“And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked. 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. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:3-113And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 6He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. 7Brethren, 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. 8Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. 9He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. 11But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:3‑11)).
The apostle now brings before us some tests of Christian profession. It is one thing to say, “I am a Christian,” but it is another thing to be the possessor of divine eternal life. It is one thing to say, “I am a child of God,” and it is quite another to know the marvelous blessing of regeneration. Do we say we are Christians? Do we claim to be children of God? Then we must prove it by our lives.
“We do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” He is not speaking from a legal standpoint; it is not, as of old, that the commandments of God are presented to us with a view of obtaining life. The law said of the man who keeps His commandments, “Which, if a man do, he shall live in them.” But here, under grace, it is the opposite, the man who lives by faith will do His commandments. He who says he lives to God in Christ and yet is utterly indifferent to the will of God has never been born of God; he is still in “the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:2323For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. (Acts 8:23)). The child of God delights in obedience to the will of God; not, of course, that his obedience is perfect, for it is never that; there is only One who could say, “I do always those things that please Him” (John 8:2929And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. (John 8:29)). But where God has wrought the miracle of regeneration in the soul of a man, he finds within himself a love springing up for the will of God. He delights to walk in obedience to His Word, and thus he has corroborative evidence that he is a child of God. He not only rests upon the Word that says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” but he finds within himself that which corroborates his faith, that which proves he has been born of God. This new desire to do the will of God is not of the natural man. By nature we prefer to do our own will, we prefer to take our own way; but trusting Christ; we learn to delight in the Divine will.
“He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” How outspoken the Apostle John is! Some folk do not appreciate strong language like this. But we need to realize that the apostle is dealing with certain great abstract truths; men either love God or do not, they either walk in darkness or they walk in light. There are no gradations in between. Great outstanding principles are here brought before us, and by these we may test ourselves and see where we are. We may ask, “Do I delight in the will of God; do I love His commandments?” If I do not, there is no use professing to be a Christian, for in doing so I am uttering a falsehood. It is hypocrisy to take the ground of being a believer while in works denying my profession.
“He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.” There is a difference between keeping His word and keeping His commandments. Of course, a little farther down we are told that “the commandment is the word;” but we could hardly say the word is the commandment. The commandment is included in the word, but the word is more than the commandment. The word is the expression of the will of God, either given in direct commandment or otherwise, and we who are saved delight to keep His word. This is the approbation that the Lord puts upon Philadelphia, “Thou hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name” (Rev. 3:88I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. (Revelation 3:8)). Our Lord Himself makes this distinction between keeping His commandment and keeping His word. In the Gospel of John in one instance He says, “If ye love Me, keep my commandments” (John 14:1515If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15)), but farther on He adds, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words” (John 14:2323Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)).
I have sometimes tried to illustrate it like this. Here is a child, a little girl in the home. She is attending school, and after school she delights to play with her young companions. One day her mother says, “My dear, when you come home from school today, there are some chores I want you to do. Dust the living-room, prepare a few things for supper. I will have to be out for a time, but when you have done these things you can go out and play.” Because she is an obedient child, when she returns from school she does the things her mother has commanded her to do; she shows she loves her in this way. On another occasion she is under no such command, but coming home hears her mother speaking to the neighbor next door, and she is saying, “You know, I really do not know how I am going to get through this afternoon. I have invited company for dinner, and I am feeling so miserable and wretched that I haven’t my dinner ready. There are the potatoes to peel, the vegetables to prepare, and I do not know how I can get through.” In the morning she had said to the little daughter, “When you come home from school today you may have the time for play until I call you for dinner.” But the dutiful child hearing this conversation between the mother and her neighbor says, “Mother dear, you go and lie down for an hour; I will peel those potatoes, I will prepare those vegetables, I will set the table and help you get the dinner.” “But, my child, I told you you could play today,” the mother might answer. “Oh, but I wouldn’t be happy out playing knowing you were here at home feeling so badly,” the child would reply. Yesterday Mary kept her mother’s commands; today she is keeping her word. How it would gladden the mother’s heart to have her doing these things while under no command! The renewed soul pondering over the Word of God again and again finds direct commands, certain things concerning which the Lord has spoken in a definite way, and because he loves Him it is his delight to keep those commandments. But as he continues to read, he comes across one passage after another containing no command whatever, but expressing His desires, the longings of His heart for His own people, and the loving one says, “Because Thou hast won my heart, blessed Saviour, I keep Thy words.” “Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.” The word is the manifestation of what He is and of His dwelling in the believer. Thus the keeping of His word is the manifestation of the life of Christ in the one whom He has redeemed.
So the apostle adds, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” I cannot be all that He was; that is impossible, for He was the Holy One of God, and I in myself, although regenerated, am still a poor, failing, sinful man; but I am called upon to walk as He walked, for Christ has left us an example that we should follow His steps, and I am to glorify Him by my pilgrim behavior as I pass through this scene.
“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.” On a previous occasion we examined that expression, “From the beginning,” and we saw that it differs from the first words in the book of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:11In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)). That is the beginning of creation. And now this expression, “That which was from the beginning,” is carrying us back to the first manifestation of God in Christ and to the ministry of our blessed Lord when He was here on earth; and so when John says, “I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning,” he means this: I am not telling you something strange and something new when I talk to you in this way, but I am referring you back to the Word spoken by the blessed Lord when He was here on earth in the beginning of the Christian dispensation.
False teachers had come in who were foisting new things upon the people of God, and the apostle says that the test is this: Were these things taught from the beginning? — because as we have already seen, in Christianity, “What is new is not true, and what is true is not new.” We are not discovering Christianity. Christianity was a revelation committed to men by the Holy Spirit in the very beginning of the dispensation, and so John says, “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.” That is, go back to the records of our blessed Lord’s life, see what He Himself has taught, and walk in obedience to His Word, for “the old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.” It is not merely the summing up of the commandments when he says, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another,” but it is his instruction concerning obedience to the will of God.
But now this takes on a new character. Since Christ has died and risen from the dead, ascended to heaven, and has sent the Spirit of God to dwell in the hearts of believers, there are millions of regenerated men and women; and so to them the apostle declares, “Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” That is, the commandment is the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word was expressed in the life of Christ, but now if we are born again, the life of Christ has been communicated to us, so this thing is true in Him and in us. The only thing that Jesus could do when He was here on earth was the will of God. He had no other thought or desire. Well, now He dwells in us, and if we are Christians, we have His life communicated to us. So then when John speaks of His commandment, he says that it is new in this sense, because divine life is ours, and so it is true both in Him and in us. In other words, our blessed Lord in calling upon the regenerated soul to do the will of God is asking him to do the very thing that he longs to do. A mother calls in the physician to see her darling child. The little one seems to be very ill, and the doctor makes a careful examination, and says, “My dear mother, this little baby is very sick. I am going to leave you certain remedies. Do not neglect this child, do not be indifferent to its needs, watch over it very carefully, see that it gets its medicine regularly, that it is protected from anything that might make it worse instead of better. Mother, do take good care of this child!” Is he telling the mother something very hard for her to do? “Well, Doctor,” she would say, “that is the very thing I want to do. That is the very thing I intend to do. I love that darling little child and nothing would induce me to be careless in connection with it now. I long to do the very best that I can for it.” “Which thing is true in you.” The mother is told to do the very thing her heart yearns to do. And so the marvelous thing with us is that, “You, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works,” now love to do the things He asks us to do. We delight in the will of God.
“A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” The word past does not exactly suggest the tense of the original; what he is really saying is, “The darkness is passing, and the true light is now shining,” for we see as we look out upon the world around us or into the world within us that it is not exactly true that the darkness is past. Though the gospel of the grace of God has been preached for 1,900 years, the darkness is not yet fully past; there are still myriads sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death. No matter how well I know my Lord, no matter how well I know His Word, still it cannot be said in the fullest sense that the darkness is now past even in me, but the darkness is passing, and the true light is shining. Day by day I am getting to know my Lord better; day by day I am understanding His will more perfectly; but until the time comes that I leave this scene and see my blessed Saviour face to face, in me there will still be a measure of darkness, though all is light in Him.
Schiller, the German poet, said as he was dying, “I see everything clearer and clearer.” And, oh, it won’t be long until all the darkness will be gone, and we shall see everything in all its clearness in His own blessed presence.
In verses nine and ten the apostle speaks very seriously and very solemnly concerning something that may well exercise some of us. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” If you hate your brother, no matter what your profession, you are still in darkness. Now notice he does not say you may be a real Christian who has fallen into darkness; but he says, “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” He has never been anywhere else, he has never been in the light at all. You could not have divine light, you could not have the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad the love of God in the heart of a believer dwelling in you, and hate your brother. Let us test ourselves. How often you see people professing the name of Christ and yet manifesting hatred toward others.
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him,” because that is the manifestation of divine life. That life is light and love, as God is light and love; and as we walk in fellowship with Him, abiding in the light, there is no occasion of stumbling, and we are manifesting the love of Christ constantly. There is no place for hatred in the heart in which the love of God has been shed abroad by the Holy Spirit.
“He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” This is the natural darkness in which all men are born: “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Eph. 4:1818Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: (Ephesians 4:18)). That is the condition of man by nature. But our condemnation is not because of what we are by nature: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:1919And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)). Hear me; you are not responsible because you are a sinner by nature, but you are responsible if you reject the Saviour. You are not responsible because you were born in the darkness, because your understanding is darkened, but you are responsible if you reject the light that comes to you through the Word of God; light which will chase away all the darkness if you walk in it, instead of turning from its searching rays.
But if men persist in rejecting light, there may come a day when God will withdraw the light. In Jeremiah 13:1616Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. (Jeremiah 13:16) we read, “Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.” That is the “strong delusion” of which we read in Thessalonians. Then there is only one step more—eternal darkness— “Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1313Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. (Jude 13)). “He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.” But Jesus says, “I am the Light of the World: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:1212Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12)). Have you truly trusted Him? Is He your light? Is He your life today?
“I heard the voice of Jesus say,
‘I am this dark world’s light.
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,
And all thy days be bright.’
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my star, my sun,
And in that light of life I’ll walk,
Till traveling days are done.”