1 John 2:7 - Meaning and Application

The seventh verse may be taken in one of two ways. It may look back to what came just before, so that walking as Christ walked is described as no new command, but an old one, which the apostles would surely teach wherever they preached Christ’s gospel. Or it may look ahead to what the apostle is about to press, namely the law of brotherly love, the message heard from the beginning (1 John 3:11), and the old commandment (1 John 2:5).

As John urges this duty, he speaks with great affection. He calls them “brethren,” meaning those dear to him in the bond of the very love he wants them to practice. In this way, the command to love one another is recommended as both old and new.

It is an old command. “I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment, which you had from the beginning” (1 John 2:7). The duty to love one another is as old as human nature itself, though it has received different forms, supports, and reasons over time. In innocence, if the human race had then been spread from one family, people would have loved one another as sharing one blood, made to live on the earth, and bearing God’s image.

After sin entered, and with the promise of recovery, people still had reason to love one another as fellow creatures of the same Maker, as members of the same human family, and as sharers in the same hope. When the Hebrews were set apart as a special people, they were to love one another as those who had the covenants, the adoption, and from whose line the Messiah, the Head of the church, would come. So the law of love was carried into the new Israel of God, the gospel church, and it remained the old commandment, the word heard from the beginning by God’s gospel people (1 John 2:7).

It is also a new command. John says this to press the duty more strongly on them: “A new commandment I write to you,” the law of the new society, the Christian community. This is true in Christ first, in the head of the church, where the truth of it appeared fully and first. He loved the church and gave himself for it. It is also true in believers, because this law has in some measure been written on their hearts. They are taught by God to love one another, because the darkness has passed and the true light now shines (1 John 2:8).

By “darkness,” John means the blindness of prejudiced and unconverted minds, whether Jewish or Gentile, and their sad ignorance of God and Christ. By “light,” he means the bright, life-giving light of the gospel shining into the heart. Once that light comes, believers see the beauty of Christian love and the strong duty they have to practice it.

So the most basic truths and commands of the Christian faith may be called both new and old. The reformed doctrine, or the doctrine of religion in reformed churches, is new in one sense, because it came after a long time of darkness and was brought out by the light of the Reformation. It is also old, because it was taught and heard from the beginning. We should make sure that the grace or virtue that was true in Christ is also true in us. We should be shaped to match our Head. The more darkness has passed from us, and the more gospel light shines on us, the more fully we should obey the commands of our Lord, whether we think of them as old or new. Light should bring warmth with it.

This gives another test of Christian light. Before, the test was obedience to God. Here it is Christian love. If someone lacks this love, he only pretends to have light. “He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now” (1 John 2:9). True Christians should honestly admit what God has done for their souls. But in the visible church there are often people who claim more than is true. They say they are in the light, that God’s truth has reached their minds, and yet they live in hatred toward their Christian brothers. Such people are not moved by Christ’s love for his people, and so they still remain in darkness, even if they claim to have become Christians.

By contrast, the person ruled by brotherly love shows that his light is real and good. “He who loves his brother abides in the light” (1 John 2:10). He understands the reason for Christian love. He sees the worth of Christ’s redemption and how right it is that we should love those whom Christ has loved. The result is that there is no cause of stumbling in him (1 John 2:10). He will not be a scandal or stumbling block to his brother. He will carefully avoid leading his brother into sin or turning him away from the path of faith. Christian love teaches us to value our brother’s soul highly and to fear anything that would harm his purity or peace.

Hatred is a sign of spiritual darkness. “But he who hates his brother is in darkness” (1 John 2:11). Spiritual light comes from the Spirit of grace, and one of that Spirit’s first fruits is love. So anyone filled with ill will toward a Christian brother must be without spiritual light. He walks in darkness (1 John 2:11). His life matches a dark mind and conscience, and he does not know where he is going. He cannot see where this dark spirit is leading him, especially that it will lead him to the world of utter darkness, because darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:11). Where this darkness rules, the mind, judgment, and conscience are darkened too, and a person mistakes the way to everlasting life.

We can also see how fully the apostle has been changed from what he once was. There was a time when he wanted to call fire from heaven on poor, ignorant Samaritans who would not receive them (Luke 9:54). But his Lord taught him that he did not yet understand his own spirit, or where it was leading him. Now that he has taken in more of the Spirit of Christ, he speaks goodwill toward people and love toward all the brethren. The Lord Jesus is the great teacher of love. His school, his own church, is the school of love. His disciples are disciples of love, and his family must be a family of love.