Old and New Commandments

Introduction

The link between love and command is not one that is necessarily very obvious to most people. Commands seem cold, harsh, and unforgiving, whereas love seems liberating and a condition of obedience seems antithetical to the idea. However, in Scripture these two ideas are inseparable. Jesus said in John 14:15 that if we love him we will keep his commandments, and to many that may sound someone harsh, even like relational blackmail. But it’s not, Jesus is stating a universal truth. Love and obedience go hand in hand, and one is not helpful or genuine without the other. In a very real way, the Christian life is all about understanding the relationship between these two concepts and living in the joy that loving obedience provides us.

In 1 John, we have already seen the need for obedience in the life of a believer if there is to be any evidence that we actually know God. In our text tonight, we see John giving a command, an ancient command with a real newness in how it applies to us and affects us today. It is not just any command, it is the foundation of knowing God, it always has been. Our DNA as divine image bearers points us to this command, it existed before the fall right back to our very creation and knowing how we can live in light of this most ancient creed is the key to a happy and genuine Christian walk.

Two Commands

The text begins in verse 7 with John once again using loving, fatherly affection. The gentleness he shows mirrors his pastoral heart, and it sets an example of what he is going to be talking about in beginning in verse 9. It is most appropriate for him to call his readers beloved because love is at the heart of what John is communicating to his readers. The voice of John’s instruction is not a cold or harsh voice, but one that is motivated by love. Indeed, one of John’s purposes for writing was so that he may have fellowship with his readers, and that motivation does not allow for a harsh or loveless tone.

While this address to his Beloved readers begins a new section in this chapter, it is important to recognize the connection between verses 7-11 with verses 1-6. Last week we looked at how love and obedience go hand in hand, and how free grace is the spark that ignites this love. We who have experienced the great forgiveness of our sins freely through the precious shed blood of Christ are driven by a love for God. So in God’s mysterious plan, he has used our sin, sins that exist because of our lack of love for God, to show us divine love through the sufferings of Christ and thus igniting love that defies sin. The constant problem in the OT was that, of all the commandments and sacrifices Israel was commanded to partake in, the greatest command was never fulfilled: love the Lord your God with all your heart (Deut 6:5).

The reminds us what was always at the heart of relationship with God. The law was not simply a law, it was a covenant based on a loving faithfulness that God had for his people and that his people were meant to have towards him as well. John clearly shows that to keep God’s Word and obey what it says is meant to be an outward witness of a love for God in our own hearts.

But what was the other great commandment? Matthew 22:37-40

Matthew 22:37–40 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Love your neighbour. And Jesus that these two commandments, Love God and love others, sums up the entire OT. So it’s interesting that John is just about to talk about loving your brother

1 John 2:10 ESV

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.

In this passage, John has been talking about the two greatest commandments. And that is important to realize because verse 7-8 is almost like a little break in his comments about these two commands. But it becomes clear that when John has been saying “commandment” and “Word” these are what he is talking about. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself.

The Old

So it is no surprise that John admits he is not writing to us a new commandment. Not only is he reminding his readers of an old commandment, he is reminding them of the commandment. According to Jesus, the command to love the Lord our God with all that we are is the most important commandment in the OT. It is a commandment that goes all the way back to the garden of Eden in a certain form. The command to not eat of the tree was a command to abstain from what was only God’s and to continue to submit to his precepts. In the human relationship with God, we have always been the subordinates. We are not equals with God, and it was that point that made the serpent’s temptation so tantalizing to Adam and Eve. They wanted a chance in the relationship where they could be above, or at least equal, to God.

The kind of love we are called to have towards God is a love demonstrated by submission. That submission does not take away the passion of loving God, nor does it minimize the affection God has for us. It doesn’t make God a cold, indifferent force that doesn’t care about us. Indeed, the love of God is consistently shown throughout Scripture as a love that is affectionate, patient, close, forgiving, and understanding. However, that doesn’t change our position towards God, nor does it change how we show love to him. If a child loves their parents, that love is shown in submissive and joyful obedience, and that is the love we are called to show to God.

This command is communicated in several different ways throughout the OT. Deuteronomy 6:5 is where it is given as a command, and one could argue that it is the most important verse in the entire OT. God is always talking about his love for his people, and that love is meant to be reciprocated. God’s gracious abundance and blessings are meant to be reacted to with thanksgiving and obedience, and so a happy and holy relationship with the creator of the universe would flourish. When David says in Psalm 119:113 that he loves God’s law, he doesn’t love it because it is a law, but because he loves God and love for his law expresses that rightly.

The second great command is like it, “love your neighbour as yourself.” When Jesus says that this commandment is like the first one, what he means is that this commandment is equally important to the first one, and that’s because it is an extension of the first one. While these are identified by Scripture as two separate commandments, first the love God and then to love man, the second cannot be completely divided from the first. It is impossible to show love to God while not showing love to your neighbour. It is also impossible to love your neighbour in a godly, biblical manner without first loving God. However, there is an important order to these commandments. The second commandment cannot be ignored and is part of the first, and at the same time the command to love your neighbour is subservient to the first.

Why is that? First, because it is more important to love God than man. To love people in equal or greater measure to God is idolatry and an unrighteous love. Second, because the reason we love people should ultimately be because of our love for God. OT Israel failed at the first and as a result they failed at the second.

John links these two commandments together in the middle by reminding his readers that, with all that has changed in the New Covenant, the purpose of God’s interactions with people have not changed. Everything that God has ever done with human beings has been to return them to this state in which we lovingly submit to God and enjoy the glory of his presence and blessings. John is not coming up for something totally new, the New Testament is built on the foundational ideas of the OT.

The New

And at the same time, there is a newness to this command. John tells his readers that the old command is the word they had from the beginning. It is unclear whether John is referring to when they first heart the Gospel or whether he is referring to the OT. I think the case can easily be made that he is somewhat referring to both. The commandment that God gave in the OT was the same commandment foundational in the Christian life and it is this commandment that John is writing to them.

So what is this newness? John explains it this way. Because it is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Now what does that mean? Well we know that these two commandments existed in the OT, but we also know that God’s people were not able to keep them. A righteous man was the exception is Israel’s history, not the rule and that fact is represented by the ratio of Godly kings to ungodly kings. The commandment existed, but the law had no power to make it a reality in the hearts of the people. But now the commandment has become true in him and in you, that is, in Christ the heart of the commandments were fulfilled for the first time. Only Christ loved his Father the way we ought to love God, and only Christ loved his fellow human being the way we ought to love those made in the image of God.

In this way, the Gospel message contained a new truth attached to a new reality. For the first time the commandment was fulfilled. When the Gospel was first preached to John’s readers, they weren’t simply being told to love God and love one another, they were told of one who obeyed those commandments on their behalf, and that his obedience became their righteousness before God.

But the text says that it is also true in the readers, it is true for us because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. We’ve seen how, when Christ came as the light of the world, he revealed God’s character to the world through his own life. He was the perfect image of God, the perfect man who not only walked in the light but displayed it perfectly in a way it had never been displayed before. Our call to walk in the light is predicated on the light being revealed through him. This is another newness to the two great commandments. First they are given but not followed, then they are fulfilled in Christ, now they are said to be true in us. How are they true in us? Because we walk in the light. The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining, a light that we are called to walk in. Next week we will look more into the commandment to love our neighbour, but if you look down to verse 9 you can see that walking in the light cannot be done by keeping the first commandment apart from the second.

Not only is your obedience to God’s moral character a display of walking in the light, but almost as an extension of that obedience, your love for your fellow human being, especially for other Christians. It doesn’t matter how moral your life looks in other ways, if you are not loving your neighbour, your brothers and sisters in Christ, you are walking in darkness. But if you are walking in the light, the commandments of old to love your God and love your neighbour have a new meaning for you. That meaning is centred on Christ and it empowers you to walk according to these commandments.

Conclusion

At the centre of the Christian faith is love. This love is a love for God based on a covenant relationship that is displayed in perfect submission to God and genuine love for fellow image-bearers. As Scripture is revealed over time, a lot of things change between the Old and New covenants. More and more light was shed until the coming of Christ. But through all that development, the central commandments of love never changed. This stands in the face of legalism, which is obedience without love. It stands in the face of living in sin, which is a declaration of love without any evidence to support it. In short, these two commandments set us on the balance we discovered in chapter 1, and the newness of this old commandment gives us the confidence to stride forward in the light, because when we do fall into sin we have an advocate who obeyed those commands perfectly on our behalf. This is the beauty of the Gospel in our lives. We must never think of salvation as freedom from these commands, nor these commands a substitute for salvation.

By the grace of God we are saved through faith in Christ and his obedience and atonement. Saved from the ignorance of the darkness for the freedom of light, and to experience all that those commandments were there for in the first place.