New Old Commandment

Line By Line - I John 2:7-8

Post 232

Because obedience, the topic of the last post, is so controversial and muddled in the modern American churches today, I felt it necessary to continue with an additional post. America would not be in the condition it is today if my argument was not true. America is suffering at the hands of Christians living in “dirty grace”. This post should make that clear. But the deeply entrenched perception today is an excessive focus on grace and that we Gentile believers are not bound under the law, and to that I have no argument in principle. It is in application where the perception shows its error.

Today’s modern Christian perceives himself to be a “New Testament Christian”, and without shame or apology does not read, let alone obey the writing of the Old Testament; “We are under the New Covenant”, they argue. But is this actually what God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ have in mind? Why would the ever-unchanging God command the stoning of the disobedient in the Old Testament then completely and happily overlook the same sins in his people today? Because of Christ’s sacrifice? Is God a pretender to imagine his people are not filthy when they actually are? Does God actually pretend we are not sinners because we hide behind Jesus? What kind of God fills his house with fornicators and murderers to cohabitate with his faithful children just because they blame Christ for what they do? What actually changed from the old commandment to the new commandment? Is it only who gets the punishment for our sins? Is that really all there is to Christianity? Let’s explore this a little deeper:

“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” I John 2:7-8.

Is John confused here when he first says he is not writing a new commandment and then turns right around and says he is writing a new commandment? As the word of God is inspired by God himself there are no errors or contradictions or confusions, so what is John saying to Christians? To answer that we need to ask;

“What is the old commandment?”

John tells us clearly that the old commandment is the word which we have had from the beginning.

“What beginning?”

Genesis 1:1 is pretty much as beginning as it gets; “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“So what word was given in the beginning that we have heard that John is now writing as a commandment?”

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness” Genesis 1:3-4.

John writes;

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” I John 1:5

Now neither of these are actually commandments, but words given to provide the way of the commandment. But can you begin to see the old commandment John is pointing to?

Let’s continue:

Adam and Eve were given free reign in the Garden where God placed them, they simply had one rule; don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). This was the first commandment given *1 and confirmed as such in Genesis 3:11; “…Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”

As long as Adam and Eve simply refrained from that tree, they did well and there were no problems. But oh the troubles that came when they disobeyed (Genesis 3). In their now fallen state and cast from the garden, were they not still God’s children? By further reading we know they were (3:21), But clearly things for them were very different now; life itself was harsh from its very core; Gone were the lands without weeds, and fruit to be picked without effort of cultivating, Now life was work, And hard work (Genesis 3:17-19,23).

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Old Commandment in Detail:

Later as Adam and Eve continued their life in the new harsh environment, they had two sons; Cain and Able. We hear no specific commandment regarding offerings to the LORD at this time but clearly Cain’s offering was not accepted by the LORD and it made Cain mad (Genesis 4:1-5). We will skip over the specifics of why Cain’s offering was not accepted beyond the point that God makes;

“If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him” Genesis 4:7.

This details the same commandment given to Adam and Eve in the beginning and helps us understand this commandment now written in I John as the old commandment we heard from the beginning: “Do well”. Oh how good we have it if we just do well, by keeping separate good and evil that the scripture makes clear is represented by light and darkness.

“But what if we don’t do well?” 

 God lays out the details in the above verse:

1)     Sin now lies specifically at your door, waiting for you to go about your way.

2)     Sin’s desire is now unto you directly (Desire 8669; from 7783 in the original sense of stretching out after; a longing:- desire).

3)     You must rule over him (Rule 4910; a primitive root; to rule:- (have, make to have) dominion, governor…reign…have power).

We have the temporal very real example of what such doing not well results in; a far darker world formerly not even imagined to them. The degree of change is beyond words. But God is not done with them, they simply must now make their way in their less desirable conditions. The same goes for Cain as God told him; “If you don’t do well this will be your lot” (paraphrased).

This is the old Commandment John speaks of here in I John; “God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and don’t do the truth:”

In other words: “Walk in the light, not in the dark, and so do well”.

This is the old commandment, which John is now confirming not replacing.

“So, What is the new commandment part that is not actually new?”

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New Old Commandment:

“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” I John 2:8.

Why start this statement with “Again”?

Reading from verse 1 of chapter one, he did not previously tell us he was writing a new commandment so why now say; “Again, I write a new commandment”?

 John is not hiding the fact that he is preaching Jesus Christ as having always been in the old commandment;

I John 1:1 “That which was from the beginning…”, Jesus Christ, his sacrifice, and the plan of redemption, is NOT a plan “B” of God’s, yet still kind of new because of the increase in available light (understanding). God did not change his mind and decide to stop the consequence for sin that the Old Testament Jews faced by stoning. That was the very real representation of the cost of sin, just as Adam and Eve faced by their new harsh world. The old commandment “Do well” remains in full effect. But what is new in the old commandment is that because Jesus did in fact come to pay the debt for sin with his own blood sacrifice in a new powerful way, we have been given new life after we deserve to be stoned. We can actually be forgiven our sins and cleaned from any and all unrighteousness (I John 1:9), this is the new light that overpowers the darkness (Isaiah 42:16) without changing the original goal of doing well.

But this too is generally covered in the (not as old) old commandment of animal sacrifices. The New commandment is that now we have in us his truth as the light that came on in the darkness. Because Satan has been overcome and the darkness of bondage to sin along with it, the false light of obeying a letter of the law while the heart remains unchanged in darkness is past, and we now possess within us His marvelous light to shine in our path and make plain our way of straight going FROM THE HEART. Jesus Christ in us is the spiritual V8. He is the “I get it now!” of doing well.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” Matthew 11:28-30.

The yoke is in fact an instrument of doing.

I recently sat under two pastors in three consecutive weeks preaching that the Christian way is hard. But Christ himself says otherwise. Yet it is not without constraints as we are told we must take his yoke unto ourselves. It is only hard and heavy if we “do not well”; if it goes against our grain to participate with him; if our hearts are still dark. Then sin lies at our door, ready to pounce every time we gear up to go about our way. This is not limited to the simplistic battle of the lusts that pull on us to do evil, but is speaking of the deception of sin that confuses your choices and causes you to pick the wrong option with good intentions. It is stumbling in the dark because you simply cannot see. God likens this to being blind. In this condition it is hard and laborious and we must determine by vigil and effort to rule over sin. This victory is a battle indeed, and bloody, but it must be fought if we are to overcome, yard by yard the battle rages in everything we do.

Yet there is an easy way. Learn of Christ. His way is not like your nature; He is meek and lowly in heart even while being the Creator himself. There is rest for your soul and the Christian yoke you bear is easy and light if you willingly walk in the light where he is rather than remain a Christian stumbling in the dark chafing against his yoke because he goes where you don’t want to. The new commandment is the tender heart that God gives to us through comprehending repentance. This new heart empowered by the Holy Ghost of God, maintained by the choice of the informed will to walk in obedience, enables us to dwell in the shadow of the Almighty which protects us from the rays of the false light (Psalm 91:1) *2.

Many modern Christians are living their Christian lives in the false light of compromise because while willing to believe there is no darkness at all in the Father, they have been deceived to believe there is darkness in Christ.

“…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”

I John 2:3-5.

Is that still you? I pray not.

“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…” I John 2:5-7.

Walk this way in your private life and it will be evident in your public.

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Now regarding America:

When she "did well" she was the glorious light of the nations. Her blessings and protections of God were as heaven on earth. Life was very, very good. But today she is not doing well because her people of God are not "doing well". Now sin lies at her door and mauling us with specific intent on every front. This sin must be battled, it is hard, it is ugly, but it must be overcome or it will overcome.

“Ruling over” is a judicial term. Nationally we must choose righteous laws and revoke wicked laws. We must praise Good and punish evil. The legal tolerance of the wicked to do wickedly is not wise legislation, but to legislate that wickedness must be protected is wickedness in itself. Christian America is now failing to rule over sin because her Christian people are failing to do so in their own lives. This is not wise, but to create doctrine that protects us from rebuke for wickedness, is wickedness. There is no darkness in Christ (John 12:46);

"He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked" I John 2:6.

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*1 I’m not ignorant of Genesis 1:28 as possibly a kind of commandment before my topic point, and it actually fits into I John’s topic of brotherly love, but it is not actually the kind of commandment we are discussing and for brevity sake we can pass over it without damage to the scripture for you to explore later on your own.

*2 The Shadow of the Almighty:

see Post 189 Sunburn May 15, 2011

(http://when-did-reason-die.blogspot.com/2011/05/sunburn.html).

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