1 John 2:7-11 Brothers, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning… I. IN CHRIST PERSONALLY THIS IS TRUE, "that the darkness is passing and the true light is shining." In so far as this is a continuous process, or progressive experience, it is true of Christ only as He walked on earth. Darkness is upon Him, around Him, in Him; the darkness of the sin with which He comes in contact, the sin which, in its criminality and curse, He makes His own. But, on the other hand, the true light is ever shining upon Him, around Him, in Him; the light of the Father's loving eye bent upon His suffering Son; the light of His own single eye ever bent upon the Father's glory. In Him this darkness and this light are incessantly meeting; present always, both of them, vividly present to His consciousness; felt to be real, intensely real — the darkness, however, always as passing; the true light always as now shining. II. WHAT IS TRUE IN HIM: SHOULD BE TRUE IN US, and should be realised by us as true in us as in Him. That is the apostle's new commandment. For we enter into the position of Him in whom, in the first instance, that is true. The commandment to us is to enter into His position. And it is a new position. It is new to everyone with whom the commandment finds acceptance and in whom it takes effect. 1. "The darkness is passing." Is it so with me, to me, in me? Then all that pertains to the darkness, all that is allied to it, is passing too. It is all like a term in course of being worked out in an algebraic question; a vanishing quantity; a fading colour. Plainly there is here a thoroughly practical test. This darkness is the absence of God. Now I come into contact with this darkness on every hand, at every point. Places, scenes, companies, from which God is shut out; works and ways from which God is shut out; people from whose minds and hearts God is shut out — I am in the midst of them all. Worse than that, they are in me, as having only too good auxiliaries in my own sinful bosom. How do I regard them? Do I cleave to them, to any of them? Would I have them to abide, at least a little longer? Would it pain me to part with them and let them pass? "The darkness is passing." Is that true in me, as in Christ, with reference not merely to the darkness of this world that has such a hold on me, but also and chiefly to the darkness of my own shutting out of God; the darkness of my shutting out of God from my own conscious guilt and cherished sin? That is darkness indeed. Is it passing? Am I glad of its passing? Or am I in some measure so loving it that I would not have it all at once pass? 2. "The true light is now shining." This is not represented as a benefit to be got, or as a reward to be reached, after the darkness shall have passed. It is a present privilege or possession. It is true, as a great fact, in you as in Christ, that the true light now shineth. And the fact of its now shining while the darkness is passing is the thing which is to be recognised as true in you as in Christ. That is the "new commandment"; a commandment always new; conveying in its bosom an ever-fresh experience, pregnant with ever-fresh experimental discoveries of Him who is light and who dwells in light. Only act up to this commandment; be ever acting up to it more and more. Enter into the spirit of it, and follow it out to its fair and full issues. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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