Lt of John, 1 John 2:9-11 Old-New Comandment
1 John 2:9-11 · Andrew Molloy · Apr 3, 2022
Letters of John (2022), No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261926324931

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

First John, chapter two, verses seven and eight. And I'll read from verse three, because I think that's in context. So, First John. I say, oh, I've got to change the slide, this is chapter one, doesn't it? I forgot to change that sometimes, that happens. But we're in chapter two, verse three. And today's lesson is seven and eight, so I'll start from verse three.

By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. The one who says, I have come to know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, The love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in him. The one who says he abides in him ought to himself walk in the same manner as he walked.

Here's our verse 7 and 8. Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment, which you have heard 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, yet hates the brother, and this is for next week, is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there's 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. So we're in seven and eight, and that's kind of the context of where we are in 1 John chapter two.

First of all, I'll look at this word beloved. I'm going to take it phrase by phrase, not word by word this morning. John uses this, and Macaulay points this out, he uses the word beloved, but he's not talking, he's not saying, it's just people he's talking to. I love you with an agape love. He's saying it means you're beloved by God, divinely loved ones is the meaning there. And I think we've hit on that before in the previous lessons.

So he's mimicking what God thinks about people. these believers he's writing to. Macaulay says, he has two steps, and I think it's good Macaulay has this. Step one is, what is God's view of a person? What does God think of anyone? You, me, the guy down the street, whatever. And then step two, we are to adopt, to adopt the same view. Hence, John says they are beloved of God and he adopts the same view.

So Macaulay points out Ephesians 4.32, which is, what is it? It's obedience. So, well, no, it's forgiveness, right? Forgiveness. So forgive others as Christ has forgiven you, or God has forgiven you.

Ephesians 5.25 is love your wives as Christ loved the church. So you adopt the same view.

Romans 15.7 is, I'm doing this by memory because I didn't write down the verse. It's to, someone look that up. I had that this morning. It's accept others as Christ accepted you, I believe. It is, okay, so it's accept, yes. So I should have wrote those down, but there you go. So you have to love, forgive, and accept. So you're adopting the same view as God, and I like that.

So this first part, verse seven, I'm not writing a new commandment to you. And last week from Bob's lessons, we have that commandment is the Greek word etole. It's an order, a charge, a precept. And it refers back to, he was covering 1 John 2, 3, and 4, and the instruction to keep his commandments, that word tereo.

But in 1st John 2.5, John carries it further, right? We are to keep his word, his logos. And that's, logos is a word uttered by speech expressing a conception or a concept or an idea or a doctrine or a teaching. So we are also to keep that as well as keep his commandments. I think last week in Bob's lesson, or maybe the week before, or a couple weeks ago, he had these, he had, what is the difference between keeping his word and keeping his commandment? And back then I said, well, I think he's using the same thing maybe interchangeably. That was my thought back then. I've changed my mind on that.

This illustration by A.J. Ironside, he gives the illustration that there's this little girl, like 10 years old, fifth grade, so every day after school, she goes home and plays with her friends after school. And she has that ongoing thing. Well, one day her mom says, today I don't want you to go home and play with your friends.

First come in the house and dust and then prepare the, peel the potatoes for dinner. So that's what you have to do tomorrow. So she does that. She comes home, dusts, peels the potatoes, and then she goes out to play with her friends. So a few weeks later, she gets up to go to school and here's her mom, maybe on the phone with her neighbor. Her mom is stressed and really anxious because she's been sick, not sleeping, and she invited some friends over for dinner. So she has to make dinner for a couple. So they're coming over for dinner tonight.

So the girl, same thing, she's gonna play with her friends, but instead she goes home and she dusts and she peels the potatoes and prepares the vegetables for dinner. And her mom goes, oh, what are you doing? I thought you were gonna play today. And the little girl said, well, I heard you talk on the phone and I wouldn't have a good time playing with my friends because you were, you're in bad shape here with this dinner coming up. So I thought I'd come and help you out. So mom, you go take a nap for an hour and then I'm just helping you with dinner. So that's the difference between keeping command and keeping the word of your mother. She knows her mother and she knows what her mother needs and that's keeping her mother's word. And I like that illustration. This word, new commandment, so that's either neos or kynos, right? So which is it here?

Is it new in time or newly created or just created? Or is it new in quality or new in kind? So it's either new in time, sorry, new in time or new in kind, in quality, or unprecedented. Which do you think it is? So this new, the word new in new commandment.

Maybe I have to answer that. Yeah, which is kind of. One of the things that I look at is that it is new because our Lord says it's the kind of love that I have loved you. Yeah. It's the love that you have for yourself. Right. So it is. Yeah. I cheated and I looked it up. The word is kynance. Yeah.

I thought you guys would come up with that right away, but it is kynance. So a context tells us, oh, so it is kainos, it's new in quality, new in kind, and not new in time, it's not like a newborn baby. So he's saying to you, I have a new in quality or kind commandment for you. So my question was then, because this was, two weeks ago I looked at this and I said, I can't, these two verses, So I was like, so I was going to punt, right? And go on vacation. So I took it and here's what it is. Context tells us. However, with John and his writing, I'm getting used to it.

He doesn't tell you what the commandment is right here in 7 and 8. He intimates it in 9, 10, 11. And then outright, he states it. You have to go away to chapter 3 to find out what this commandment is. And here it is. Or this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. And that's 311. 323 is, this is the commandment. See how it's very clear, but two chapters later, that we believe in the name of the son of Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us. Okay, so, because it could be, there's, how many commandments are there? 10 plus 623, right? in the old law. So love one another is a pivotal command in all the gospels and Paul has it.

Peter has it in his epistles. The writer of Hebrews has it. Whoever that was, probably Paul. James has it. He has love your neighbor as yourself. And there I've referenced where it occurs in the letters of Paul, John, Hebrews. It carries through all dispensations, doesn't love.

I mean, in the Old Mosaic Law, and then in the Millennial Kingdom Law, and then here in the Church Age, and we're in the dispensation of grace here. So, and it comes from John 13, 34, is where Christ first gives it. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I love you. So, Jesus says it's a new commandment. when he first uttered it. John then refers to it as old now.

And that should be 2-7, right? 2-7, oh yeah, sorry. Oh yeah, that's 2-7. It's like on the top, it's 2-7. 2-I, so if you're... I'll try and get to that before I speak it out to everyone. So 2-7, it is old now. One, it could be, it's about 60 years ago that Christ said this, because it's 90-something, maybe even year 100, and he said this command in AD maybe 33, right? So that could make it old. That's a good interpretation.

But he says in verse 7 here of chapter 2 of 1 John, it's from since the beginning. And Bob's lesson from a few weeks ago, he looked at this word beginning. And it can either mean A, at creation, or B, before that. The beginning could mean, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. So it could be that beginning, which is before the beginning. Or it could mean the beginning of the ministry of Christ, or the beginning of Christianity. So, did you have something, Raleigh? Are you asking me? Oh yeah, no, I thought I heard someone pipe up there. Okay, so the conclusion was that Bob reached from 1 John 2 24. Let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. And that's the best. It's the beginning, and Macaulay has this, it's the beginning of their Christian life when they first heard the commandment to love one another as Christ loved them. Yeah.

Could we say that the disciples were Christians? You know, because Christ hadn't died at that point. They were probably believers, but I wouldn't say they were Christians. Well, yeah, Christian, ah, that's a good question. Yeah, that is a good question. Because they just have the knowledge of him dying on the cross and resurrection. Yeah, the reason I say that is Zane Hodges says the same thing, that it's when they were Christians, well, I don't believe anybody was Christians back in the Kingdom era. Yeah, and they were technically in the Kingdom era. You know, they were technically saved Jews.

Yeah, but I can't say that. I can't. And we'll look at that a little more because there's a time when Christ was preaching to the Jews, right, about the Kingdom. Right. So he had this ministry. and he was trying to get the Jews to accept him as king, but then he ends that and he says, oh, Israel, how I wanted to gather you under my wings as a hen, but now I'm leaving you, I'm done. And so he goes on, but then he starts with the Christian message, I'd say, prior to when he died on the cross.

So John 13, 14, John 15, John 16, John 17, that's all. That's not kingdom stuff. That's church-age stuff. So there's a blend, though. The point in time is hard to distinguish, but that's a good question. One more thing. I don't believe anybody was You know, this is just my personal belief.

I don't believe anybody was a Christian until the Holy Spirit actually entered into them, and the Holy Spirit guided them. Then you could say they're Christian. And then they were born again, right? They're born again, yeah. And they had to depend on their old, their soul, and a spirit without those indwelling Holy Spirits.

So yeah, that's a good point. That's good. write a thesis on that. I'll write a doctoral thesis on that. I don't have a master's degree yet. But I'll be, I'll sort of be lazy and just, so I'll save the Christians for this, the purposes of this morning. But it's good and when is that beginning is what we're trying to get to here.

And it's context is really important because You could say the beginning is the beginning of the commandment to love, which is back in Leviticus, love your neighbor. And some, I think, commentators would have that, well, that was first issued back then. Or the Ten Commandments, love God with all your heart. So this word beginning is a little, kind of tough, but I think it is from what Kali says, when you first heard it, or you became a Christian.

So we're talking about us now. Yeah. Yeah. For us, it's when we became Christians. For the disciples, it's when they started realizing that Jesus really is the Messiah. Yeah. And what he's teaching is true. And Jesus was teaching love from the beginning. He was.

And also, you know, I would say, too, that at the very beginning, when the disciples became disciples, they were still on this Jewish path, you know, and they were thinking he was the king. I mean, in their mind, it was still that. They had to go through quite a transition to get on the other side of that, where they realized, no, he's not the king. there's something else here. The messiah is something different than the king. It was a process, and I'm not sure all of them actually really grasped that until he died. Good point, good point.

So he says in verse eight, to begin verse eight, on the other hand, I'm writing a new commandment to you. So my first reaction was, what? I thought it wasn't a new commandment, but it was an old commandment. You just told us it was an old commandment. So that's John for you, huh?

But if you worked it and we're gonna work this through this is our job for the next time New again is in the first aid is Kainos And it's not Neos so it's Neos is newly created or born in time and Kainos is new in quality. And I have this, I came up with this refreshed maybe kainos. Yeah, is a good way to think about it for now, but I think I changed my mind on the next slide. So I asked, why is the commandment to love one another now refreshed or kainos?

And that's the crux of today's exploration into these two verses. But again, context is important. So in John, he has, John leaves all these lines open, these open doctrinal lines. He's got, uh... in in chapter one fellowship with the father and his son jesus christ and fellowship with one another fellowship with us so that's going to be a fellowship and then he has walking in the light as he himself is in the light and he has fellowship with one another and he has the cleansing from sin and unrighteousness and the forgiveness of sins so he has all of these open so and that's What's hard for me with John is all this is going on at the same time so far. So that's our context.

So what it is, and later on in the letter, in 2.6, in chapter 2, verse 28, and more places, he has that we are to abide in Christ, abide in him. So that makes this commandment, to love one another, new in spirit and vitality. And the refreshment is not accomplished by us necessarily, it's the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. So that's how we get this kainos, new commandment, even though it's an old commandment. So boar illumination comes from vine.

Kainos contrasted to the other Greek word for new, neos. Vine says that neos may be a reproduction of an old thing, of an old thing in quality or character. So you have a new and kind thing, kainos, but then if you replicate it again, It's Neos. It's new. So it's very interesting. And you see where I'm going with this. So you have Neos, which is new in time, and Kinos, which is completely new. And here's what he says, which helps a lot. Kinos is new in form, a different nature from the old. So when he says it's a different nature from from the old, what does that make me think of?

Different nature. Ah. The new nature. Yes. Yeah, the two natures. The old nature and the new nature. And the new nature is always Kainos. The new man, Kainos. The old nature. So that's kind of neat. It's a different nature. And we're loving now in a different nature than we had under the old. So that's interesting.

Let me get into this, what Jim was sort of talking about from Schaeffer and the history of this commandment to love. So we're gonna go a little back into the Old Testament. at Leviticus 19, 18, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So Schaeffer says that the standard for that command, that's a Levitical command or a Mosaic command, one of the 632 laws to the nation of Israel, love your neighbor as yourself, the standard is, how much you love yourself. So I'm to love Margaret as I love myself. So if I have low self-esteem, I hate myself. So that's the standard.

However, Christ came along, and he's the end of the law for all who believe Romans 10.4. So that dissemination is now ended. Now Christ is on the scene on earth. And in Matthew 544, he says, you've heard it back in Leviticus that you are to love your neighbor as yourself and hate your enemies.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So what's the standard there? The standard is, It doesn't really say, but I think it's how much you hate your enemy, right? How much does Zelensky hate Putin? So now Zelensky, President Zelensky of the Ukraine has to not hate him anymore and has to love him.

So he can do that, that's possible. And he can do that in his, in his soul and he doesn't probably need the Holy Spirit to do that. And that's kingdom law, that's millennial kingdom law. You see it's in Matthew 5. So Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Christ is laying down all these laws. And he nullifies the old law. He nullifies the mosaic law. He says, you've heard this, but I say, and he's making, right there, he's making a new law. And he can do that because he's, he's, he's God, right? So he's saying, you've heard that, but that's done.

It's a new law. It's, and right then you could say it's a, Well, you could say it's a NEOS law, but you could say probably too it's a KINOS law too because it's got a new standard. Would it be a new principle of life? Yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, because they're gonna have a principle of life, those Jews in the Millennial Kingdom, aren't they? So it's interesting that this, the Millennial Kingdom law is not done away with. He just set it aside, right? It's set aside. It's gonna be in the future, so.

I don't want to take up too much time, but I don't recall ever seeing in the Old Testament a command to hate your enemies. I think the Pharisees got that from Psalm 139, near the end of the chapter, when David said, Oh Lord, don't I hate those who hate you? Don't I despise those who abuse your name? So the Pharisees took that and said, It's legal for us to hate our enemies.

Right. Right. And nowhere does the Bible say that to hate our enemies. Yeah. But see, I think what Jesus did, he pulled that from their traditions. Right. Because they heard it. He said, you've heard it said, I'm going to bring this in because that's your law. So I'm going to put that to you. So that's where he pulls it.

And it's not overt, but it's It's implicitly stated, I'd say, in the Old Testament, and they got that. The Pharisees just took this scripture and made a law out of it. They made it their tradition, like they did so many other things with the Sabbath traditions and everything, that Jesus said, I'm Lord of the Sabbath, your traditions don't mean anything. And Christ didn't break any of the Mosaic law. He broke a lot of their Their traditions, he broke those all over the place, and they got all bent out of shape. He never broke the actual law, right?

So that's the Millennial Kingdom Law. So Schaefer makes a point, you see how the degree of difficulty and human ability is increasing from the simple Mosaic law to the kingdom law, which is harder, a lot harder to love your enemies, to this new commandment in John 13, 34.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. So Schaefer says, oh, so what is the standard first of this command? You see what the standard is in John 13, 34? Well, it's the standard is for that. The standard is love one another as I have loved you. So that's the standard. Yeah, that's a whole new deal. That's a whole new deal. New kind of steel, right? Has nothing to do with your how you feel about yourself. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This is this is all a drop of love. Right? Yeah. Right. Right. So Schaefer says a he always uses this word.

It's superhuman well It's it's impossible. It's Christ in you. Yeah, it has to be that However, he says that the Holy Spirit through the operation grace provides supernatural sufficiency to meet the superhuman heavenly conduct. And that's our reasonable life and service. So it's a superhuman thing to do, but we have supernatural resources, right? In the Holy Spirit. So that's encouraging.

We are not under, and I think I hit this before, but we're not under the mosaic law system, nor the millennial kingdom law system, but we're under grace, Romans 6, 14. Let's move on to this, which is, I'm writing a new commandment to you in verse eight, which is true in him and in you. And what's that all about? the new commandment, which is true in him and true in you.

So I'm reading my own question here, trying to catch up with myself from the lesson. I don't know what to say there. Anyway, do you ever find in your lessons? But anyway. Oh, is that is that here's what I'm asking myself. I just wrote it kind of bad.

I'm writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you. So is it. Is John saying, and this is tough about John too, is he saying that this commandment is new in you and new in Christ? Is this commandment in Christ? So is he talking about the commandment? Is that true in him and in you?

And the answer is, No, because it's a grammatical trust-weast here. The witch is neutered, and the commandment is in the feminine gender voice. in the feminine gender. So he's not talking about the commandment, he's talking about the concept that he brought forward, the fact of the thing that the commandment was once old and now it is new. So it's not the commandment, but it's the concept of the commandment now being new and it was once old. Because you can't say that this commandment was in Christ, but you could say that the fact that Christ has this kinos newness in him, in his life.

So it's a fact that you love one another is true both in him and true in us. And true in him is obvious because he's a source of love. He's a source of agape love. He's got it in eternal, in time. It's part of this essence. He's got it to an infinite degree.

But true in us is, that's true too, because we've been placed in him. Romans 6, 3, and 4. But our level of it being true in us is not his level, right? Do you see that? So he's got it to an infinite degree, and we've only got it partially or imperfectly, but we're growing into his likeness and image. And here's the thing that Macaulay says about this phrase, which is true in him and true in you. He says it's a double preposition because it emphasizes the difference of it being true in Christ and true in us. He does not say true in him and you because it's the variation of degrees, right?

But Romans 6.4 gives us some good insight into this, Romans 6.4, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life. And the question there is, in 6.4 Romans, newness, which one is that? And that's an easy one, it's Kainos. But that's how we can accomplish this new commandment to love one another as Christ loved us. Let's go on to, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining, in verse eight. And that's a tough one, isn't it? That's a lot there.

Passing away is paraketai, and that doesn't mean past, like it happened, and it's in the past, but in the Greek. people who understand the Greek kind of tenses and things like that, it means it's passing by, like a parade, he says. It's here and it passes by you and it goes down the street and you're waiting for the next marching band to come along or the next baton throwers, whatever. But I like that, it's going by and passing by and disappearing like a parade. is the kind of force of that word, parakeetai. Paul has it in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, for God who commanded the light to shine on the darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And you see how that It's a tough phrase because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

It's a lot there. It's tough to sort of break down because it's pretty deep. But I'm just using scripture to sort of shine a light on it. And I think that 2 Corinthians 4, 6 is good. And you see how Paul uses the light to shine out of darkness, whereas John was light and dark from chapter one. So there's a lot of parallel thoughts here.

Or 2 Corinthians 5.17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, a new kainos creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And even more, this is from 1 Corinthians 13, starting, I think, at verse nine.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, for which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I've become a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even though I was fully known.

But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three. And the greatest of these is love. And I chose this passage because you see that word, And I don't know what the Greek word is. Some translation has it darkly as dimly. But King James, or one of the American Standard Version, the old one, has darkly. So that is because we're talking about darkness and light in John here.

So this is a progressive thing, right? We see darkly, but someday we'll see it all when we're with Christ. And this being 1 Corinthians 13, we're talking about love, aren't we, in that chapter? And we're going to get to it next week. But John is transitioning into, well, he's talking about love, too, because we're talking about the commandment to love one another. It reminds me also of deliver us from death. that we might get the life of Jesus might be revealed through us. Yeah, yeah. What I'm trying to think about, that's from my... We just passed it in... Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, but there you go. Oh, and to sort of conclude here, Oh, wait, I guess I should conclude, should not, we're out of time. But this next verse has always eluded me, that I'm gonna give you, because of the, there's this phrase, in our hearts.

I couldn't understand that, and this is 1 Peter 1, 19. And he says, so we have the prophetic word made sure to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in the dark place. And there we have that theme that we're on to. Reminds me of Gideon's war when they had to bust the lamps so the light could shine through it. Yeah, okay. Let me read this last part here.

Until the day dawns and the morning star arises in our hearts. And I never understood why that in our hearts is here, because he's talking about Christ. And I always think that Christ came the first time as the morning star, and then he's coming again as the son of righteousness. And that's sort of, he comes in two phases. uh when he came he was the bright morning star he came to israel in the time of darkness he's coming again at the second coming as a son of righteousness but it's in our hearts i couldn't understand that phrase but now i understand it by reading first john 2 8 and that's very similar John says because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. The true light is Christ.

And the darkness has passed. It's progressively getting lighter and lighter. And this is arising in our hearts. I'm like, oh, I got it. Was also Satan referred to as the morning star? No. At some point, there's a whole thing on the Morning Star. We went through that for a start. 2 Peter, remember that? 2 Peter. We had that in class about the Morning Star. Well, the Morning Star, though, is Christ, right? It's Satan. Satan is your counterfeit. Yeah, he's an angel of light. And maybe they refer to him like that in Job or something.

But for this one, it's, it's, it's. So, okay, I'll leave it there because we're out of time. sorry i had five i had roger's final thoughts and no no no that's a joke yeah well you can do it final thoughts next week next week i can yeah i could uh next week but uh yeah because final thoughts i you know i just they are just Are we good now? Yeah, we're close. Yeah, do you want those? Sure, sure.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word. And thank you just for the just the magnificence of it, Lord, how it just really speaks to our hearts and shows us who Christ is and why he came. Lord, we thank you for Andrew and his time he put in on the message. And thank you for this day. We ask in his name. Amen.