought not to measure the antiquity of the gospel which is brought to you, by time; since therein is revealed to you the eternal will of God: not only then has God delivered to you this rule of a holy life, when ye were first called to the faith of Christ, but the same has always been prescribed and approved by him.” And, doubtless, this only ought to be deemed antiquity, and deserves faith and reverence, which has its origin from God. For the fictions of men, whatever long prescription of years they may have, cannot acquire so much authority as to subvert the truth of God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you,.... Some understand this of faith, which this apostle calls a commandment, Jo1 3:23; but it rather intends the commandment of love, especially to the brethren, of which the apostle says the same things as here in his second epistle, Jo1 2:5; and this sense agrees both with what goes before and follows after, and is a considerable branch of the commandments of Christ to be kept, and of walking as he walked; and the word "brethren", prefixed to this account, may direct to, and strengthen this sense, though the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions read, "beloved"; and so the Alexandrian copy, and others: and this commandment is said to be not a new one,

but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning; it being in its original a part of the eternal law of truth, founded upon the unalterable nature and eternal will of God, who is love itself, and requires it in all his creatures; being what was written on Adam's heart in a state of innocence, and a branch of the divine image stamped upon him; and is what was delivered in the law of Moses, for love to God and men is the sum and substance of that; and was taught by Christ and his apostles from the beginning of the Gospel dispensation; and was what these saints had been acquainted with, and influentially instructed in from their first conversion, being taught of God in regeneration to love one another; so that this was no novel doctrine, no upstart notion, no new law, but of the greatest and most venerable antiquity, and therefore to be regarded in the most respectful manner.

The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning; or this ancient law of love is contained in, and enforced by that word or doctrine which was delivered from the beginning of time; and which these saints had heard of, concerning the seed of the woman's bruising the serpent's head, which includes the work of redemption and salvation by Christ, atonement by his sacrifice, forgiveness of sin through his blood, and justification by his righteousness, than which nothing can more powerfully engage to love God, and Christ, and one another; and which is also strongly encouraged by the word of God and Gospel of Christ, which they had heard, and had a spiritual and saving knowledge of, from the time they were effectually called by the grace of God: the phrase, "from the beginning", is left out in the Alexandrian copy, and others, and in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions; it is omitted in both clauses of the text in the latter.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

Ver. 7. I write no new commandment] The apostle studiously declineth the suspicion of novelty. We should ever set a jealous eye upon that which is new, and stand in the old way, Jer 6:16, in the ancient paths, Jer 18:15. God’s people are called the ancient people, Isa 44:7. And idolaters are said to sacrifice to new gods, that came newly up, Deu 32:17. Truth, as wine, is better with age, Luk 5:39. And of witnesses, Aristotle well saith, the older they are, the more credible, because less corrupted, πιστοτατοι οι παλαιοι, αδιαφθοροι γαρ (Rhet. i.). As we prefer the newest philosophy, so the ancientest divinity; and we may justly suspect them of falsehood and delusions, who arrogate to themselves to utter oracles, to bring to light new truths, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you - That is, what I am now enjoining is not new. It is the same doctrine which you have always heard. There has been much difference of opinion as to what is referred to by the word “commandment,” whether it is the injunction in the previous verse to live as Christ lived, or whether it is what he refers to in the following verses, the duty of brotherly love. Perhaps neither of these is exactly the idea of the apostle, but he may mean in this verse to put in a general disclaimer against the charge that what he enjoined was new. In respect to all that he taught, the views of truth which he held the duties which he enjoined, the course of life which he would prescribe as proper for a Christian to live, he meant to say that it was not at all new; it was nothing which he had originated himself, but it was in fact the same system of doctrines which they had always received since they became Christians. He might have been induced to say this because he apprehended that some of those whom he had in his eye, and whose doctrines he meant to oppose, might say that this was all new; that it was not the nature of religion as it had been commonly understood, and as it was laid down by the Saviour. In a somewhat different sense, indeed, he admits 1Jo 2:8 that there was a “new” commandment which it was proper to enjoin - for he did not forget that the Saviour himself called that “new;” and though that commandment had also been all along inculcated under the gospel, yet there was a sense in which it was proper to call that new, for it had been so called by the Saviour. But in respect to all the doctrines which he maintained, and in respect to all the duties which he enjoined, he said that they were not new in the sense that he had originated them, or that they had not been enjoined from the beginning.

Perhaps, also, the apostle here may have some allusion to false teachers who were in fact scattering new doctrines among the people, things before unheard of, and attractive by their novelty; and he may mean to say that he made no pretensions to any such novelty, but was content to repeat the old and familiar truths which they had always received. Thus, if he was charged with breaching new opinions, he denies it fully; if they were advancing new opinions, and were even “making capital” out of them, he says that he attempted no such thing, but was content with the old and established opinions which they had always received.

But an old commandment - Old, in the sense that it has always been inculcated; that religion has always enjoined it.

Which ye had from the beginning - Which you have always received ever since you heard anything about the gospel. It was preached, when the gospel was first preached; it has always been promulgated when that has been promulgated; it is what you first heard when you were made acquainted with the gospel. Compare the notes at 1Jo 1:1.

The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning - Is the “doctrine;” or is what was enjoined. John is often in the habit of putting a truth in a new form or aspect in order to make it emphatic, and to prevent the possibility of misapprehension. See Joh 1:1-2. The sense here is: “All that I am saying to yea is in fact an old commandment, or one which you have always had. There is nothing new in what I am enjoining on you.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

An old commandment....and again, a new commandment. He means the commandment of charity, or of the love of God and the love of our neighbour. This he calls both an old and a new precept. It may be called old, not only as being a precept of the law of nature, and always obligatory, but because St. John and the other apostles had delivered it to them long ago, i.e. when these persons were first converted. It may also be called a new precept, St. John recommending it anew to them in this epistle, and declaring it to be enjoined in a particular manner by our Saviour Christ, after it had been misconstrued and neglected, especially as regards our neighbour, that is, every one without exception; so that if any one hate another, it is in vain that he pretends to walk in the light of the gospel. (Witham) --- A new commandment; viz. the commandment of love, which was given in the old law, but was renewed and extended by Christ. See John xiii. 33. (Challoner)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This commandment must be that which he insists on, 1Jo 2:9-11, and which in different respects he calleth both old and new. Not new, he says, in opposition to their Gnostic seducers, to intimate he was not about to entertain them with vain novelties, as they did; all whose peculiar doctrines were no other than innovations upon true Christianity: but old, viz. a part of original Christianity, as it came pure first from our Lord Christ himself; the commandment, or word, which they had, or had heard, from the beginning. This phrase, from the beginning, being here put in conjunction with some act of theirs, ye had, or have heard, as also 2Jo 2,5,6, shows it to intend a much later term of commencement than 1Jo 1:1. Though also, considering them as Jews, whom he here writes to, it might run up as high as the law given by Moses; or, even as men, to the creation, and the first impression of the law of nature (whereof this was a very noble part) upon the heart of man.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. First interlude. Twice in this chapter St. John interrupts the current of thought in order to express the personal purpose and feeling of his writing. Other writers would have done this at the introduction; but he has begun with the full propounding of his subject, and his personal references come in parenthetically by the way. This interlude meets the objection that his doctrine is a novelty. The commandment is not, as some think, simply the law of brotherly love, (though 1Jn_2:10-11 show that to be included,) but the entire preceding injunction of 3-6, requiring our knowing and abiding in our great propitiation—that is, in the divine fellowship and perfect love summarized in 1Jn_1:6-7. This was no new commandment; indeed, they had heard it from the beginning; that is, from the first announcement of Christ’s gospel to them. This newly delivered injunction is the same old word they had ever heard, even from the beginning of their Christian knowledge, 8. Again—That is, under another view of the subject, the commandment is new. It is, on opposite sides, at the same time both old and new. Even when first preached through Christ it was old, both as a natural and eternal divine obligation, and as a record in the Hebrew revelation; and it was new by the revelation of our example, propitiation, and advocate, Jesus Christ; and this newness is a true thing both in the Christ and in the believer—in him and in you. It is true in Christ as unfolding a new force in the law of love; it is true in you as being pledged by your interest in the propitiation (1Jn_2:2) to perfect obedience to, and oneness with Christ. The darkness once shading that law of love is past by this revelation of Christ; and the true light now shineth by which the force of that law, or commandment, is made luminous. The old commandment is, therefore, a new one.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 7-28. (2) Negative side. What walking in the light excludes; the things and persons to be avoided hatred of a brother, love of the world, antichrists. To this section verses 7, 8 form an introduction, as chapter 1:5, 7 to the positive side.

Beloved; ajgaphtoi, not ojdelfoi, is the true reading. Addresses of this kind commonly introduce a fresh division of the subject, main or subordinate. Thus ajgaphtoi; (1Jn_4:1, 1Jn_4:7) teknia; (1Jn_2:1) paidia; (1Jn_2:18) ajdelfoi. (1Jn_3:13) Sometimes, however, they introduce an earnest conclusion. (1Jn_2:28 1Jn_3:21 1Jn_5:21) In 1Jn_4:11 ajgaphtoi introduces a conclusion which serves as a fresh starting-point. Not a fresh commandment do I write to you, but an old commandment. Where it can be conveniently done, it is worth while distinguishing kainov, "fresh," as opposed to "worn out," "obsolete," from neov, "new," as opposed to "old, aged." "New wine must be put into fresh skins". (Mar_2:22) Are two commandments meant one to cultivate brotherly love, the other to walk as Christ walked? Or is there only one, which from different points of view may be regarded as either new or old? Commentators are divided; but the latter seems better. Then what is the commandment which is at once new and old? The whole gospel, or the command to love one another? Joh_13:34 and 15:2 willincline us to the latter view. The command was old, for" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Lev_19:18) was part of the Mosaic Law. But the standard was new: "Even as I loved you;" "Even as he also walked;" and the motive was new: because "God so loved us". (1Jn_4:11) Brotherly love, enforced by such an example, and based on such a fact, was a new command as compared with the cold injunction of the Law. From the beginning may have either of two senses:

(1) from of old, i.e., long before the Gospel;

(2) from the beginning of your career as Christians. This new and yet old command sums up the practical side of the gospel which had been preached to them from the first. The second ajp ajrchv it spurious.

Vers. 7-11.

Love and light.

Connecting link: The word "ought" (verse 6) implies a command explicitly given or implicitly involved in other teaching; such is the case here. The Son of God has come. And from him as the Light the command has proceeded. What specific form the commandment has taken from his lips is the main teaching of this paragraph. Hence our themeThe commandment, old and yet new, brought by him who is the Light. The "connecting links" which are traceable in the writings of John, are very different from such as are discoverable in the Epistles of Paul. Paul works out mighty themes cumulatively. John treats keywords radiatively. Such words are "light," "love," "truth," "life," "knowledge," etc. Consequently, it would be a mistake to attempt to find in this Epistle any such continuous unfolding of one great theme, such, e.g., as the doctrine of justification by faith, which is dealt with by Paul in Romans 1-8. As another method, and that very widely different, is adopted in this Epistle by the Apostle John, so the work of the pulpit expositor in dealing therewith must vary from the method he would adopt in unfolding the Epistle to the Romans. We must take up the key-words of John as he uses them, and expound the teaching concerning them. In this paragraph we have two main lines of remark suggested.

I TEACHINGS CONCERNING LIGHT AND LOVE OBJECTIVELY CONSIDERED. These are fourfold.

1. The true Light is now shining. A reference to Joh_1:4, 5 and 3:19 will indicate the way in which the apostle refers to our Lord Jesus as the Light. God has never left men in absolute darkness concerning himself. Even before the Old Testament was written, devout men could "walk with God." But whatever light on the invisible men have had has come from the Lord Jesus Christ. "He is the true Light, which lighteth every man." When, however, he came into the world, men beheld the Source of light; the world has been clearer and brighter ever since; and to this day the light streams from Christ as from the Sun of Righteousness.

2. Because of this the darkness is passing away (paragetai). It is as if the veil were being lifted off which concealed the great realities on which the meaning and destiny of human life depend. And with new light thrown on the plans and mind of God for our race, it follows that fresh light is cast on the way in which men ought to walk.

1. This being the case, additional force is given to human duty. (Note the oti in verse 8.) The clearer the light on a man"s pathway, the greater his obligation to walk aright. Hence, when Jesus brings a fuller light, he must needs bring a command for us to walk accordingly. We cannot suppose the Son of God to come from heaven to light up our way, and that it can then be an indifferent matter whether we heed him or no. Surely not. The light has a commanding force. It is a new command, as brought in anew by the

2. Lord Jesus, and felt with new force through his infinite love. It is an old one, inasmuch as it had been in force from the very beginning of the Christian economy, and even then was but the resetting of the old law of love which God had enjoined from the first.

3. This command is that we should love our brother. This is the burden of the whole paragraph. This is the sum and substance of that following of Christ to which all "who profess and call themselves Christians" are bound. The light which he brings is meant to guide us to a life of love. "Love one another, as I have loved you.

II THESE SAME TEACHINGS CONCERNING LIGHT AND LOVE SUBJECTIVELY APPLIED. It is no wonder to find the apostle setting and resetting his key-words in so many different forms, and ringing the changes, so to speak, on "those charming bells life, light, love. A deep and true philosophy underlies the whole. Right conception existing in thought is truth. Right conception expressed in word is light. Right conception realized in act is duty. Right conception embodied in a life is love. There are five distinct statements made in this paragraph on the subjective side of our theme, all of them enforcing with terrific power the importance of obeying the command of love.

1. "He who loves his brother abides in the light." Both filanqrwpia and filadelfia would be included here. When both are learned of Christ the pathway is light, and he who walks therein becomes "light in the Lord," receiving and reflecting the radiance of the central Sun.

2. Consequently, he sees where he is going. "There is no occasion ofstumbling in him". (cf Joh_11:9, Joh_11:10)

3. This is an unvarying law, all profession to the contrary notwithstanding(verse 9). Let a man talk as largely and as loudly as he may, if he loves not, he is in the dark. No love, no light. He will not see the light God has shed on the destiny of the race. He will be in miserable darkness as regards his own.

4. Such a walk in the darkness will issue in his losing the power of Seeing."the darkness blinded his eyes". (cf Mat_6:22, Mat_6:23; 2Co_4:3, 2Co_4:4) Fishes in underground rivers become blind. The moral and spiritual eyesight may be trifled with till it is destroyed, if a proper use be not made of the light God has sent to us in Christ.

5. When the power of seeing is gone, every step must be a leap in the Dark."knoweth not whither he goeth." What an awful agnosticism! Can anything be more terrible than for a human soul to be compelled to plunge forward wildly, blindly, without a ray of light in any direction, simply because he would not follow the light God sent him, and tampered with his own power of seeing?

Thus both objectively and subjectively it is true: The light brought in by Christ points to love, and his love leads us on to the light. Following his light, we learn to love; imitating his love, we are moving forward to the light. Here, then, is the outward practical proof of our following Christ a proof which even the world can to some extent appreciate, the proof without which no profession, nor words, nor deeds, nor sacraments, nor ordinances, can avail; it lies in this, and in this only, in love. The only possible proof that we can give that we love Jesus is by loving those for whom he died and in whom he lives, for his sake by loving them as he loved us. This is the old, old line of duty, yet the one which is ever new. This is the true religion to love. This is loyalty to love. And when we have learned to love others as Christ loved us, we shall have within us the proof that his light is pervading our whole nature, and the pledge of our fitness for the inheritance of saints in light!

Vers. 7-11.

The commandment of brotherly love.

I THE COMMANDMENT OLD. "Beloved, no new commandment write I unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning: the old commandment is the Word which ye heard." The commandment indicated in the previous verse, viz. to walk as Christ walked, is in this paragraph identified with the commandment of brotherly love. His heart warming to his readers, he addresses them as "beloved." What he has in his mind to lay upon them by his letter was no new commandment. It was an old commandment, older than his connection with them. From the beginning, i.e., from their first contact with Christianity down to his connection with them, it had been presented to them. It was no subsidiary matter, such as the form of Church government, which could be held back for a time, but was the very essence of the message which had been delivered to them.

II THE COMMANDMENT NEW. "Again, a new commandment write I unto you, which thing is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shineth." Changing his point of view, he calls it a new commandment. Its being new is contemplated as inhering both in Christ and in them. It is new, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shineth. What was this but the new light of Christianity, viz. the light introduced by Christ and spread among Christians? Granted that the duty had been known before, it had been greatly obscured. What an obscuration had there been of it in heathen life!

And the light that had been shining in the laud of the Jews had been partial. It was only when Christ came and showed its perfect realization, that it could be said to be light having all the elements of truth. Realized in Christ, it was also being realized partially in his people. Thus, not in all places, but in many places, was the darkness giving place to the light, giving promise of the ultimate entire displacement of darkness and prevalence of light.

III CONDITION OF FULFILLING THE COMMANDMENT, ABSENT. "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now." It is to be inferred that the condition of our loving our brother is our being in the light, i.e., as the element in which we live. It is not enough to say that we are in the light; saying must be taken along with acting, or the state of the feelings. Let a man"s character be this, that he hates his brother (is even unsympathetic), he may say that he is in the light, but it is a moral impossibility. The light may have been shining widely around him, may have been shining around him for long years, but it has never yet penetrated his being and displaced his natural darkness. He is in that darkness even until now. This is John"s way of putting the Master"s lesson, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord." Let us demand from ourselves reality.

IV CONDITION OF FULFILLING THE COMMANDMENT, PRESENT, WITH BENEFIT. "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." The commandment is now stated positively; the condition is stated with a modification. "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light," i.e., is so related to the light as to have it continually penetrating his being. The advantage of being thus made loving by the light is that he has guidance at every step. He sees what lies in his path, and does not fall over obstacles.

V CONDITION OF FULFILLING THE COMMANDMENT, ABSENT, WITH DETRIMENT. "But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes." To the state formerly mentioned is added the corresponding walk. The walk of the unloving is in the darkness. He does not see what lies in his path, and may be tripped up at any moment. This follows with a double certainty. The surrounding darkness keeps him from seeing what is immediately before him; but that is not all. The darkness in which he has been moving has operated to destroy his spiritual vision, just as fishes in a dark subterranean cave are known to have become eyeless through long disuse of the organ. R.F.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When I speak of keeping his word, I write not a new commandment - I do not speak of any new one. But the old commandment, which ye had - Even from your forefathers.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Abiding in the light:

v. 7. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the Word which ye have heard from the beginning.

v. 8. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you; because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

v. 9. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now.

v. 10. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

v. 11. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

The chief factor in the life of believers is love toward the brethren, and therefore the apostle devotes a special paragraph to its discussion: Beloved, not a new commandment do I write to you, but an old commandment, which you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the Word which you heard. As the apostle of love John addresses his readers in the affectionate manner which gives token of his love. It is not a new, novel, strange, unheard-of commandment that he is writing about, such as would set them all a-wondering as to his motive in speaking to them in this manner. It was an old precept, one which they had heard from the beginning of their Christian life. He was, in other words, expounding to them the Word of God as they had heard it always, from all their teachers; for all the apostles and their assistants preached the same truth.

In spite of the fact, however, that it was the old, old truth which he was proclaiming, he could nevertheless write: Again, a new commandment I am writing to you, what is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is even now shining. The truth does not change, it remains the same always. But the apostle says that, from another angle, from another point of view, his doctrine and the special precept which he has in mind is a new commandment. The form in which he is presenting it, the vehemence with which he is insisting upon it, gives it a tang of novelty, arouses new interest for it. The precept is contained in the revelation of Jesus Christ, has been fulfilled in Him, and is proved in the experience of believers. Christ truly loved His brethren and thereby left us an example of true brotherly love. In Him there was never any darkness in this respect or in any other. But in the case of us Christians also it is true that the former darkness of sin and selfishness is passing away, and the true light from God is shining, is illuminating us. Our hearts have been enlightened by the beauty and the power of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, and in this power we are beginning to renew the image of God in our hearts. And although the shadows are still frequent by reason of our sinful nature, we know that they will be fully and finally driven away when the sun of eternal life will arise upon us.

The apostle here inserts a serious warning: He that says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in darkness until now. He that loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in it; but he that hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. The distinction which the apostle makes is very clear. If a person professes to be a Christian, men have a right to expect a corresponding conduct from him, one which agrees with the will and character of Christ, one which is conspicuous for its show of brotherly love. If brotherly love, therefore, is absent, if there is evidence of hatred, it shows that such a person, in spite of all his protestations, is still in darkness; he is not yet truly converted, faith and hope have no place in his heart. Where a person has and shows real brotherly love, not the cheap imitation which is so often hailed as the genuine thing in our days, such a person is and remains in the light of God’s grace, with faith and love in his heart. Being in the light, he is not in danger of stumbling into pitfalls which the guile of the devil and of evil persons may place for him, such as participation in false charity of our days, especially that practiced by the many anti-Christian societies. The Lord cannot bear pretense, deceit, hypocrisy. If any person has hatred toward his brother in his heart, his entire life, all that he does and undertakes, is in the darkness of unbelief and of a false charity. He may attempt to do what genuine Christians are doing, but because the light of faith has not arisen in his heart, because the eyes of his understanding are not yet enlightened, because he has no judgment in spiritual matters, therefore all his efforts are futile, they lead him nowhere so far as real Christianity is concerned, they have no worth in the sight of God so far as true sanctification is demanded. What a powerful appeal to all Christians to strive for purity of brotherly love on the basis of justifying and sanctifying faith!

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our apostle here exhorts Christians to the great duty of brotherly love, assuring them, that it was no new commandment which he enjoined them, but that which they were taught, not only in and by the Old Testament, but at the first preaching of the gospel amongst them; and in these respects the command of love might be called an old commandment, it being a branch of the law of nature, and a known precept of the Jewish religion; although in other respects it might be called a new commandment, because urged from a new motive, and enforced by a new example.

Learn hence, 1. That the doctrine of Christian love is a divine commandment , that which Christians are not only allowed, but enjoined to practice; and it is called the commandment, in the singular number, to intimate, that in this one commandment all the rest were contained, so that in keeping this we keep all. What are all the commandments indeed but love enlarged? And what is love but the commandments contracted?

Learn, 2. That the commandment of love is an old commandment; it is as old as Moses, yea, as old as Adam; being a part of the law of nature written in Adam’s heart. The evangelical command of love was from the beginning of the law, and nothing new enjoined by Christ, which was not before by Moses.

Learn, 3. That yet this command of love may, in some respect, be called a new commandment; not substantially, but circumstantially: not in the essence of the doctrine, but in the manner of the discovery; not in respect of the truth delivered, but in the way of delivering. New, not in regard of institution, but restitution, because purged from the old corrupt glossed of the Pharisees, who had limited this duty of love, and confined it to their our countrymen; whereas Christ obliges his disciples to love mankind, even our very enemies. In a word, it may be called a new commandment, because it was never to wax old, but to be always fresh in the memory and practice of Christ’s disciples to the end of the world.

Observe next, The arguments to enforce the observation of this new commandment;

1. In those word, which thing is true in him and in you: that is, as there was in Christ a true and sincere love towards you, so look that there be a true and sincere love in you towards him, and one towards another.

2. Because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth; that is, the darkness of ignorance in general, and the darkness of the Mosaic state in particular, is now past, and the true light of the gospel now clearly shineth.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7–11. I write no new commandment. He writes in substance what was commanded from the beginning when he bids them walk as Christ walks. The beginning. Their first hearing of the gospel. The old commandment is the word. The Gospel. Its substance is condensed by Christ into the words: “Follow me.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

John gives believers basic principles of fellowship—obedience and love.

Beloved, I am

"You people whom I love, I am" or "Dear friends, I am"

I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment

"I write to you to love one other, which is not a new thing to do but an old commandment that you had heard." John refers to Jesus' command to love one another.

from the beginning

Here, "beginning" refers to when they decided to follow Christ. AT: "from when you first believed in Christ" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

The old commandment is the word that you heard.

""The old commandment is the message that you heard"

Yet I am writing a new commandment to you

"But in one way the commandment I write to you is a new commandment"

which is true in Christ and in you

"which is true, as shown in Christ's deeds and your deeds"

the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining

Here "darkness" is a metaphor for "evil" and "light" is a metaphor for "good." AT: "because you are ceasing to do evil and you are doing more and more good" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

beloved

command

true

word

darkness

light

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

7–11. LOVE OF THE BRETHREN

7–11. Walking in the light involves not only fellowship with God and with the brethren (1Jn 1:5-7), consciousness and confession of sin (1Jn 1:8-10), obedience by imitation of Christ (1Jn 2:1-6), but also love of the brethren. In nothing did Christ more express the Father’s Nature and Will than by His love: therefore in obeying the Father by imitating Christ we also must love. “This whole Epistle which we have undertaken to expound to you, see whether it commendeth aught else than this one thing, charity. Nor need we fear lest by much speaking thereof it come to be hateful. For what is there to love, if charity come to be hateful?” (S. Augustine). Comp. 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 4:7.

7. For ἀδελφοί ([464][465]) read ἀγαπητοί ([466][467][468][469][470]), and after ἠκούσατε omit ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς with [471][472][473][474][475] and Versions against [476][477].

[464] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[465] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[466] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[467] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.

[468] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

[469] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1Jn 1:1 to 1Jn 4:2; 3Jn 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[470] 9th century. A palimpsest. All three Epistles excepting 1Jn 3:19 to 1Jn 5:1. There is a facsimile of a portion in Hammond’s Outlines of Textual Criticism showing the late leaning uncial letters of the 9th century (Act 4:10-15), with cursives of the 13th (Heb 7:17-25) written over them.

[471] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[472] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.

[473] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

[474] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1Jn 1:1 to 1Jn 4:2; 3Jn 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[475] 9th century. A palimpsest. All three Epistles excepting 1Jn 3:19 to 1Jn 5:1. There is a facsimile of a portion in Hammond’s Outlines of Textual Criticism showing the late leaning uncial letters of the 9th century (Act 4:10-15), with cursives of the 13th (Heb 7:17-25) written over them.

[476] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[477] 9th century. All three Epistles.

7. ἀγαπητοί. This, the true reading, is specially suitable as the opening to this section (7–11), in which the subject of ἀγάπη comes to the front. In the second part of the Epistle, in which ἀγάπη is the main subject, ἀγαπητοί becomes the prevailing form of address (1Jn 3:2; 1Jn 3:21; 1Jn 4:1; 1Jn 4:7; 1Jn 4:11). Augustine always in this Epistle renders ἀγαπητοί dilectissimi, the Vulgate always carissimi; but Contra Pelag. 13 Jerome has dilectissimi in 1Jn 2:3. οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν γραφω. The order of the Greek is worth preserving: not a new commandment do I write. What commandment is here meant? To imitate Christ (1Jn 2:6)? Or, to practise brotherly love (1Jn 2:9-11)? Practically it makes little matter which answer we give, for at bottom these are one and the same. They are different aspects of walking in the light. But a definite command of some kind is meant, not vaguely the whole Gospel: had he meant the latter, S. John would rather have said ‘the word’ or ‘the truth.’ See on 1Jn 2:11. Καινός, as distinct from νέος, is ‘fresh, novel,’ as opposed to ‘worn out’ and ‘familiar.’ It may imply either praise, as being a reformation (κ. διαθήκη, κ. κτίσις, οὐρανὸς κ. καὶ γῆ κ.), or blame, as being an innovation (διδαχὴ κ., κ. θεοί). Νέος is ‘new, young,’ as opposed to ‘old, aged.’ In Mar 2:22 we have both words: ‘new wine into fresh wineskins.’ Trench, Synonyms of N.T., 209; Cremer, 321. In its better sense καινός is a favourite word with S. John.

εἴχετε ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς. As already noticed (1Jn 1:1) the meaning of ‘beginning must always depend upon the context. Several interpretations have been suggested here, and all make good sense. (1) From the beginning of the human race: brotherly love is an original human instinct. Christian Ethics are here as old as humanity. S. Athanasius takes it in this sense. (2) From the beginning of the Law: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Lev 19:18) was commanded by Moses. Christian Ethics are in this only a repetition of Judaism. (3) From the beginning of your life as Christians. This was one of the first things ye were taught. On the whole this seems best, especially as we have the aorist, which ye heard, not the perfect, as A.V., ye have heard (see on 1Jn 2:18): comp. 1Jn 2:24 and especially 1Jn 3:11; 2Jn 1:5-6. The second ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς is not genuine: see critical notes. Note that both ἐντολή and λόγος, being convertible terms, have the article. See on 1Jn 3:4.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7-11.] The commandment of Love. The context see below. Beloved, I write not to you a new commandment, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning: the old commandment is the word which ye heard (on the right understanding of this verse, very much depends. The great question is, To what commandment does ἐντολή refer? Does it point forward to the commandment of brotherly love, in ver. 9, or back to that of walking as Christ walked, in ver. 6? One or other of these views has generally been taken decidedly, and exclusively of the other. The former view has been upheld by Aug., Bede, Œc., Thl., Luther, Calv., Grot., Wolf, Bengel, Knapp, Baumg.-Crus., De Wette, Neander, Sander, Düsterdieck, al.; the latter by Beza, Socinus, Seb.-Schmidt, Piscator, Episcopius, Flacius, Calov., Lücke, Fritzsche, Jackmann, al. Of these, some on both sides may fairly be dismissed, as maintaining preposterous meanings for some of the terms used. Thus Flacius, Seb.-Schmidt, Calov., understand ἐντολή to be, not a commandment, which from usage and from ver. 3 and ch. 3:23, 5:3, it must be, but the whole “doctrina de Christo ejusque beneficiis,” including the forgiveness of sins, vv. 1, 2, 12. Then thus taking it, the epithets “old” and “new” become the O. T. prophecies of Christ, and their N. T. fulfilment. Thus on the other side some, e. g. Aug., Bede, Beza, Luther (2), Seb.-Schmidt, Wolf, al., understand “new” and “old” not of time, but in a tropical meaning, with reference to the old Jewish or heathen darkness and the new light of Christ: a view which cannot possibly be maintained in the face of so plain a token of time as is furnished by ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς and by the aor. εἴχετε and ἠκούσατε. These being so far set aside, the above classes of interpreters are again divided as to their understanding of the epithets “old” and “new.” Those who understand the ἐντολή vv. 7, 8, of the command of love, mostly explain the oldness and newness of the difference between O. and N. T. revelation (so the Greeks, Grot., and Wolf), and some go on to understand the ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς of the original obscure and imperfect command to love one another in the O. T. which failed in the crowning particular of love towards enemies. Of these, the Greeks, holding not Jewish Christians alone, but Gentile also to be addressed, interpret παλαιὰ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς and ἠκούσατε of the testimony of conscience to the law of love among the Gentiles: so Œc. and the Scholl. speak of ἡ κατὰ τὰς φυσικὰς ἐννοίας φιλικὴ διάθεσις. Wolf tries to distinguish the two by referring εἴχετε to the Jews, ἠκούσατε to the Gentiles. On the other hand, those who refer ἐντολή in vv. 7, 8, to ver. 6, mostly understand the “old” and “new” of the different aspects in which the following the example of Christ would be regarded, within the limits of the N. T. period, since the readers had begun their Christian lives: so Socinus, Jackmann, Piscator, Episcopius, Lücke. The lastnamed reference of ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς to the beginning of the Christian life of the readers, and the corresponding explanation of the “oldness” of the commandment, is combined by De Wette and Neander only with their view of ἐντολή as the law of love. Düsterdieck, from whom the above particulars are mainly taken, finds fault with the exclusive reference maintained for the most part by the interpreters on both sides, and believes that a via media may be found more agreeable to the ethical habits of thought of the Apostle, and to the context of the passage. This context requires, 1) that we maintain a logical connexion between ver. 6 and ver. 7, as indicated by ὀφείλει and ἐντολή: 2) that we maintain the like logical connexion between ver. 8 and ver. 9, as indicated by the figure common to them both, of the darkness and the light. Now, of these, 1) is neglected by those who understand the ἐντολή barely as the law of love; 2) is neglected by those who understand it barely of following Christ’s example. The former make ver. 7 spring out of no contextual development: the latter treat similarly ver. 9. And the true view is to be found as thus indicated: the walk of Christ, which is our example, is essentially and completely summed up in one word, Love: and so the command, to walk as he walked, essentially and completely resolves itself into the law of brotherly love: for this last, taken in all its depth, includes not one special detail in a holy Christian life, but the whole of that life itself. Taking then this view, how are we to interpret in detail? What is καινήν? what is παλαιάν? what is ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς? For these clearly all hang together. If ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς is to signify ‘from the beginning of O. T. revelation,’ or ‘from the beginning of God’s testimony in man’s conscience,’ we seem to be doing violence to the simple mode of address which is prevalent in our Apostle’s style. The εἴχετε and ἠκούσατε, especially the latter, will hardly bear interpreting of the remote forefathers of the readers, as on this hypothesis they must, but require to be confined to the readers themselves, especially as they are aorists and not perfects. And if so, the meaning of ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς is fixed to be, from the beginning of the Christian lives, from the time when τὸν λόγον ἤκουσαν. Then as to καινήν, and παλαιάν, the explanation will be simple enough. The command to love one another cannot be said to be new, for it forms a part of the λόγος ὃν ἠκούσατε, nay, is the very sum and centre of that λόγος: but again, it may be said to be new, inasmuch as it ever assumes new freshness as the Christian life unfolds, as the old darkness is more and more cleared away and the true light shineth: in that light we see light; in the light of Him who maketh all things new.

That the ἐντολή as such refers to the law of love, thus indeed connected with Christ’s example here, but still to the law of love and no other, is plain from the whole usage of the Apostle; compare especially 2Jn 1:4-6, where the very same train of thought occurs as here, the περιπατεῖν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ being = περιπατεῖν ἐν φωτί here, being followed up by καθὼς ἐντολὴν ἐλάβομεν παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, and that ἐντολή being characterized, as here,—οὐχ ὡς ἐντολὴν γράφων σοι καινήν, ἀλλὰ ἣν εἴχομεν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, and finally being stated to be ἵνα ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους. Indeed the whole process of that passage from this point is most instructive as to our present one: καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, ἵνα περιπατῶμεν κατὰ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ. αὕτη ἡ ἐντολή ἐστιν, καθὼς ἠκούσατε ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἵνα ἐν αὐτῇ περιπατῆτε: where the same complex of the whole Christian walk is included in the one idea of love, and ἀγάπη identified with walking according to His commandments. Again in ch. 3:11, the same formula is used in speaking of the law of love—αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγγελία ἣνν ἠκούσατε ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, ἵνα ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους: cf. also ch. 4:21, 5:3, 3:22-24: again ch. 3:14, 4:16, Joh 13:35; ch. 5:1, 2, Joh 15:10.

To recapitulate: on the interpretation here adopted, which is also that of Düsterdieck and Huther, the ἐντολή is the command to walk as Christ walked, passing as the passage advances into the law of love. This ἐντολή is no καινή, but παλαιά, seeing that they had it ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning of their faith, and it was in fact the sum of the λόγος which they ἤκουσαν).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7-8. The Commandment, old and new.It is hardly necessary to discuss the interpretations which regard the “old” and the “new” as different commandments, the old commandment being the injunction to “walk as He walked,” and the new, the call to brotherly love. But assuming the identity of the old and the new, the commandment has been interpreted in three different ways. (1) With reference to 1:5 ff., to give proof of “walking in light” by the confession of sin and the avoiding of everything sinful. (2) With reference to the verses immediately preceding, to “walk as He walked.” Of these the second is the most natural, but it is not necessary to find a reference to any actual words of the Epistle which have preceded. The expressions which follow, “of which ye were in possession from the beginning,” “the word which ye heard,” make such a reference improbable. (3) The expression ἐντολὴ καινή recalls so vividly the language of the Gospel, and the connection with the duty of brotherly love insisted upon in vv. 9 and 10 is so clear, that we are almost compelled to interpret the passage in accordance with Joh 13:34, ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς, where the “newness” is to be found in the new standard required, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς, rather than in the duty of mutual love, which was recognized in the Jewish law. In meaning this interpretation is practically identical with (2). “The idea of the imitation of Christ is identical with the fulfilment of love” (Westcott). And it gives the most natural meaning to the description of the commandment as old, and yet new “in Him and in you.” The old commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour,” which was already contained in the Mosaic law, if not also to be found in the conscience of those who “having no law, are a law unto themselves,” received a new meaning and application in the light of Christ’s teaching and example, and in the lives of His followers. And it had lately acquired a deeper meaning in contrast with the loveless intellectualism, which the writer clearly regarded as one of the worst dangers in the teaching and example of his opponents.

ἀγαπητοί] The first occurrence of the writer’s favourite form of address in these Epistles. Cf. 3:2, 21, 4:1, 7; 3Jn 1:2, 3Jn 1:5, 3Jn 1:11. No conclusion can be drawn from its use as to the meaning of the command. The reading of the received text (ἀδελφοί) is found in the vocative only once in these Epistles. Both words are suitable expressions to introduce an appeal to the readers to show their brotherhood in Christ by active brotherly love, whether the writer has primarily in view, as the objects of the love which he inculcates, Christians as Christians, or men as men. The attestation, however, is decisive in favour of ἀγαπητοί. And, on the whole, it is not only more in accordance with his style, but suits his appeal better. The ἀδελφοί may have been suggested by the language of vv. 9, 10.ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς] The meaning of this expression must, of course, be determined from the context in each case. It is used eight times in the First Epistle, and twice in the Second. In 1:1 it recalls the use of ἐν ἀρχῇ in the first chapter of Genesis and in the Prologue of the Gospel. Its use in 3:8 (ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει) is similar. Twice in this present chapter (2:13, 14) it occurs in the phrase, “Ye have known Him who is from the beginning.” The remaining instances in the two Epistles all have reference to the “old” command. The repetition of the words at the end of ver. 7 (ὃν ἠκούσατε [ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς]) in the Received Text is almost certainly wrong. They have probably been introduced from the similar phrase in ver. 24.

Where the phrase is used of the “old” command, it may refer either to the early days of the Mosaic legislation, or to the beginning of the education of each convert to whom the writer is speaking, or to the beginning of his life as a Christian. A reference to the teaching of Judaism on the subject of “love” seems, on the whole, to satisfy the conditions best in each case. But it is probably a mistake to attempt to define the meaning of the phrase very rigidly. Long continuance is suggested rather than a definite starting-point. It is not easy to determine whether the writer is thinking of the beginning of the life of each of his readers, or of their religious consciousness, or of their Christian life. The point can be settled only by the more general consideration of the character of the false teaching combated in these Epistles. The real force of the expression is to heighten the contrast of the “newer” teaching which placed knowledge higher than love. The writer has in view the

“Many Antichrists, who answered prompt

‘Am I not Jaspar as thyself art John?

Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget?’”

He is confident that as against the “glozing of some new shrewd tongue” that which was “from the beginning” will prove to be “of new significance and fresh result.”

ὁ λόγος ὃν ἠκούσατε] “The word which ye heard” must be that which was told them by their teachers, whether Jewish or Christian or both. The command to love one’s neighbour was common to both. ὁ λόγος more naturally suggests a whole message rather than one definite command. But it may refer to the new commandment of Joh 13:34, regarded as a rule of life rather than a single precept.

αγαπητοι א A B C Psa_20 cat. vg. sah. cop. syrutr arm. Did. Thphyl. Aug. Bed.] αδελφοι Κ L al. plur. aethutr Oec.: om. jscr: αδελφοι μου Ic δ299 (-).

ειχετε] εχετε 27. 29. 34. 42. 57lect 58lect ascr kscr: habemus sah: habebamu, arm-ed.

η1o] pr. καιIa 7.

η κουσατε א A B C P 5. 13. 27. 29. 39. 40. 65. 68. 81. 180 dscr jscr vg. sah. cop. syrutr arm. aeth. Aug. Thphyl.] + απ αρχης K L al. longe plur. cat. Oec.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Brethren [αδελφοι] . The correct reading is ajgaphoi beloved. The first occurrence of this title, which is suggested by the previous words concerning the relation of love.

No new commandment [ουκ εντολην καινην] . The Rev., properly, places these words first in the sentence as emphatic, the point of the verse lying in the antithesis between the new and the old. On new, see on Mt 26:29.

Old [παλαιαν] . Four words are used in the New Testament for old or elder. Of these gerwn and presbuterov refer merely to the age of men, or, the latter, to official position based primarily upon age. Hence the official term elder. Between the two others, ajrcaiov and palaiov, the distinction is not sharply maintained. Arcaiov emphasizes the reaching back to a beginning [αρχη] . Thus Satan is "that old [αρχαιος] serpent," whose evil work was coeval with the beginning of time (Rev 7:9; Rev 20:2). The world before the flood is "the old [αρχαιος] world" (2Pe 2:5). Mnason was "an old [αρχαιος] disciple;" not aged, but having been a disciple from the beginning (Act 21:16). Sophocles, in "Trachiniae," 555, gives both words. "I had an old [παλαιον] gift," i e., received long ago, "from the old [αρχαιου] Centaur." The Centaur is conceived as an old - world creature, belonging to a state of things which has passed away. It carries, therefore, the idea of old fashioned : peculiar to an obsolete state of things.

Palaiov carries the sense of worn out by time, injury, sorrow, or other causes. Thus the old garment (Mt 9:16) is palaion. So the old wine - skins (Mt 9:17). The old men of a living generation compared with the young of the same generation are palaioi. In palaiov the simple conception of time dominates. In ajrcaiov there is often a suggestion of a character answering to the remote age.

The commandment is here called old because it belonged to the first stage of the Christian church. Believers had had it from the beginning of their Christian faith.

Commandment. The commandment of love. Compare Joh 13:34. This commandment is fulfilled in walking as Christ walked. Compare Eph 5:1, 2.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.