1 John 2

Read 1 John 2 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.

Brothers, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I am writing to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 1 Joh 2:7-8

It feels like John is being intentionally cryptic: I am not writing a new commandment to you (vs. 7) but a new commandment I am writing to you (vs. 8).

The Comparison and Contrast Teaching Tool highlights the intentional juxtaposition.

What is the old commandment? When they asked Jesus to expound on it, He said,

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Mat 22:37-40

Love, the summary of the old commandments of the old covenant. Paul put it this way to Timothy:

Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith. 1 Tim 1:5

Torah teaches us what love from a pure heart looks like. But then at the Last Supper, Jesus said,

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Joh 13:34

Love one another, the new commandment of the new covenant.

In Jesus’ and John’s generation, the religious professionals had gotten commandment-keeping twisted around from the Torah’s original intent. Jesus was constantly at loggerheads with them for elevating traditions over the commandments, or for calling out His healing on the Sabbath as Law-breaking. They had forgotten that love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law (Rom 13:10). They had forgotten the weightier matters of Torah.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law: justice and mercy and faith.” Mat 23:23

Commandment-keeping had gotten all tangled up with legalism, which had hidden Love, the heart of Torah, from view. But just as the Hebrew word for “new” is the root of the word for “new moon,” that is, the old moon with a fresh face, so the new commandment of Love is not new as in newly created, but renewed, putting a fresh face on the old that has been there all along.