1st John chapter 2 verses 7 through 11.

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word which you have heard.

Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true in him and in you,

because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already

shining. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light and in it there is no causing for stunning.

But he 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. Today's text, versus 7 through 11 now, falls into two parts. The first part is versus

versus 7 and eight, and the second is versus nine to 11.

Now I think versus nine to 11 are basically a repetition of something we've seen twice already in chapter 1 verses 5 to 7 and in chapter 2 versus 3 to 5. It's the application of a test so that a person can show whether he's

in the light or not, whether he knows God, whether he's walking in the light. And the test,

in this case, happens to be love or hate.

So I'm not going to focus on those verses.

I'm going to get to them at the end and put them in a certain context, but we're going to spend almost all of our time on verses 7 and 8, because

here's something new in the book is introduced and it is tremendously important.

And so I want to ask four questions about

verses seven and eight.

First, what is this commandment that's referred to here that's said to be old and yet new. Second, in what

sense is it old? Third, in what sense is it new? And then finally, fourth, why does John go out of his way to stress its

oldness and its newness. And I think if we can answer those four questions,

the insight of these texts for our faith and obedience will become clear. So let's take them one at a time and do that.

What is the commandment in view? Because it's not quoted here in these verses. We have to guess at it, but John doesn't make it hard for us to guess.

I think he's assuming that the people that he had taught so well would know immediately what he means by New Commandment.

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