Studies In The First Epistle Of John - 1 John 2.7-8

The 'beloved disciple' seems to have entered much more fully than any other of the Twelve into the depths of Jesus' teaching. Here and there in this epistle there are allusions and remarks which seem clearly to have their basis in some vital thing which Jesus said at some time during His ministry. Such a word comes before us now in this 7th verse. "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning." Now this 'old commandment' can hardly be anything else than the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament and all that they had to say about Christ. In the next verse John goes on to talk about a 'new' commandment which he writes to the brethren. It must of necessity be that the new commandment is something that he received from his Lord, for John would not assume the prerogative of laying down even newer commandments after his Lord had ascended on high. The "old" commandment therefore must be that which Jesus had in mind when he said "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfil" (Matt. 5.17). One of the greatest truths of the New Testament is what John is endeavouring to impress upon his readers. It is that Christianity did not spring, as it were, fully fledged into the world without any previous preparation, but came as the logical sequence to a long process of development that had its commencement in the Law given to Moses at Sinai. Jesus never repudiated that past basis upon which His message was founded. To Him, the words and works of the fathers, the Law of Sinai, and all that these had meant to Israel was something that had come from God and because it had come from God must be held in due honour. True, He never failed to denounce the formalistic additions that men had built around and upon the Law and He condemned the hypocrisy and blindness of those who had done those things. But for the Law itself He always maintained that reverence and respect which was due to words that had at the first been written by the finger of God and given to Moses on the top of the Mount.

So John hastens to disclaim, in his turn, any intention of belittling or denying the principles which had made Israel what it was and had brought his readers to the position in which they could understand and accept Christ. "The Law" said Paul in another place (Gal.3.24) "was our schoolmaster" (paidagogos or pedagogue, child-leader) "to bring us unto Christ". That allusion is to the family tutor, often a slave, whose duty it was in Greek families to instruct and guide the children of the family whilst they were young and immature. "But after that faith is come" Paul continued "we are no longer under a schoolmaster, for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

The Law trained the believer so that he could recognize Christ when He came. It is true that only a few, 'a remnant', as Paul elsewhere calls them, profited sufficiently by the training of the Law to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah: but in the training and development of those few the Law had done its destined work and was vindicated. For the successful accomplishment of that work, the Law stood in eternal honour, and John realized, as Jesus would have him realize, that the "old commandment" was the indispensable preliminary to the new grace in which all the believers stood and in fact was incorporated in that new faith.

Yet the very fact that the Law and Prophets were intended to develop, and in a sense, "bring forth" the newer and greater revelation of God in Jesus Christ, implies that the demands and the obligations of the Law and the restrictions of the Law must become of no effect. They must break down and fall away, as soon as Jesus ushered in the new dispensation. In all development, that which is developed is a greater and a grander thing than that from which it is developed, and as the new comes to birth so must the old give place and disappear. That is what John the Baptist meant when he said "He must increase, but I must decrease." The Baptist knew himself to be the last of the old order, the last of the prophets, the last to call Israel to full compliance with the Law. Christ stood before him, Christ who would make an end of the Law to everyone that believes, who would cause it to be swallowed up in the brighter effulgence of His own new message, and lift those who came to God to a plane of understanding and union with Him higher by far than anything that had ever been experienced by Moses or Samuel or Elijah or the son of Zacharias.

That is exactly what John, the beloved disciple, has in mind now. Knowing that he has given due recognition to the old law out of which the new has been developed he goes on to explain that, for Christians, the new commandment is necessary. Not for them the mere unreasoning adherence to ritual and ceremony, to sacrifice and keeping feast-days and 'washing of pots and cups'. "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 shines. (v.8).

Jesus often spoke of the 'new commandment'. Sometimes it was a direct injunction, such as "a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another"(John 13. 34). Sometimes it was not so direct but none the less a clear injunction to do something that was inherent in the spirit of the old Law but not covered by its letter. "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time . . .but I say unto you . . . ." So many things there were in the whole scope of human relations that Jesus lifted to a higher standard; so much higher, that He virtually changed the law for His disciples without abrogating anything of the old injunctions. So it comes about that every disciple who keeps the law of love, enjoined by Jesus upon His followers, automatically attains to a higher degree of keeping the law of Moses than was ever achieved by any Israelite in all the fourteen centuries that the Law was incumbent upon them.

This new commandment, says John, is "true in him and in you". There is a wonderful indication of communion of common-union between our Lord and ourselves in that expression. The earnest, pious Israelite, who brought his animal for sacrifice to the Tabernacle or Temple, as prescribed by the Levitical ritual, was taught to feel a sense of oneness with his God as the smoke of sacrifice ascended into the sky. For all that God was still very far off and in any case the priest must stand as an intermediary. The offerer, no matter how earnest or how pious, may not offer on his own account and stand directly in the presence of God. With us it is different. We have "boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Heb.10.19) and we can by reason of our consecration of heart and life to God, and our acceptance by Him, enter into the privilege of full and direct communion. Nothing less is implied by the fact that "now are we the sons of God". Nothing less than this is the honour bestowed upon those who have heard and responded to the call "My son, give me thine heart".

"Because the darkness is past and the true light now shines." According to the Greek, John's words mean "the darkness is passing away". Not withstanding all that He has implied in his previous words as to the value and necessity of the Law and the Prophets, and his insistence that they are not to be rejected or repudiated now that the fuller light of Christianity has come to make the way more clear. Yet it is true that compared with the glorious radiance of the Christian evangel, the Mosaic dispensation was as darkness.

That was the darkness that was passing away because "the true light now shines". Perhaps John was thinking of the burning words of his namesake, that other John who stood and beheld the Lamb of God who had come to take away the sins of the world, and in beholding Him had exclaimed, rapturously, "that was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world" (John 1.9).

Out of the darkness of the Jewish era with its Law of Moses came the light of the Gospel with the higher law of love and its clearer view of the Divine purpose. It is not surprising to find light coming out of darkness. 'In the beginning' it was the same. The earth was enshrouded in darkness, and "God said, Let there be light; and there was light". So Zechariah, looking forward to the grand consummation of God's Plan, when evil and sin and death have been done away forever, says "At evening time it shall be light" (Zech. 14.7)

The whole story of man's upward struggle toward the destiny that God planned for him at the beginning is one of the passing away of darkness and the final triumph of the light. So John looked to the great work of the present time, the Calling of God in Christ Jesus whereby the "seed of Abraham" is selected and made ready for the future Millennial work of service. Realising how infinitely superior that work is to the old work with Israel after the flesh, he says "the darkness is passing away, and the true light now shines".