02/15/21 WHAT’S NEW? #20 — 1 John 2:7-8 (HCSB) Dear friends, I am not writing you a NEW COMMAND but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a NEW COMMAND, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

2 John 1:5 So now I urge you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a NEW COMMAND, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.

2:7-17 Love of the brethren constitutes the fourth test of genuine fellowship. The primary focus of the moral test is obedience to the command of love because love is the fulfillment of the law (Mt 22:34-40; Ro 13:8-10; Jas 2:8) and is also Christ's new command (Jn 13:34; 15:12, 17). True enlightenment is to love. God's light is the light of love, so to walk in light is to walk in love.

2:7 “NEW”: Not referring to "new" in the sense of time but something that is fresh in quality, kind or form; something that replaces something else that has been worn out.

“NEW COMMAND... old command”: John makes a significant word play here. Though he doesn't state here what the command is, he does in 2Jn 5, 6. It is to love. Both of these phrases refer to the same commandment of love. The commandment of love was "new" because Jesus personified love in a fresh, new way and it was shed abroad in believers' hearts (Ro 5:5) and energized by the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22; 1Th 4:9). He raised love to a higher standard for the church and commanded His disciples to imitate His love ("as I have loved you"; cf. 3:16; Jn 13:34). The command was also "old" because the OT commanded love (Lv 19:18; Dt 6:5) and the readers of John's epistle had heard about Jesus' command to love when they first heard the gospel.

“from the beginning”: This phrase refers not to the beginning of time but the beginning of their Christian lives, as indicated by v. 24; 3:11; 2Jn 6. This was part of the ethical instruction they received from the day of their salvation and not some innovation invented by John, as the heretics may have said. (adapted from The MacArthur Study Bible)