1 John 2:7-8 reminds John’s readers that the command to love one another is not a recent innovation but something they have known from the beginning of their faith. Yet it is also new in the sense that it has been fully revealed and embodied in Jesus Christ and is now being expressed in and through those who walk in Him. This command reflects the reality that the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
1 John 2:7-8 explains that the command to love one another is both an old command John’s audience has heard from the beginning and a new command made fresh and visible in Christ and in believers, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
John, the apostle, wrote this letter to believers (1 John 2:12) so that they could experience the fullness of eternal life now in this life (1 John 1:3-4, 2:1). His letter is an exhortation on what Jesus taught from “the beginning” (1 John 1:1-5).
In essence, it is John’s commentary of some of Jesus’s teachings, as recorded in John 13-17, on His final night with His disciples before He was betrayed and crucified. As John is doing in this letter, so was Jesus then, teaching His disciples how to experience the fullness of eternal life.
Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God (John 17:3)
Jesus commanded His disciples to love one another as He had loved them. (John 13:34-35, 15:12, 15:17)
Jesus explained that if they loved Him, they would keep His commandments (John 14:15, 14:21a,14:23a, 14:24a)
Jesus promised that by keeping His commandments they would know God and God would abide with them and their joy would be made complete. (John 14:21, 14:23, 15:10-11).
John introduced two major themes of this letter in 1 John 2:3:
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” (1 John 2:3)
These two themes are:
Knowing God
The Greek term translated as “know” which John used was “Ginōskō” (G1097) which describes an experiential knowledge, an intimacy, a personal and/or familiar relationship.
Keeping His commandment to love one another.
The Greek terms translated as “love” are the verb “Agapaō” (G25) and the noun “Agapé” (G26). Agapé-love describes a love of choice based on a commitment or affection toward someone or something.
Both themes were derived from Jesus’s original teaching in John 13-17. And their Greek terms are used frequently in John 13-17 and throughout the letter of 1 John.
1 John 2:4-6 explained the first of those themes—knowing God. In 1 John 2:4-6, John taught that the way believers are able to know God and fully experience eternal life is by keeping His commandments. John explained that any believer (who has the Gift of Eternal Life) who claims to know God intimately (and be experiencing the Prize of Eternal Life) but who does not keep His commandments is a liar and a hypocrite. This is because the means to know and be in intimate fellowship with God is through keeping His commands.
1 John 2:4-6 also introduced a third Greek term that is frequently used throughout Jesus’s original teachings in John 13-17 and also throughout John’s teachings on eternal life in 1 John. It is the word “menō” which is translated as “abide.” “Menō” means to “dwell,” “stay,” or “live within.” It means to make something your home.
Jesus and John both use “menō,” along with “ginōskō” to describe the experience of eternal life which believers can presently enjoy. The word “menō” appears forty times in John’s gospel, and eleven of those occurrences appear in John 15.
1 John 2:7-11 explains the centrality of the second theme which is loving one another. John presents the truth that the way we treat our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ will also affect our fellowship with God.
Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard (v 7).
John addresses his readers as Beloved.
The Greek word that is translated as beloved is “agapétoi.” It is a plural form of ἀγαπητός (G27 — pronounced: “agapétos”). This term is related to the Greek noun “agape” and the Greek verb “agapaō.” “Agapétoi” means “those who are loved” and when it is used as an address as it is here in verse 7, it means: “you who are loved.”
“Agapétoi” connotes more than “dear friends.” Friendship could have been relayed with the Greek terms “philatos” or “philétos.” Rather, “agapétoi” refers to the spiritual community they share in Christ. By using “agapétoi,” John also thematically associates his readers with God’s “agape” love and the way they are to agapaō-love one another.
John tells his beloved readers that he is not writing a new commandment to them. He tells them he is not innovating new teachings about Christianity like the false teachers of his day were teaching new things.
These false prophets were denying that Jesus was God in human form and/or that Jesus was from God (1 John 4:1-3). These false teachers were minimizing Jesus, so that they could exalt themselves and their new teachings. John denounces the new teachings and innovations that false teachers were spreading to hijack Christ’s teachings to serve themselves instead of following Jesus and loving one another as He commanded.
Instead of writingnew and innovative teachings, John was writingto them an old commandment. This is in keeping with John’s introduction to this epistle, which began: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard…” (1 John 1:1).
In the expression: I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning, John is contrasting the new with the old.
In this expression, new represents the corrupt innovations of the false teachers. And old represents the original and true teachings of Jesus.
The old commandment was one that John’s readers had heard from the beginning.
In this context, beginning could refer to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry (when John first heard this teaching—1 John 1:1), or it could refer to the beginning when John’s readers first heard of Jesus and His teachings.
The commandment mentioned here specifically refers to Jesus’s instruction to His disciples to love one another. Jesus gave this instruction both in the Upper Room and on the way to Gethsemane:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 — see also John 15:12, 15:17)
John more clearly states the correlation of this commandment to Jesus’s teaching in Chapter 3 of this epistle:
“This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” (1 John 3:23)
John’s readers had heard this old commandment and were familiar with it. Jesus’s commandment to love one another as He loved them was so central to Christian teaching that John introduces it by telling his readers that it is an old commandment—which they had had from the beginning and he describes it as the word which you have heard.
The word which you have heard seems to have the implied meaning: “the word which you have heardmany times.”
John says that the old commandment is the word which you have heard to make sure that his beloved readers know that it was not just something they had heard from the beginning, but also that it was first spoken by Jesus and therefore carried absolute weight because it was directly from God and not a human innovation. The old commandment came directly from Jesus and was His own word.
The Greek term that is translated as word in the expression the old commandment is the word which you have heard is a form the Greek noun λόγος (G3056 —pronounced: “logos”). Logos can refer to Jesus as “the Divine Word” and the expressed thought of God as it does in John 1:1. In this context, word refers to Jesus’s speech and/or teaching. The Apostle John and others heard Jesus’s teaching and word and had repeated Jesus’s word for others to hear.
Again, in verse 7, John is contrasting the old, original word of Jesus (which is authentic, genuine, true, and good) with the new corrupt, fake, false, and wicked teachings of the false prophets.
John then reverses the way he is using the concepts of new and old in the next verse:
On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining (v. 8).
John informs his readers that he is switching how he is using the adjectives of old and new with the expression: on the other hand.
This expression, on the other hand, is a translation of the Greek adverb πάλιν (G3825 — pronounced: “pal-in”). “Palin” refers to a repetition and/or a contrast.
As a simple repetition, “palin” means “again” or “anew.”
As an idea that builds off something that was previously stated, “palin” means “further” or “moreover.”
As a contrast, “palin” means “in turn” or “on the other hand.”
Context determines how this word is being used.
The context of 1 John 2:7-8 clearly indicates that “palin” is being used to contrast John’s changed use of old and new. This is why John says in verse 7 that he is not writing a new commandment and then turns around in verse 8 and says that he is writing a new commandment. New means something different in verse 7 than it does in verse 8. Old and new are not used in the same sense in these two verses.
To be clear, the commandment is the same in both verses. It is Jesus’s commandment to love one another as He loved them (John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17). But Jesus’s commandment is old in one sense, and is new in another.
Jesus’s commandment is old because Jesus spoke it from the beginning. His commandment is not new in existence. His commandment is newto you because these believers are on a journey from darkness to light. His commandment isnew in the expression of their personal walk.
This commandment is not new in the sense of time, but it is new in the sense of freshness. Jesus’s words always lead to new and greater life. His commands never become old, turn stale, or expire. Jesus’s commandment to “love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34) is always relevant and remains new and evergreen.
John explains how the truth of this commandment applies to Jesus and to John’s beloved readers with the phrase: which is true in Him and in you.
Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in Him for at least three reasons:
1. Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in Him because Jesus is God and God is love.
John declares, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This means love is God’s very nature. Because Jesus is one with the Father (John 10:30), the command to love originates from His own divine character and is therefore inherently true in Him.
2. It is true in Him because Jesus is the One who issued the commandment to love one another.
Jesus repeatedly issued this commandment to His disciples on the night before His crucifixion (John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17). Each time He grounded it in His personal authority as God and the Messiah:
“I give to you” - John 13:34
“My commandment” - John 15:12
“This I command you” - John 15:17
Since Jesus is the Messianic and Divine Lawgiver of this commandment, it is true in Him.
3. It is true in Him because Jesus offered Himself as the example of what it means to love one another.
Twice when issuing this commandment, Jesus said the way we are to love one another was, “even as/just as I have loved you” (John 13:34, 15:12). Loving one another was and is true in Jesus because He embodied its truth in the way He lived.
John writes that Jesus’s commandment to love one another is both true in Him and it is true in you also.
In this verse (and throughout this letter), the pronoun you refers to John’s beloved readers who are believers in Jesus and who have the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:12, 20).
There are at least three reasons why Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in you. The phrase in you refers to John’s readers who are fellow believers striving to follow Jesus.
1. Jesus’s commandment is true in you because God first loved us.
“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God first loved us when He sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sin (John 3:16,1 John 4:10). John explains how His love is true in you when he wrote:
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:9)
2. Jesus’s commandment is true in you because you have been born of God.
The new birth imparts a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17). Loving one another is not merely an external commandment imposed from outside, but is rather a reality flowing from within a transformed heart.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
3. Similarly, Jesus’s commandment is true in you because the Holy Spirit has been given to you.
Every believer is given the Holy Spirit who lives within them (Romans 8:91 Corinthians 6:19,Ephesians 1:13,1 John 2:20). The Spirit produces love within believers (Galatians 5:22), enabling them to love as Christ loved. It is true in us, because God’s Spirit dwells in and is at work in us,
“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” (1 John 4:13)
The above reasons, particularly reasons 2 and 3, describe the reality in which His commandment is already true in you as a believer who is in Jesus and He in you. But there is also a sense in which it ought to be true that His commandment is in you.
As followers of Jesus, it is possible to not follow His commandments and to break our fellowship and lose our joy and to walk in darkness. John is writing this letter so that his beloved children do not sin and choose to walk in darkness (1 John 2:1). John depicts this tragic possibility throughout this letter, including in the very next verse, 1 John 2:9.
The apostle is writing this letter to give his fellow believers a vision of how they ought to live. The way believers ought to walk is by keeping His commandment to love one another and letting it be true in them so they may experience the fullness of life and joy. The result of following His commandment will be to become more like Jesus as we “walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:6).
John concludes verse 8 by offering an explanation about why Jesus’s old commandment to love one another is both old while still being truly and perpetually new. John says it is new because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
Jesus’s commandment to love one another is newin you when believers begin to practice it in new areas of our lives. We believers begin our walk in Him while we still have habits and patterns of darkness, from our sin nature still in us. Then as we believers learn to walk as He walked, the darkness passes away. John knows the true Light is already shining in these children of faith, his readers. Each time a new area of darkness is overcome with Light, there is a newness, a freshness to His commandment to love.
We will discuss both aspects of the passing darkness and the true Light that is already shining, but first we will explain what John meant by the fading darkness.
From God’s eternal perspective, the ways of the devil and the world influenced by the devil are old and dying. The ways of the devil are described as the darkness.
The darkness will not last. It isalready passing away.
The Bible repeatedly reminds us that this world will not last forever. It will be destroyed.
The Psalmist writes:
“Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.” (Psalm 102:25-26)
The prophet Isaiah says:
“And all the host of heaven will wear away, And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll; All their hosts will also wither away…” (Isaiah 34:4)
Revelation describes the scene of this world’s final ending. When Jesus returns and sits on the great white throne, the earth and heaven will flee away from His presence, and no place will be found for them (Revelation 20:11).
The darkness is associated with sin and deceit (John 3:19-20, 1 John 1:5-10). The darkness is characterized by exploitation and manipulation of others to extract what you want from them. It seeks to gain power so it can lord over others, and to attain followers to serve (by coercion) its own desires. John describes the darkness’s exploitation and manipulation as “hate” (1 John 2:9, 11).
Jesus taught His disciples to do the opposite. Instead of lording it over others, as the Satanically influenced world does in darkness, Jesus taught His disciples to serve even the least important people in the world’s eyes (Matthew 10:42, 25:40). Jesus taught them that true and lasting greatness was being the best servant to others’ needs (Matthew 20:25-27). Jesus, who was God in human form and the promised Messiah, was the rightful king of Israel. But He did not come to lord it over people in darkness, He came to shine the Light and serve them (Matthew 20:28).
Serving others is active love. Serving others is putting into practice Jesus’s example and commandment to love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12). Jesus exhibited “agape” love because He chose to serve others, even those who rejected Him.
Jesus is the true Light. He is the life and Light of men (John 1:4). Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5). When the Word became flesh and the Son of God came to earth, He not only took away the sins of the world (John 1:29,1 John 2:2), He also showed us how to truly live life to the fullest (John 10:10). His brilliant presence illuminated the way for us to live in harmony with God and others in truth and goodness. Jesus said:
“I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12b)
The brilliance of Jesus’s example is still shining in the darkness and will never be extinguished by the darkness (John 1:5). The darkness retreats from His presence.
Even as the darkness ispassing away, John also writes how the true Light is already shining.
The two phenomena are related. The present shining of the Light is the cause of the darkness’s passing away.
It first began to shine on earth when Jesus came to establish a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28), and a church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:18).
Jesus broke the power of darkness and the true Light is shining. He did this through His total victory over sin through the cross. Then He gained victory over death with His resurrection
The true Light of His love is already shining in those who follow His commandment to love one another. This Light shines in believers, those whom Jesus has redeemed, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His disciples that they too “are the light of the world” and are to be as “a city set on hill” (Matthew 5:14). As followers of Jesus, we are not to hide our light (Matthew 5:14) but rather we are to:
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
This means that as Jesus’s followers, we have a role in shining the true Light into the darkness of the world so that others may taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8).
Every time believers follow Jesus’s example and obey His commandment to serve one another in love, we reflect His Light into the darkness and participate in the truth of the reality that the true Light is already shining and the darkness is passing away.
In ourselves, we have no light. It is only by walking in the Light that we have anything lasting and good to offer the world. Apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). To paraphrase 1 John 4:19, “we shine the truth in love, because He first shined the truth in love for us.”
Because of Jesus, the true Light—the same Light that will govern the new heaven and the new earth forever and ever—is already shining in this world, and the things of this old world and all its darkness are already fading and passing away.
In making the point that the old commandment is new to us when we learn to walk in His Light, John is by implication saying that we ought to keep His commandment to love one another and seek fellowship with the true Light rather than the fading darkness. When light overcomes darkness in our lives, we implement the old as something new; it is ancient wisdom with a new application in our own lives.
Peter gives a similar message for believers as he describes the mortality of this world.
Peter describes how “the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). Then he calls upon his readers in light of the world’s end to consider “what sort of people ought you to be” (2 Peter 3:11).
Peter then exhorts them to live with anticipation of the earth that is to come: “according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
We should live in light of the eternal reality of the true Light in righteousness, life, and love and not according to sin, death, and hatred of the fading darkness of this world that will soon be extinguished. In this manner we apply the ancient, unchanging command to our lives, to walk in newness of life.
In the next section of scripture (1 John 2:9-11), the apostle resumes and concludes his series of “the one who…” statements that he began in 1 John 2:4-6, and he explains why loving one another is necessary for walking in the Light.
1 John 2:7-8
7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
8 On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
Set to dark mode
1 John 2:7-8 meaning
1 John 2:7-8 explains that the command to love one another is both an old command John’s audience has heard from the beginning and a new command made fresh and visible in Christ and in believers, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
John, the apostle, wrote this letter to believers (1 John 2:12) so that they could experience the fullness of eternal life now in this life (1 John 1:3-4, 2:1). His letter is an exhortation on what Jesus taught from “the beginning” (1 John 1:1-5).
In essence, it is John’s commentary of some of Jesus’s teachings, as recorded in John 13-17, on His final night with His disciples before He was betrayed and crucified. As John is doing in this letter, so was Jesus then, teaching His disciples how to experience the fullness of eternal life.
(John 17:3)
(John 13:34-35, 15:12, 15:17)
(John 14:15, 14:21a,14:23a, 14:24a)
(John 14:21, 14:23, 15:10-11).
John introduced two major themes of this letter in 1 John 2:3:
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
(1 John 2:3)
These two themes are:
The Greek term translated as “know” which John used was “Ginōskō” (G1097) which describes an experiential knowledge, an intimacy, a personal and/or familiar relationship.
The Greek terms translated as “love” are the verb “Agapaō” (G25) and the noun “Agapé” (G26). Agapé-love describes a love of choice based on a commitment or affection toward someone or something.
Both themes were derived from Jesus’s original teaching in John 13-17. And their Greek terms are used frequently in John 13-17 and throughout the letter of 1 John.
1 John 2:4-6 explained the first of those themes—knowing God. In 1 John 2:4-6, John taught that the way believers are able to know God and fully experience eternal life is by keeping His commandments. John explained that any believer (who has the Gift of Eternal Life) who claims to know God intimately (and be experiencing the Prize of Eternal Life) but who does not keep His commandments is a liar and a hypocrite. This is because the means to know and be in intimate fellowship with God is through keeping His commands.
1 John 2:4-6 also introduced a third Greek term that is frequently used throughout Jesus’s original teachings in John 13-17 and also throughout John’s teachings on eternal life in 1 John. It is the word “menō” which is translated as “abide.” “Menō” means to “dwell,” “stay,” or “live within.” It means to make something your home.
Jesus and John both use “menō,” along with “ginōskō” to describe the experience of eternal life which believers can presently enjoy. The word “menō” appears forty times in John’s gospel, and eleven of those occurrences appear in John 15.
1 John 2:7-11 explains the centrality of the second theme which is loving one another. John presents the truth that the way we treat our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ will also affect our fellowship with God.
Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard (v 7).
John addresses his readers as Beloved.
The Greek word that is translated as beloved is “agapétoi.” It is a plural form of ἀγαπητός (G27 — pronounced: “agapétos”). This term is related to the Greek noun “agape” and the Greek verb “agapaō.” “Agapétoi” means “those who are loved” and when it is used as an address as it is here in verse 7, it means: “you who are loved.”
“Agapétoi” connotes more than “dear friends.” Friendship could have been relayed with the Greek terms “philatos” or “philétos.” Rather, “agapétoi” refers to the spiritual community they share in Christ. By using “agapétoi,” John also thematically associates his readers with God’s “agape” love and the way they are to agapaō-love one another.
John tells his beloved readers that he is not writing a new commandment to them. He tells them he is not innovating new teachings about Christianity like the false teachers of his day were teaching new things.
These false prophets were denying that Jesus was God in human form and/or that Jesus was from God (1 John 4:1-3). These false teachers were minimizing Jesus, so that they could exalt themselves and their new teachings. John denounces the new teachings and innovations that false teachers were spreading to hijack Christ’s teachings to serve themselves instead of following Jesus and loving one another as He commanded.
Instead of writing new and innovative teachings, John was writing to them an old commandment. This is in keeping with John’s introduction to this epistle, which began: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard…” (1 John 1:1).
In the expression: I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning, John is contrasting the new with the old.
In this expression, new represents the corrupt innovations of the false teachers. And old represents the original and true teachings of Jesus.
The old commandment was one that John’s readers had heard from the beginning.
In this context, beginning could refer to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry (when John first heard this teaching—1 John 1:1), or it could refer to the beginning when John’s readers first heard of Jesus and His teachings.
The commandment mentioned here specifically refers to Jesus’s instruction to His disciples to love one another. Jesus gave this instruction both in the Upper Room and on the way to Gethsemane:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
(John 13:34-35 — see also John 15:12, 15:17)
John more clearly states the correlation of this commandment to Jesus’s teaching in Chapter 3 of this epistle:
“This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.”
(1 John 3:23)
John’s readers had heard this old commandment and were familiar with it. Jesus’s commandment to love one another as He loved them was so central to Christian teaching that John introduces it by telling his readers that it is an old commandment—which they had had from the beginning and he describes it as the word which you have heard.
The word which you have heard seems to have the implied meaning: “the word which you have heard many times.”
John says that the old commandment is the word which you have heard to make sure that his beloved readers know that it was not just something they had heard from the beginning, but also that it was first spoken by Jesus and therefore carried absolute weight because it was directly from God and not a human innovation. The old commandment came directly from Jesus and was His own word.
The Greek term that is translated as word in the expression the old commandment is the word which you have heard is a form the Greek noun λόγος (G3056 —pronounced: “logos”). Logos can refer to Jesus as “the Divine Word” and the expressed thought of God as it does in John 1:1. In this context, word refers to Jesus’s speech and/or teaching. The Apostle John and others heard Jesus’s teaching and word and had repeated Jesus’s word for others to hear.
Again, in verse 7, John is contrasting the old, original word of Jesus (which is authentic, genuine, true, and good) with the new corrupt, fake, false, and wicked teachings of the false prophets.
John then reverses the way he is using the concepts of new and old in the next verse:
On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining (v. 8).
John informs his readers that he is switching how he is using the adjectives of old and new with the expression: on the other hand.
This expression, on the other hand, is a translation of the Greek adverb πάλιν (G3825 — pronounced: “pal-in”). “Palin” refers to a repetition and/or a contrast.
Context determines how this word is being used.
The context of 1 John 2:7-8 clearly indicates that “palin” is being used to contrast John’s changed use of old and new. This is why John says in verse 7 that he is not writing a new commandment and then turns around in verse 8 and says that he is writing a new commandment. New means something different in verse 7 than it does in verse 8. Old and new are not used in the same sense in these two verses.
To be clear, the commandment is the same in both verses. It is Jesus’s commandment to love one another as He loved them (John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17). But Jesus’s commandment is old in one sense, and is new in another.
Jesus’s commandment is old because Jesus spoke it from the beginning. His commandment is not new in existence. His commandment is new to you because these believers are on a journey from darkness to light. His commandment is new in the expression of their personal walk.
This commandment is not new in the sense of time, but it is new in the sense of freshness. Jesus’s words always lead to new and greater life. His commands never become old, turn stale, or expire. Jesus’s commandment to “love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34) is always relevant and remains new and evergreen.
John explains how the truth of this commandment applies to Jesus and to John’s beloved readers with the phrase: which is true in Him and in you.
Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in Him for at least three reasons:
1. Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in Him because Jesus is God and God is love.
John declares, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This means love is God’s very nature. Because Jesus is one with the Father (John 10:30), the command to love originates from His own divine character and is therefore inherently true in Him.
2. It is true in Him because Jesus is the One who issued the commandment to love one another.
Jesus repeatedly issued this commandment to His disciples on the night before His crucifixion (John 13:34, 15:12, 15:17). Each time He grounded it in His personal authority as God and the Messiah:
Since Jesus is the Messianic and Divine Lawgiver of this commandment, it is true in Him.
3. It is true in Him because Jesus offered Himself as the example of what it means to love one another.
Twice when issuing this commandment, Jesus said the way we are to love one another was, “even as/just as I have loved you” (John 13:34, 15:12). Loving one another was and is true in Jesus because He embodied its truth in the way He lived.
John writes that Jesus’s commandment to love one another is both true in Him and it is true in you also.
In this verse (and throughout this letter), the pronoun you refers to John’s beloved readers who are believers in Jesus and who have the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:12, 20).
There are at least three reasons why Jesus’s commandment to love one another is true in you. The phrase in you refers to John’s readers who are fellow believers striving to follow Jesus.
1. Jesus’s commandment is true in you because God first loved us.
“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God first loved us when He sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sin (John 3:16, 1 John 4:10). John explains how His love is true in you when he wrote:
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.”
(1 John 4:9)
2. Jesus’s commandment is true in you because you have been born of God.
The new birth imparts a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17). Loving one another is not merely an external commandment imposed from outside, but is rather a reality flowing from within a transformed heart.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
(1 John 4:7)
3. Similarly, Jesus’s commandment is true in you because the Holy Spirit has been given to you.
Every believer is given the Holy Spirit who lives within them (Romans 8:91 Corinthians 6:19, Ephesians 1:13, 1 John 2:20). The Spirit produces love within believers (Galatians 5:22), enabling them to love as Christ loved. It is true in us, because God’s Spirit dwells in and is at work in us,
“By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”
(1 John 4:13)
The above reasons, particularly reasons 2 and 3, describe the reality in which His commandment is already true in you as a believer who is in Jesus and He in you. But there is also a sense in which it ought to be true that His commandment is in you.
As followers of Jesus, it is possible to not follow His commandments and to break our fellowship and lose our joy and to walk in darkness. John is writing this letter so that his beloved children do not sin and choose to walk in darkness (1 John 2:1). John depicts this tragic possibility throughout this letter, including in the very next verse, 1 John 2:9.
The apostle is writing this letter to give his fellow believers a vision of how they ought to live. The way believers ought to walk is by keeping His commandment to love one another and letting it be true in them so they may experience the fullness of life and joy. The result of following His commandment will be to become more like Jesus as we “walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:6).
John concludes verse 8 by offering an explanation about why Jesus’s old commandment to love one another is both old while still being truly and perpetually new. John says it is new because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.
Jesus’s commandment to love one another is new in you when believers begin to practice it in new areas of our lives. We believers begin our walk in Him while we still have habits and patterns of darkness, from our sin nature still in us. Then as we believers learn to walk as He walked, the darkness passes away. John knows the true Light is already shining in these children of faith, his readers. Each time a new area of darkness is overcome with Light, there is a newness, a freshness to His commandment to love.
We will discuss both aspects of the passing darkness and the true Light that is already shining, but first we will explain what John meant by the fading darkness.
From God’s eternal perspective, the ways of the devil and the world influenced by the devil are old and dying. The ways of the devil are described as the darkness.
The darkness will not last. It is already passing away.
The Bible repeatedly reminds us that this world will not last forever. It will be destroyed.
The Psalmist writes:
“Of old You founded the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.”
(Psalm 102:25-26)
The prophet Isaiah says:
“And all the host of heaven will wear away,
And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll;
All their hosts will also wither away…”
(Isaiah 34:4)
Revelation describes the scene of this world’s final ending. When Jesus returns and sits on the great white throne, the earth and heaven will flee away from His presence, and no place will be found for them (Revelation 20:11).
The darkness is associated with sin and deceit (John 3:19-20, 1 John 1:5-10). The darkness is characterized by exploitation and manipulation of others to extract what you want from them. It seeks to gain power so it can lord over others, and to attain followers to serve (by coercion) its own desires. John describes the darkness’s exploitation and manipulation as “hate” (1 John 2:9, 11).
Jesus taught His disciples to do the opposite. Instead of lording it over others, as the Satanically influenced world does in darkness, Jesus taught His disciples to serve even the least important people in the world’s eyes (Matthew 10:42, 25:40). Jesus taught them that true and lasting greatness was being the best servant to others’ needs (Matthew 20:25-27). Jesus, who was God in human form and the promised Messiah, was the rightful king of Israel. But He did not come to lord it over people in darkness, He came to shine the Light and serve them (Matthew 20:28).
Serving others is active love. Serving others is putting into practice Jesus’s example and commandment to love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12). Jesus exhibited “agape” love because He chose to serve others, even those who rejected Him.
Jesus is the true Light. He is the life and Light of men (John 1:4). Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5). When the Word became flesh and the Son of God came to earth, He not only took away the sins of the world (John 1:29, 1 John 2:2), He also showed us how to truly live life to the fullest (John 10:10). His brilliant presence illuminated the way for us to live in harmony with God and others in truth and goodness. Jesus said:
“I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
(John 8:12b)
The brilliance of Jesus’s example is still shining in the darkness and will never be extinguished by the darkness (John 1:5). The darkness retreats from His presence.
Even as the darkness is passing away, John also writes how the true Light is already shining.
The two phenomena are related. The present shining of the Light is the cause of the darkness’s passing away.
It first began to shine on earth when Jesus came to establish a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28), and a church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:18).
Jesus broke the power of darkness and the true Light is shining. He did this through His total victory over sin through the cross. Then He gained victory over death with His resurrection
The true Light of His love is already shining in those who follow His commandment to love one another. This Light shines in believers, those whom Jesus has redeemed, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Jesus told His disciples that they too “are the light of the world” and are to be as “a city set on hill” (Matthew 5:14). As followers of Jesus, we are not to hide our light (Matthew 5:14) but rather we are to:
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
(Matthew 5:16)
This means that as Jesus’s followers, we have a role in shining the true Light into the darkness of the world so that others may taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8).
Every time believers follow Jesus’s example and obey His commandment to serve one another in love, we reflect His Light into the darkness and participate in the truth of the reality that the true Light is already shining and the darkness is passing away.
In ourselves, we have no light. It is only by walking in the Light that we have anything lasting and good to offer the world. Apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). To paraphrase 1 John 4:19, “we shine the truth in love, because He first shined the truth in love for us.”
Because of Jesus, the true Light—the same Light that will govern the new heaven and the new earth forever and ever—is already shining in this world, and the things of this old world and all its darkness are already fading and passing away.
In making the point that the old commandment is new to us when we learn to walk in His Light, John is by implication saying that we ought to keep His commandment to love one another and seek fellowship with the true Light rather than the fading darkness. When light overcomes darkness in our lives, we implement the old as something new; it is ancient wisdom with a new application in our own lives.
Peter gives a similar message for believers as he describes the mortality of this world.
Peter describes how “the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). Then he calls upon his readers in light of the world’s end to consider “what sort of people ought you to be” (2 Peter 3:11).
Peter then exhorts them to live with anticipation of the earth that is to come: “according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
We should live in light of the eternal reality of the true Light in righteousness, life, and love and not according to sin, death, and hatred of the fading darkness of this world that will soon be extinguished. In this manner we apply the ancient, unchanging command to our lives, to walk in newness of life.
In the next section of scripture (1 John 2:9-11), the apostle resumes and concludes his series of “the one who…” statements that he began in 1 John 2:4-6, and he explains why loving one another is necessary for walking in the Light.