Scripture Daily

Context No. 31 of 4322 · 1 John

Context · Reflection

1 John 2:7-11: in context

7Brothers, I write no 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. 8Again, I write a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shines. 9He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness even until now. 10He who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no occasion for stumbling in him. 11But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

The first letter of John was written to Christians unsettled by teachers who had left their community claiming a superior knowledge of God. Much of the letter offers plain tests for whether someone knows God at all, and this passage is one of them.

He begins with a puzzle. I am writing you no new commandment, he says, but an old one you have had from the beginning. Then in the next breath, and yet I am writing you a new commandment. The commandment is to love, which Israel had heard for centuries (Leviticus 19:18), and which Jesus called new when he gave it to his disciples the night before he died (John 13:34). Old in content, new in the way Christ made it visible.

Then the test, and it is blunt. Anyone who claims to be in the light while hating a brother is still in the dark. Not partly lit. Dark. The one who loves stays in the light and has nothing in him to trip over, while the one who hates walks around blind, not knowing where he is going. There is no third category here for the person who has the doctrine right and cannot stand the people. Whose face comes to mind when I read that, and what does my answer say about which light I am standing in?

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