Just As I Have Loved You

⁷ Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. ⁸ At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Passage

1 John 2:7-17 - A New Commandment

Conditions

Happy family after a relaxing day and some sledding in the snow - we don’t have to dream of a white Christmas now. Although we have been listening to the song as we drive along. 

Time

Unhurried. Blessed season.

Teaching

I looked at this passage a bit before we sat down, read the comments in the FWBG. Eventually I settled on a comparison of the old and new commandment, because it gives the children a case to crack. First, what is the commandment about? We can trace the focus in the passage. Don’t hate your brother, love your brother, don’t love the world. It’s about love. Immediately the children were quoting the second great commandment. 

Back to Leviticus we went and read.

¹⁸ You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

How about the new commandment? John doesn’t explicitly say it in the epistle, but Jesus does in the gospel. 

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

They look the same, don’t they? What’s the difference? We read very slowly and discovered the phrase: “just as I have loved you.” There it is. That is what’s new about the new (old) commandment. It has now been demonstrated that love is the laying down of one’s life for the good of another, in the most dramatic and unambiguous way. This is a “you first” love. My wife submitted some concrete examples at this point of putting another before ourselves, all very relevant to the children. 

This is a blessed teaching of Scripture because it is one of the great confusions in the world “What is love?” Who gets to define love? God has spoken and acted so that we may know what love is. God is love. God the Son has, in love, laid down His life for His friends. And this commandment is now given to us who would abide in the light - let us love another, just as He has loved us.

Songs

Glory to Three My God This Night