A “new command”

In 1 John 2:8, John is “writing a new command, the truth of which is seen in Jesus and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.”

So what is this “new command”? Is it the “new commandment” Jesus spoke of in John 13:34, that we “love each other as he loved us”? But when John wrote 1 John 2:8 – as much as fifty years later – this command was no longer new. John refers back to it in 1 John 2:7, yes, but now he’s talking about “the truth of it being SEEN” (8) – and the need for it to be seen too, because that’s what conclusively and powerfully shows that “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” 

But what did John mean by “darkness” and “light”? He explains in verse 10, that “Whoever loves his brother lives in the light,” and in verse 11, “Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness.” John is using light and darkness to contrast love and hate. 

So when John is talking of a new command, he’s still including Jesus’ original command to love each other as he loved us, but what makes it so visible is its clear and obvious contrast to hate. This new command, then, is not just about loving each other, it’s getting at the total eradication of hate too. 

That’s because “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1:5), and because he now calls us his children (3:1-2), we walk in the same light he’s in (1:7) – the obvious goal of which is no darkness in us either, because if that is our goal, “the blood of Jesus purifies us from every sin” (1:7), including the sin of hate. Which is hugely important in showing our poor struggling world so peppered with hate that the darkness of hate is passing and the light of real love is shining, and brightly enough for people to see it and realize it’s truly happening.

It’s by Jesus purifying us from all unrighteousness, and especially from hate, therefore, that he’s given each of us the chance in our own lives, no matter how limited we are, to offer a glimpse of what a human life without hate is like. Not only, then, can we show people through our love for each other what the eternal life God is offering us looks like, we have this “new command” of John to make it even more visible by the eradication of all hate among each other too. With that in mind, then, what’s “The antidote to hate”?….(next blog)