1 John 2:8

2:3-11 What knowledge of Christ can that be, which sees not that he is most worthy of our entire obedience? And a disobedient life shows there is neither religion nor honesty in the professor. The love of God is perfected in him that keeps his commandments. God's grace in him attains its true mark, and produces its sovereign effect as far as may be in this world, and this is man's regeneration; though never absolutely perfect here. Yet this observing Christ's commands, has holiness and excellency which, if universal, would make the earth resemble heaven itself. The command to love one another had been in force from the beginning of the world; but it might be called a new command as given to Christians. It was new in them, as their situation was new in respect of its motives, rules, and obligations. And those who walk in hatred and enmity to believers, remain in a dark state. Christian love teaches us to value our brother's soul, and to dread every thing hurtful to his purity and peace. Where spiritual darkness dwells, in mind, the judgment, and the conscience will be darkened, and will mistake the way to heavenly life. These things demand serious self-examination; and earnest prayer, that God would show us what we are, and whither we are going.

{7} Again, a new commandment I write unto you, {h} which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. (7) He adds that the doctrine indeed is old, but it is in a way new, both in respect to Christ, and also to us: in whom he through the gospel, engraves his law effectually, not in tables of stone, but in our minds. {h} Which thing (that is, that the doctrine is new which I write to you) is true in him, and in you.

1 John 2:8 . πάλιν , “again,” i.e. in another sense, from another point of view, not in itself but in our recognition of it, “it is a new commandment”. ὅ ἐστιν ἀληθές , in apposition to ἐντολήν —“a thing which is true,” viz. , the paramount necessity of Love. This truth, though unperceived, is contained in the revelation of Jesus Christ ( ἐν αὐτῷ ) and proved in the experience of believers ( ἐν ὑμῖν ). It is a fact that hatred of one’s brother clouds the soul and shuts out the light. “I know this,” says the Apostle, “because the darkness is passing away and the light, the true light, is already shining,” i.e. my eyes are getting accustomed to the light of the Gospel-revelation, and I have seen this truth which at first was hidden from me. Adjectives in - ινός denote the material of which the thing is made; and ἀληθινός is used of the real as opposed either to the type ( cf. John 6:32 ; John 15:1 ; Hebrews 8:2 ; Hebrews 9:24 ) or to the counterfeit ( cf. Symb. Nic. : Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ “very God of very God,” i.e. the real God as opposed to false gods, idols, which were “things of naught”). The opposite of to τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν is, on the one hand, the dim light of the Jewish Law (the type) and, on the other, the false light of human speculation (the counterfeit).

Yet also he calls it a new commandment, as our Saviour did, John 13:34 , upon the subjoined accounts. Which thing is true; i.e. evident, or verified, fulfilled, exemplified. In him; viz. in that new and high demonstration he had given of the sincerity and greatness of his own love, laying down his life for us, as John 15:13 .

And in you; or, us, (as some read), i.e. the mind of God herein is by a new and fresh light most evidently and gloriously signified in or among you, (the subject being here collective and plural, admits this varied and very usual sense of the particle in ), inasmuch as the darkness is past; i.e. the heathenish ignorance that made the world barbarous; a darkness in which the furious lusts and passions of men are wont to rage, turning this earth into another hell, Psalm 74:20 , is in a great measure vanished; and also the dark umbrage of the Judaic dispensation, (some read skia for skotia, not darkness, but shadow ), in which the love of God to men was more obscurely represented, is past away and gone, and the true light now shineth; the love and grace of God towards sinners (the pattern and argument of our mutual love to one another) shines with true light, that is evident, in opposition to darkness, or immediately substantial, in opposition to type or shadow, as John 1:9,14,17 : representing the gracious design of God, and his very nature, who is love, 1Jo 4:8,16 , with so bright and glorious beams as ought to transform us into his likeness; and which therefore render the mutual hatred of one another the most incongruous thing to us in the world. Whereupon he adds... {see 1Jo 2:9}

New commandment The commandment of love is both old and new. Old, because John's readers have had it from the beginning of their Christian experience. New, because, in the unfolding of Christian experience, it has developed new power, meaning, and obligation, and closer correspondence "with the facts of Christ's life, with the crowning mystery of His passion, and with the facts of the Christian life." Which thing is true (ὅ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς) The expression which thing, or that which, refers either to the commandment of love, or to the fact stated, viz., that the old commandment is new. The fact that the old commandment is new is true in Him and in us. On the whole I prefer this. In Him and in us For us, read you. The fact that the old commandment is new, is true in Him (Christ), since He gave it as a new commandment, and illustrated it by His word and example. It is true in you, since you did not receive it until Christ gave it, and since the person and life of Christ are appealing to you in new lights and with fresh power as your Christian life develops. In Him, points back to as He walked. Because Explaining the apparent paradox. The darkness (ἡ σκοτία) See on John 1:5. God is light; and whatever is not in fellowship with God is therefore darkness. In all cases where the word is not used of physical darkness, it means moral insensibility to the divine light; moral blindness or obtuseness. Compare John 8:12; John 12:35, John 12:46; 1 John 2:9, 1 John 2:11.

Is past (παράγεται) Wrong. The passing is not represented as accomplished, but as in progress. Rev., rightly rendering the present tense, is passing away. The true light (τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν) Lit., the light, the true (light). See on that eternal life (1 John 1:2). True, not as distinguished from false, but as answering to the true ideal. See on John 1:9. The true light is the revelation of God in Christ. See on 1 John 1:5. continued...

1 John 2:8 . Ἐντολὴν καινὴν , a new precept ) which is now first written to you in this Epistle. This passage savours of the fulness of the Spirit in the apostle.— ὃ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς , that which is truth ) Truth , substantively, as in 1 John 2:27 , where truth and a lie are opposed to each other. Thence also ὃ is put for ἣ , that is, the commandment ( ἐντολή ). The sense is: the commandment , or precept, is truth ; that is, the darkness truly passes away, etc. As in 1 John 2:7 , to the word old , so in this ver., to the word new , its definition is immediately subjoined, what is the old , and what is the new . The old is that which we had from the beginning: the new is that which is true in Jesus Christ and in us. The difference of time in the words, ye had , and it is , tends to this. In Christ all things are always true, and were so from that beginning; but in Christ and in us, conjointly, the precept is then truth, when we acknowledge the truth, which is in Him, and have the same flourishing in us. John praises the present state of those to whom he writes, as one even more highly favoured than that very state which they had had at the beginning of their hearing the Gospel, as Romans 13:11-12 ; whence also the old precept could with pleasantness be proposed to them under a new method.— ὅτ because . This is that precept, the love of a brother, from the light. Hence at the beginning of 1 John 2:9 therefore is to be understood.

Comp. ch. 1 John 1:5-6 .— παράγεται ) He does not say παράγει , passes by, but παράγεται , is caused to pass , is changed, so that at length it is absorbed. The same word is used, 1 John 2:17 , where it is opposed to abiding . Thus Ezra 9:2 , Septuagint, παρήχθη σπέρμα τὸ ἅγιον , the holy seed was transferred , or caused to pass to the nations , and was mingled with them. Herodian: ὄνομα παραχθὲν , a name changed , transferred from another, or to another.—Book I., ch. 16, and V. 7. The present is to be observed, as in shineth .— τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν , the true light ) Jesus Christ: John 1:9 .— ἤδη ) now , with you; but it will shine the more for ever: 1 John 2:28 . Comp. until now , 1 John 2:9 .— φαίνει , shineth ) On this account it was now less needful for John to bring forward the prophets in his Epistles than it was for Peter; whose 2d Epistle, 2 Peter 1:19 , comp. respecting the day and the morning star . Peter, with his Epistles, stands about midway between the suffering of Christ and the close of the life of John.

Verse 8. - Again. The πάλιν indicates another point of view - what in one sense was not fresh, in another sense was so. It is impossible to be certain as to the meaning of ὅ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς κ.τ.λ. . It may mean (1) "which thing (the newness of the command) is true ;" or (2) "as a fresh commandment I am writing to you a thing which is true." But for the practical example of the life of Christ, and men's acceptance of it, the command to love one's neighbour might have remained old and become obsolete. Ὅτι is almost certainly "because," not "that;" it introduces the reason why he writes, not the substance of, the fresh commandment. How can "the darkness is passing away," etc., be a commandment? The light, the true light τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν ; i.e. , the real, the perfect, the very light, that which most fully realizes the ideal of light; in opposition to those "wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever" ( Jude 1:13 ; cf. John 1:4, 9 ; John 6:32 ; John 15:1 ). Christ is the perfect Light, as he is the perfect Bread and the perfect Vine. 1 John 2:8

8. a new commandment—It was "old," in that Christians as such had heard it from the first; but "new" (Greek, "kaine," not "nea": new and different from the old legal precept) in that it was first clearly promulgated with Christianity; though the inner spirit of the law was love even to enemies, yet it was enveloped in some bitter precepts which caused it to be temporarily almost unrecognized, till the Gospel came. Christianity first put love to brethren on the new and highest MOTIVE, instinctive love to Him who first loved us, constraining us to love all, even enemies, thereby walking in the steps of Him who loved us when enemies. So Jesus calls it "new," Joh 13:34, 35, "Love one another as I have loved you" (the new motive); Joh 15:12. which thing is true in him and in you—"In Christ all things are always true, and were so from the beginning; but in Christ and in us conjointly the commandment [the love of brethren] is then true when we acknowledge the truth which is in Him, and have the same flourishing in us" [Bengel].

Alford explains, "Which thing (the fact that the commandment is a new one) is true in Him and in you because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is now shining; that is, the commandment is a new one, and this is true both in the case of Christ and in the case of you; because in you the darkness is passing away, and in Him the true light is shining; therefore, on both accounts, the command is a new one: new as regards you, because you are newly come from darkness into light; new as regards Him, because He uttered it when He came into the world to lighten every man, and began that shining which even now continues." I prefer, as Bengel, to explain, The new commandment finds its truth in its practical realization in the walk of Christians in union with Christ. Compare the use of "verily," 1Jo 2:5. Joh 4:42, "indeed"; Joh 6:55.