How is the commandment to love our brothers and sisters an old one? Back on November 27, we learned that we were first told to love our neighbors as ourselves in the Law of Moses, specifically in Leviticus 19:18. John’s Jewish readers would thus have learned this commandment from childhood, and they doubtless would have tried very hard to keep it, with varying degrees of success.

But when Jesus gave the same commandment to us, John says it is new. Why is that? Because along with a relationship with Jesus comes the ability to keep the law. When we trust Him as Savior and bow the knee to Him as Lord, His Holy Spirit comes to live within us, shining His light into our hearts. This of course gives us a greater desire to do what He tells us, because we see Jesus and His love for us so much more clearly.

But this light also helps us see other people in a different way, not as obstacles to our own will, but as fellow sinners in need of salvation. When we walk in the light, when we live in the truth of our own sin, we are much more likely to be patient with other people when they inconvenience us or even hurt us, instead of hating them. Living in the reality of Christ’s power and love and in the reality of our own sin makes it possible truly to love even our enemies.

What’s the alternative? To go on living in the darkness, blind to the reality of Christ and the needs of the world around us. Who wants to live like that?

I John 2:7-11 (ESV)

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.
9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
11 But whoever 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.