Book of 1 John Chapter 2 Vs. 7

The New Commandment

1 John 2:7 “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.”

Brethren, I write... Here, is speaking of those who are of a common faith. Jesus did not come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it. The commandment spoken of here, has to do with love. We are taught from the beginning to love one another.

Brethren (ἀδελφοὶ)

The correct reading is ἀγαπηοί beloved. The first occurrence of this title, which is suggested by the previous words concerning the relation of love.

Not referring to new in the sense of time but something that is fresh in quality, kind or form; something that replaces something else that has been worn out.

no new commandment… John makes a significant word play here. Though he doesn’t state here what the command is, he does (in 2Jhn. 5-6), it is to love. Both phrases refer to the same commandment of love.

No new commandment (οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν)

The Rev., properly, places these words first in the sentence as emphatic, the point of the verse lying in the antithesis between the new and the old. On new, see on Mat. 26:29.

The commandment of love was new because Jesus personified love in a fresh, new way and it was shed abroad in believer’s hearts (Rom. 5:5), and energized by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22; 1Thes. 4-9). He raised love to a higher standard for the church and commanded His disciples to imitate His love as I have loved you.

The command was also old because the Old Testament commanded love (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5), and the readers of John’s epistle had heard about Jesus’ command to love when they first heard the gospel.

Old (παλαιὰν)

Four words are used in the New Testament for old or elder. Of these γέρων and πρεσβύτερος refer merely to the age of men, or, the latter, to official position based primarily upon age. Hence the official term elder. Between the two others, ἀρχαῖος and παλαιός, the distinction is not sharply maintained. Ἁρχαῖος emphasizes the reaching back to a beginning ἀρχή Thus Satan is that old ἀρχαῖος serpent, whose evil work was coeval with the beginning of time (Rev. 7:9; 20:2). The world before the flood is the old ἀρχαῖος world (2Pet. 2:5). Mnason was an old ἀρχαῖος disciple; not aged, but having been a disciple from the beginning (Act. 21:16). Sophocles, in “Trachiniae,” 555, gives both words. “I had an old παλαιὸν gift,” i.e., received long ago, from the old ἀρχαίου Centaur.” The Centaur is conceived as an old-world creature, belonging to a state of things which has passed away. It carries, therefore, the idea of old fashioned: peculiar to an obsolete state of things.

Παλαιός carries the sense of worn out by time, injury, sorrow, or other causes. Thus the old garment (Mat. 9:16) is παλαιόν. So the old wine-skins (Mat. 9:17). The old men of a living generation compared with the young of the same generation are παλαιοί. In παλαιός the simple conception of time dominates. In ἀρχαῖος there is often a suggestion of a character answering to the remote age.

The commandment is here called old because it belonged to the first stage of the Christian church. Believers had had it from the beginning of their Christian faith.

Commandment

The commandment of love. Compare John 13:34. This commandment is fulfilled in walking as Christ walked. Compare Eph. 5:1, 5:2.

from the beginning... This phrase refers not to the beginning of time but the beginning of their Christian lives, as indicated (by verse 24; 3:11; and 2Jhn. 6). This was part of the ethical instruction they received from the day of their salvation and not some innovation invented by John, as the heretics may have said.

The Word is the commandment of God. Jesus said all the law and the commandments were caught up in loving God first, and then loving your fellowman as yourself. The commandment, then, is righteous love.

When we love Him, we walk as He walked.

1Jhn. 2:3-6 introduce the issue of obedience, though it was surely implicit also in 1Jhn. 1:5-10. But John’s insistence on obeying God’s commands as a test of one’s personal intimacy and knowledge of Him leads to a natural question: Which commands did John have in mind? The answer is offered here. John did not have in mind some new obligation which his readers had never heard. On the contrary the command foremost in his mind was an old one, which you have had since the beginning (cf. 2Jhn. 1:5). No doubt John thought here especially of the command to love one another (cf. 1Jhn. 2:9-11). He emphasized his point by adding that this old command is the message logos, lit., word; cf. 1Jhn. 1:5; 3:11) which you have heard the majority of mss. add again from the beginning. Whatever innovations the readers might be confronting because of the doctrines of the antichrists, their real responsibility was to a commandment which they had heard from the very start of their Christian experience (cf. heard and from the beginning in 1Jhn. 1:1; 2:24; 3:11).

John’s affectionate concern for them is seen in his use of Agapētoi, literally, Beloved and here rendered Dear friends. He used the same word in 1Jhn. 3:2, 3:21; 4:1, 4:7, 4:11 and Agapēte Dear friend in 3Jhn. 1:2, 1:5, 1:11.