1John 2:7-11 - "The New-Old Command"

 1John 2:7-11

“The New-Old Command”

Contradictions.  Oxymorons.  Our culture is full of them.  Some great oxymorons:

• government intelligence and deficit spending; temporary tax increase
• act natural
• a fine mess
• original copies
• Microsoft Works
• free love
• sweet sorrow
• old news
• awfully good
• open secret
• least favorite
• good grief
• terribly pleased
• wireless cable
• zero tolerance
• no choice
• now then
• expect the unexpected
• California champagne
• down escalator
• head butt
• seriously funny
• sophomore
• Perfecting holiness

Before we proceed with further study and desired application of this writing, I would like us to pause and consider the matter of Cultural Presuppositions. Values. Things we value in our society which influence how we approach understanding and applying God’s Word. Things we take for granted, values we hold of which we may not even be aware:

• Oriental (Eastern/Middle Eastern) culture (the culture of the people in the Bible)
• Observed as adherence to custom, unwillingness to challenge or question it, as opposed to Occidental (our culture), which is observed as willingness to depart from custom.  And what is custom?  Custom is a traditional and widely accepted way of behaving or doing something.  Widely accepted by whom? By the group. Unwillingness to question or challenge or offend or depart from the group. Group-first thinking. This is characteristic of thinking and values among the people of the Bible.
• According to John Stuart Mill, it was in fact respect for custom which had prevented Oriental people from being both progressive and free.  In his famous essay "On Liberty", he wrote “[T]he love of liberty or of improvement is antagonistic to the sway of Custom… and the contest between the two constitutes the chief interest of the history of mankind… This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean Conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant, thinks of resisting.”  It is the priority of the group.
• Did you catch that? Progress. Improvement. Mill maintained that disregard for custom was really what had made the West both free and different from the rest of the world. “What is it,” Mill said, “that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot [that is, from tyranny of Custom]? What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary, portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which, when it exists, exists as the effect not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another”
• What he is saying is, this is a question of personal liberty - which I would suggest drives right to the heart of the issue.
• What we find in the East - middle east and far eastern cultures - where the Bible was written, is an emphasis on the Good/value of the whole (vs that of the individual). Your primary thought and concern tends to be for the group. In the West, a person is given preference over family or group, so a person is more flexible and free to take decisions on his own.  The priority of individual liberty. Rugged individualism. I’m not suggesting that this is wrong per se. But we must allow that the value we have been taught by our culture to place on individual freedom here in the West colors so much of what we do. Freedom. It is one of our worship words. Freedom to choose, what I do, what I buy. That’s the primary driver of our free market economy. The rights of the individual. Freedom of choice. That’s playing out in spades in our country these days. It’s almost inescapable, this exaltation of the individual. And it colors how we come to passages of Scripture, like the one we are considering here.

Let’s take a look…

1John 2:7-11

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. 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. The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.  The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Last week we talked about keeping His commands.  Keeping His commands.  Keeping His Word.  Walking as Jesus walked.  John says here, I’m not writing something new here, people.  We’re not talking about some new command.  This is an old command  - WHICH you had from “the beginning”…

• And of course there are different beginnings
• #1: The beginning of Creation/time

Gen. 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

John 1:1-2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

• #2: The beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Lk 1.1-3, 3.23; Jn 2.11, 15.27, Act 1.1)

Luke 1:1-4

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

Luke 3:23   When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age…

John 15:26-27   

“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

• #3: The beginning of hearing/knowing/believing
• #4: Each day a new beginning, fresh dependence, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” (C.S. Lewis)

OK - well, which command is John talking about? Is it just one command he is thinking about? He hasn’t yet told us what it is. Not directly. Not yet. It’s sort of like he’s playing a little I-Spy with us. I spy with my little eye… An old command. Well, what is it? “The one you had from the beginning. You know - the word which you heard? You know the one I’m talking about?”

Oh, and actually it's a NEW command.  It’s not new, it’s old.  But it IS new.  I AM writing a new command to you.  I spy with my little eye, a new command.

Contradictions - John seems to be quite comfortable with these…!

• We're okay if we sin (cuz of Jesus) <-> But it's not okay if we sin
• Old Command <-> New command

Well, which is it?

But John is also into contrasts. We’ve already seen the contrast between Light vs darkness (which is that absence of light)

• Light
• Understanding (the light has come on)
• Truth (and honesty, including about sin)
• Darkness
• Hiding
• Absence of truth (lying)
• Examples: “I have/am…”
• …fellowship w God (yet walking in darkness)
• …no sin/not sinned
• …come to know Him (but am not keeping His commands)
• …in the Light (yet hating my brother)

And thus we come to what I’m suggesting, for John, is the primary contrast of this writing.  Love vs hate (which is, the absence of love).

• Hating your brother.  In other words, absence of love for him.
• First mention of us being brothers (and sisters)
• The supreme contradiction here for John is that someone would profess to have come to know God - the God Who IS love - as their Father and yet fail to love the one who is their brother.
• John alluded to this last week. He said, “In this one the love of God has truly been perfected…"
• The love of God perfected… It means not "perfect" but completed…
• At some point in the past… When? Probably at the beginning.  Beginning #3 - the beginning of hearing/believing in Jesus. 

Philippians 1:6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

• When this person truly put their trust in Christ, God planted His "love seed" in their heart. It took root, it germinated, and it started to grow, with continuing results in the present. Bearing fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is…  Love. Out comes love. Keeping God’s Word, His commands, walking like Jesus. Out comes Jesus. Love. They have truly come to know the everlasting love which God has for them, AND it is coming out of them, directed towards others. Esp their brothers. Not hating them but in fact loving them.

And so, without exactly stating it, John reveals what He is thinking about. The Old Command - which they had heard from the beginning. Beginning #3. From the very moment they came under the influence of the Gospel of Christ and His body, these readers had heard the command to love one another and had seen it lived out. The early church, this Middle Eastern group of people, was determined to live this out, within their group, their new spiritual family.  But this command was called the New Command by none other than Jesus Christ Himself.

John 13:34-35 “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.”

And He repeated it two more times there at that Last Supper. Love one another.  Love one another. The whole enterprise is tied to this.

"It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. 'Look!' they say, 'How they love one another! Look how they are prepared to die for one another!'" -Tertullian (Carthaginian, 2nd c. AD)

"It is incredible to see the fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator (Jesus) has put it in their heads that they are brethren." -Lucian (Greek writer in 2nd c. AD, unbeliever)

Now what is hating a brother exactly?

Romans 9:13 (Just as it is written, “JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.”)

Did God actually "hate" Esau? Of course not. What we see is the signification to love less, or to postpone in love or esteem, to slight.  One commentator notes, ’the Orientals, in accordance with their greater excitability, are accustomed both to feel and to profess love AND hate where we Occidentals, with our cooler temperament, feel and express nothing more than interest in, or disregard and indifference to a thing’; -Fritzsche (Commentary on Romans)

There is a love which makes all lesser loves look like hate. We love the Lord so much (or should) that it makes all lesser loves look like hate. Compared to our love for the Lord, Jesus says we even hate our family and our own life. But is there not also a cool indifference, a casual disregard, a passive unengagement, which can be construed as hate? I think John would say, yes. We occidentals, steeped as we are in all this rugged individualism, think, “Oh, I am not 'hating' my brother. I just don’t get along with him and I don’t spend any time with him. Not interested. And he and I are ok with that.”  But I think John - and Jesus - are not ok with that.

Biblical love flies in the face of much of what our culture values. Love is not about self. It’s not about what I want. My preferences. My agenda. Love doesn’t pass by on the other side. Our culture says, “well, live and let live, to each his own, and at least I didn’t beat him up.” I’m not saying everybody is like this, but there is this pervading priority of the individual in our society. And live and let live, failure to engage can fall just as far short of the mark. Love is a verb, it is active. And I think it is fair to say that in this case, absence of such activity can be fairly construed as hate. That’s what John is thinking. That’s what he is going to be unpacking throughout this writing.

Loving brother = abiding (walking) in light = no stumbling

Hating brother = walking in darkness (light is OFF) = stumbling

Note, who is stumbling? Those watching? My brother?

• skandalon - a snare; a trap-trigger; a cause for stumbling
• but is it that which ensnares/trips up, or that which is ensnared/tripped up?
• John says, the skandalon is IN ME!  What does it mean that the skandalon in “in me” (or is NOT in me”)? Am I the one being trapped or tripped up? Am I stumbling? Or am I trapping someone else/tripping them up? Am I the obstacle? The cause of stumbling is NOT in fact external to me - it is IN me. My internal spiritual orientation is all messed up, because there is no light.
• The picture in 2.11 is one of one who is walking in darkness, eyes blinded - and what is this person doing do you suppose? They are stumbling. They can’t see where they are going. The light is not on.

Loving your brother. It was a new command. Jesus said so Himself. Love one another - by this all men will know you are my disciples, He said. But it was also an old command - older even than the advent of Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself - it’s as old as Moses and the Pentateuch. Love your neighbor as yourself. The Jews took that to mean their group. Love other Jews, and they were supposed to include aliens and strangers in that mix, particularly if they allowed themselves to be circumcised.  

But Jesus went and updated the command, to go with this new version of God’s family. Family 2.0. Not just one nation descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob trying desperately to observe the multitude of commands in the law of Moses. No, now many nations, united not by blood ancestry and the rite of circumcision but rather united by the blood of God’s Son, by a common confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior of the world. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life - no one comes to the Father except thru Him. He is God’s Son, and when we trust in Him, our heavenly Father adopts us into His family - and that makes us all brothers. Brothers and sisters. Family 2.0. And so we have this New-Old command - the form of it had been around for centuries, but it needed to be rebooted for this new thing which God was doing. Love one another - just as I have loved you! Love your brother. Sacrificially! It was a new command when Jesus spoke it. For these believers most likely it was now also an old command. No doubt from the very moment they believed, they were instructed in the way of Family 2.0. This is how we do it. This is how we roll in the family of God, those of us who are following Christ. Nazarenes.  Christians. Christ-followers. Christ IN you - the hope of glory. Christ’s love is IN you.  The Light is on. This command, this Word is IN you.

There is this Word, this Message, this Truth about the God of Truth Who is the Word, that which was heard and seen and manifested and touched. Jesus. And it - He - was proclaimed and testified and written about and announced. And now, there is this question of “IN”. 17 times in this section - the word “IN”.

Is it in you? What is in you? Who is in you? Jesus - is He in you? Is His Word in you, His Truth, His Light? Are you in Him? Or is darkness still in you? Are you in the Light? His Light? His Truth? His love? It is a package deal. And if you and He are “IN”, if He is “IN” you, then He will come out. His Truth will come out. His love will come out. Love for one another, our spiritual neighbors, our family. It is the outcome of the “IN-GO”. In goes Jesus. In goes His Light, His Truth, His love. In you this love of God has been perfected. God has planted His love seed in you - and out it comes. It just comes out (or should) as you abide in Christ. It begins to grow, and spread, and branch out - to all those around. Back to the Lord, to my spouse, to my neighbors (and enemies), and what John is stressing here, is that it should and must manifest in the direction of my brother. To the one who is also in the family of God. Brothers. And sisters. The group. The body of Christ.

The sad and tragic reality is that Christians, the supposed repositories of God’s boundless and eternal charity, can be among the most uncharitable towards one another. The light for some reason is not on. Maybe it is in part a by-product of our culture? Often it is not antagonism or unkindness - it is indifference. Isolation. Love not withheld but rather dammed up. Cause I’m isolated. Not connected. Regardless, John says a hating brother is an oxymoron. A contradiction in terms.

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” – Brennan Manning

What each of us needs to do then, is to ask the Lord to show us where we may not be living into love, show us any ways it may not be coming out, and then ask Him to love through us.  Starting with God’s family…

So look at what John has been doing here.  Consider the first two family traits we looked at.  What were they?  Honest about sin, and keeping God’s commandment.  Let’s go back to the beginning.  In this case, we will be talking about Beginning 1b.  Right after the First beginning, but still in the early stages of recorded Biblical history.  What did the first couple fail to do?  They failed to keep God’s commandment, and then they weren’t honest about it.  They hid, tried to cover it up.  And they wouldn’t own it.  So what happened next?  We come very quickly to the first brothers.  And what happened?  It’s the very next chapter.  Love between brothers quickly disintegrated... 

Gen. 4:4-9   but ^afor Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So ^bCain became very angry… And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and ^akilled him.  Then the LORD said to Cain, “^aWhere is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

May the Lord grant us the grace by His Spirit to rise above a similar fate...