THE OLD-NEW COMMANDMENT.
By GEO. W. SPIES.
GEO. W. SPIES.
(Lima, Ohio.) We read in the first epistle of John: “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 2:8. The verses immediately following this statement show that this new commandment enjoins upon us the duty of loving the brethren. This new commandment had been given before by Jesus himself, on the night of His betrayal, just prior to His crucifixion. He said: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:34. From these scriptures it is evident that the new commandments of both Jesus and John are the same; namely, that we “love one another.” The beloved disciple also wrote concerning another commandment; he says: “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning.” 1 John 2:7. And in the next chapter he defines this old commandment as follows: “For this is the commandment [margin] that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:11. In his second epistle (verse 5), John confirms this definition by saying, “Not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.” It is evident from the scriptures last quoted that this old commandment is the same as the new, that we “love one another.” But how can the commandment to “love one another” be both a new commandment and an old one?—It is a new commandment in that it is a new experience to the individual who accepts Christ (2 Cor. 5:17); and it is an old commandment in that it has always been, even from the beginning, man’s duty to love his brother. “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart,” and, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” are not duties which originated with the so-called Christian dispensation. Lev. 19:17, 18. Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother, violated the commandment which we have heard from the beginning, because he did not love his brother. 1 John 3:11, 12. It is evident, then, that the new commandment given by John is not different by nature from the old one given in the beginning, but identical with it. The new commandment has not superseded the old, but is simply a restating of the same truth. The principle of loving our neighbor as ourselves is one of the divine principles that control the actions of God’s children in every age of the world. May the Lord implant it deep in our hearts.