Robert S. Candlish · 1 John 2:7–8
“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.”—1 JOHN 2:7, 8.
WHAT commandment does John mean? Is it the same commandment throughout? If so, in what sense is it at once old and new?
Some will have it to be the commandment of brotherly love, introduced at the ninth verse. There is an awkwardness, however, in thus making these two verses describe a commandment not yet mentioned. It is an unnatural mode of writing. And it is unlike the apostle’s usual simplicity, to be as it were sounding a trumpet of preparation for the precept which he so commends, with a sort of rhetorical paradox about its being not new but old, and yet again new, and all this before the precept itself is indicated. And the last clause of the seventh verse seems conclusive against that view. The apostle tells what the commandment is. It is “the word which ye have heard from the beginning.” Surely this may best be understood as referring back to the word of life (1:1), which the apostle says he and his fellow-apostles had from the beginning heard and seen and handled, and which, he adds, we declare unto you. Is not that what he means here by “the word which ye have heard”?
It is not new but old, as old as the first preaching of the gospel. I am no setter-forth of novelties or strange doctrines. What I write (1.) concerning the fellowship of light and joy with the Father and the Son into which your believing knowledge of the word, through the teaching of the Spirit, introduces you; (2.) concerning the indispensable condition of that fellowship, your walking in the light as he is in the light; (3.) concerning the sacrifice and advocacy of Jesus Christ, as meeting that sense of sin and shortcoming which otherwise must be ever fatally dimming the light, and marring the joy, of the fellowship; and (4.) concerning the obligation of a sinless aim, an obedient heart, a Christlike walk, if you would really know God, and have his love perfected in you, and be in him;—all that, which I am writing to you, is old. It is no new discovery, no new despatch from heaven. It is “an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning.”
But what of the intimation that follows,—“a new commandment I write unto you”? It is not merely a thrice-told tale that I am writing to you about. There is something fresh and new about it. And what is that?
It is the realising of this fact, or this thing, as true, first in Christ and then in yourselves, that “the darkness is past,” or is passing, “and the true light is now shining.”
For so this clause really runs. It is not a reason for the thing which is true; it is the very thing itself;—“which thing is true, in him and in you; this, namely, that the darkness is past, or is passing, and the true light now shineth.”
This is what constitutes the newness of the old commandment. It is a new thing to have this fact becoming matter of consciousness;—the fact of its being true, in Christ and in you, that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining. The obligation to make this good is emphatically a new commandment. It commands, or commends, what must ever be felt to be a novelty.
Thus viewed, this new commandment may bring out a singularly close parallelism or identity between Christ and all who, abiding in God, walk as Christ walked.
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. Look at him, then, in his human life.
A new commandment is given to him, a new charge or commission from above. Something new is given to him to be learned as a message or lesson. It is the message or lesson of its being true in him that the darkness passeth, and the true light now shineth. He is placed in new circumstances. He is plunged into the very thickest of the fight that is evermore waged here below between the two. On the one hand, darkness—the darkness that is opposed to the light which God is, and in which God is, the light which is at once his nature and his dwelling-place,—that darkness is no stranger to him; he no stranger to it. Neither outwardly in his history, nor inwardly in his inmost soul, is he a stranger to it or it to him. 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.
For this is the peculiarity of the position. The darkness is on its way to the oblivion in which all the past lies buried, because there is now true light shining. It is no longer a doubtful struggle, or one that might issue in a drawn battle. The seed of the woman is bruising the head of the serpent. The true light now shining is causing the darkness to pass. So Jesus perseveres. Otherwise he must have given way. In him, even when in his experience and to his agonised consciousness, the darkness is deepest, it is still a darkness which is passing, and is realised as passing. In him, even then, the true light is shining. It is a present shining; it is the true light shining now. It is not merely that there might be in him, amid the darkness, some memory of the true light shining once, of old, from everlasting; or some anticipation of its shining again soon, to everlasting. But the true light is shining in him now; the light of conscious victory over the passing darkness. Therefore “for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross.”
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 every one with whom the commandment finds acceptance, and in whom it takes effect. It is a new thing for me, in compliance with this commandment, to apprehend it to be true, in Christ and in me,—in me as in Christ,—that the darkness is evanescent, vanishing, passing, and that the true light is now shining. Nay more, it is a new thing for me every moment. Not once for all, but by a constant series of believing acts and exercises of appropriation, I recognise it as true in him and in me, that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining.
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. Is it thus that I practically regard the whole kingdom of darkness, and all the works of darkness, and all the terrors of darkness; the power of darkness; the darkness of this world and the rulers of it?
Plainly there is here a thoroughly practical test. What is the darkness to me as regards my relation to it and my esteem of it? Or the things of darkness—what are they? I know well enough what the darkness, in this use of the word, means; what it is. It means, it is, the shutting out of God. For darkness is the absence of light. But God is light. This darkness therefore is the absence of God, the shutting out of God. In whatever place or scene or company God is shut out there is darkness. Whatever work or way God is shut out from, that is a work or way of darkness. Whoever shuts out God from his thoughts is a child of darkness. 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; they press upon me; I cannot get rid of them. Tempting, flattering, cajoling; or trying, threatening, persecuting; they are on me like the Philistines on Samson. 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? Or is it this very feature about them all that they are passing,—that the darkness which owns them all is passing, —that I fasten upon for relief and comfort? Is it that which alone reconciles me to my being still obliged for a season to tolerate and have dealings with the darkness?
For dealings with this darkness I cannot but have. I have to go down into its depths to rescue, if it may be, its victims. And I have to resist its solicitations when its ministers come to me disguised as angels of light. My soul, like the righteous soul of Lot, must be vexed with the evil conversation and ungodly deeds that the darkness covers in Sodom. I have to stand its assaults; and when reviled, revile not again. So this darkness, this shutting out of God, with its manifold influences and agencies, besets me. How do I feel towards it? Have I still some sympathy with it in some of its less offensive aspects? Am I still inclined to make terms with it, so as to disarm its hostility, and even taste, in some safe manner and degree, its friendship? Would its instant and thorough disappearance from before me,—would my instant and thorough removal from beside it,—be altogether welcome? Would I have it stay with me or pass from me? Is the darkness of this world, with its pursuits and pleasures and amusements, its seductions, its associations, its customs and fellowships,—in which God is not, and therefore light is not,—is it a lingering friend to me, or a departing stranger, a retreating foe?
“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 somehow, and in some measure, loving it still?—so loving it that I would not have it altogether or all at once pass? Say that my sin is finding me out;—the sin, generally, of my state and character before God, or some particular sin. Say that I am falling away from my first love, or coming again under the dominion of some form of evil;—that, in some particular matter, my heart is not right with God. So far as that matter is concerned, I would shut out God. I would put in something between him and me; some excuse; some palliating circumstance; some countervailing aspect of goodness; some plea of self-justification of some sort. That is the darkness which, in such a case, I naturally love. And I feel myself drawn to love it, even in spite of my experience of the more excellent way of guilelessness on my part towards God, and grace on God’s part towards me. But is it passing—this darkness? Is it passing with my own consent? Do I make it free and right welcome to pass? Or do I cleave to it as if I would still have a little of it to abide with me? Ah! this darkness, this shutting out of God! How apt am I, if not to ask it, at least to suffer it, to return and remain. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
“The darkness is passing.” Is this my stay, my hope, my joy in the hour of its fiercest power? When it gathers thickest and falls heaviest, hiding God’s face from me; when all about me and in me is so dark that I cannot see my signs; when a sense of guilt sinks me as in a dark pit, and “the sorrows of death compass me, and the pains of hell get hold upon me, and I find trouble and sorrow;”—let me fasten on this “thing which is true in Christ and in me, that the darkness is passing.” I am suffering with Christ, undergoing a kind of crucifixion with him. To me, as to him,—to me conscious of sin, my own and not another’s,—the cup of wrath is presented. On me, as on him, the awful blackness of that day of doom settles down. To me, as to him, sin is indeed exceeding sinful; and the death, which is its wages, terrible. Sold under sin, I am consciously, with a keen and nervous sensitiveness of conscience, dying that death. My faith is failing. Unbelief all but has the mastery. But a new commandment is given me, and a new power, at the critical moment, to realise it as a thing true in Christ, and therefore true in me, that this darkness is passing. In him it is true only through his draining the cup of wrath, dying the accursed death for me. O my soul, bless thou the Lord, that it is already and most graciously true in thee, because so terribly true in him, that, without cost to thee, though with infinite cost to him, this great darkness passes away for ever!
2. “The true light is now shining.” This “thing also is true in Christ and in you;” in you as in Christ; in you because in Christ. And it is to be apprehended and felt as true now. The true light now shineth. It is not said that this true light is to shine hereafter. 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, —a thing which is true in Christ and in you,—that all the time the darkness is passing the true light is shining. “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” That is the gospel call to the Church and to every member of it. It is true, as a great fact, in you as in Christ, that the true light now shineth. Its present shining is in you, as truly as in him, a blessed reality.
For this true light now shining, which is a true thing in you as in Christ, is simply what Christ found it to be; God’s loving eye upon you, and your single eye towards God. That is the true light now shining. 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. The newness of it, its constant novelty, will be more and more apparent, or at least more and more felt and relished. A loving Father’s eye ever fixed upon you, and a filial eye in you ever fixed upon him;—that, I repeat, is the true light now shining in you as in Christ. It is not outward revelation only; it is inward illumination as well. It is the Spirit that dwelt in Christ dwelling also in you; shedding abroad in your hearts the love of God, and calling forth the simple response of obedient love in return. Let no child of God say that this shining of the true light must be reserved for the future. The true light shineth in him as in Christ now. The new commandment concerning it is in force now. It is a great fact, a thing which is true in Christ,—not in Christ considered as glorified, but in Christ humbling himself, in Christ walking, in Christ crucified,—that not only is the darkness passing, but the true light is now shining. It is, it should be, it must be, it shall be, a great fact, a thing that is true, in you also. Is it not so? Why should it not be so? Is not that great, open eye of your Father in heaven continually beholding you? Yes! Even when in a little wrath he hides his face from you, even when he smites you with the rod, are you not under that benignant eye? And on your part, through grace, may not this voice be ever going upwards to the throne of grace? “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us” (Ps. 123:2).
Thus it is “true in him and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light shineth.” And it is ever a new oracle of divine grace. It will always be so to the pilgrim on his way through the dark wilderness to divinely lighted Canaan. It will always be so, at every step, to you who, abiding in God, walk even as Christ also walked. When faint and weary because of the way, tempted almost to give up, and to give in, as if your striving against sin were all in vain, and your endurance of the contradiction of sinners against yourself more than flesh and blood can stand, call to mind this word—“Which thing is true in him and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth.” It is a new word to you then, a new assurance, a new appeal. It dissipates the gloom that is enshrouding all things to your view. “Lo! they are all new in the true light that is shining. Whenever the old shadows are flinging themselves again across your path, the old misgivings and questionings, the old doubts and fears, the old partial dealings with God’s promises in the word of his gospel, the old hesitancies about the freeness of his grace, and the sufficiency of his great salvation, and your title to believe in the forgiveness of your sins; call to mind this word: “Which thing is true in him and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth.” It rings as a new Jubilee trumpet. It breathes new life into you. For “in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: he also is become my salvation.” Are old frames coming back upon me: old ways of thinking and feeling about the service of God, and the troubles of life, and the terrors of death; the old ideas as to God being an hard master, and his commandments being grievous; the old spirit of bondage, the old servile grudging, the old rebelliousness, that makes duty irksome, and self-denial hard, and labour thankless, and the whole doing of God’s will a dull routine or dreary task? Let me call to mind this word: “Which thing is true in him and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth.” Is it not a new and spirit-stirring summons to me? Is it not a new gospel to me? Is it not a new quickening, a new awakening? Is it not a new prayer that it prompts?—“Create in me a clean heart, O Lord; and renew a right spirit within me.”
And now, connecting the two verses which we have been considering separately, we may see how John, being “a scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven,” is “like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasury things new and old.” He probably had in his view a class of men, not uncommon in his day, who thirsted for novelties, if not in the doctrines of the gospel themselves, at least in the way of setting them forth; upon whom the primitive simplicity that is in Christ was beginning to pall; by whom the commonplace preaching of the cross was felt almost to have become effete, and to have lost its stimulating power. John will not pander to such a taste. He has been discoursing about high matters; but he is careful to assure his readers that they are not the sort of novelties for which some have a craving. There is nothing really new in his teaching. It is the old word which has been heard from the beginning; the same word that “Paul and Apollos and Cephas” proclaimed; the same word that John has been always reiterating. But if any will have novelty, here is a safe receipt for it. Let them make the old word new in their own experience by the ever-fresh practical application of it, in the ever-fresh practical apprehension of the “thing which is true in Christ and in them, that the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth.” For though doctrinal Christianity is always old, experimental Christianity is always new. The gospel preached to us is old; but the gospel realised in us is always new. Christ set forth before our eyes is always old; but “Christ in us the hope of glory,”—“Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith,”—Christ becoming more and more, through the Spirit’s teaching, part and parcel of our whole inner man—This Christ is always new.
