The new command: Stay in the light!

1 John 2.7-11.

In John’s gospel, Jesus gives his followers a new command. The way he talks about it, kinda suggests it’s not just a personal directive from their master, nor a commentary on the Law of Moses like he does in his Sermon on the Mount. This is a new command, meant to be added to all the other commands of the bible, followed just as intently.

John 13.34-35 KWL

34“I give you² a new command

so you² can love one another!

Same as I love you²,

you² can love one another.

35This is how everyone

will come to know you’re² my students:

When you² have love among one another.”

Like all the other things Jesus teaches, and possibly more so, Christians have sought any loophole possible for not obeying him here. Typically by claiming other Christians aren’t real Christians. Because they have different doctrines. Now, heresies I can understand, but we’re too often arguing over differences that are really slight, and insist we’re not merely nitpicking; this is a profoundly vital difference. Fr’instance full-immersion baptism, and absolutely not sprinkling: This has somehow attained the level of “profoundly vital.” You can read Christians’ articles on why this is so, and look at the ridiculous conclusions they eagerly, willingly jump to. Hopefully you’ll recognize their argumentativeness for what it actually is: Jesus wants us to be one, Jn 17.20-23 but the devil doesn’t, and it’s successfully convinced them it’s okay for them to oppose Jesus.

Following the devil’s lead, we nitpick away, and disqualify people from Christianity over these things. Slightly different doctrines, slightly different rituals, slightly different sins. They revere the wrong Christian leaders and teachers, and play the wrong worship music, and vote for the wrong candidates. They’re too young or too old, too formal or informal, too white or brown (although let’s pretend racism isn’t really our hangup; let’s pretend it’s politics again). Pick your favorite excuse.

Anyway. In today’s discussion on 1 John, we got John writing about a new command. And a number of commentators have decided John is writing about “the new command,” Jesus’s command in John 13 about loving one another.

Because, they figure, the author of 1 John and the Gospel of John is the same guy. Probably has the same audience. Probably the audience read the gospel, and knows John’s references to “new command” are about that new command. Plus, would John dare to issue a new command on his own?—he’s not God, not Moses, definitely not Jesus, and has no business declaring commands on his own initiative.

I would remind you it’s not wise to just assume the readers of 1 John have read John. If John really is a wise, Spirit-inspired author like we believe him to be, he wouldn’t make that assumption either; he’d make it clear he’s talking about Jesus’s “Love one another.” Is that what John’s doing in today’s passage? It looks like he’s actually not. Yes, loving one another is part of it, but the command actually isn’t loving one another; it’s “Stay in the light!”

It’s kinda obvious when we read today’s soundbite:

1 John 2.7-11 KWL

7Beloved, I write you² not a new command,

but an old command which you² had since the beginning.

The old command is the message you² heard.

8Yet I do write you² a new command,

true for one and all:

The darkness is going away,

and the true light is shining already.

9One who says they’re¹ in the light

while hating one’s fellow Christian:

They’re¹ in the darkness right now.

10One who loves one’s fellow Christian

lives in the light,

and isn’t triggered by them.¹

11One who hates one’s fellow Christian

is in the darkness, walking in the darkness,

and doesn’t know where they’re¹ going

for the darkness blinds one’s eyes.

The whole purpose of John’s letter, plainly stated, is to keep John’s students away from sin. 1Jn 2.1 How we go about doing that, is we stay in the light which God is. This is John’s new command.

And it’s not all that new, as John pointed out. Every Christian’s heard it, in one form or another. Shun evil; stick to what’s good. Follow Jesus, walk like he did, and teach everyone what he taught. Mt 28.20 “What would Jesus do?” like the T-shirts say. The assumption one usually makes when they embrace a guru, is the goal of being just like that guru. The term “Christian” itself means “little Christ,” or Christ-follower. Does this really need to be spelled out?

But then again it is a new command. Following Moses’s teachings didn’t turn the Hebrews into people who asked themselves, “What would Moses do?” Especially since the scriptures record Moses’s screw-ups as much as his accomplishments. So really you don’t follow Moses; you follow the Law. Whereas in being Christian, we do follow Jesus, ’cause he never secrewed up. We obey Jesus’s commands too, but Jesus personifies his own commands to a level Moses never even approached. Following Jesus is following his commands. Following him is a command in itself.

So while it’s not new, it kinda is. There’s never been a guru we could follow to the level we follow Jesus. And frankly, if we’re not willing to follow Jesus to that level, we suck as Christians.

The point of following Jesus, as stated in verse 8, isn’t because “the darkness is past,” as the KJV puts it. Παράγεται/parághete is a present-tense verb, which means the darkness is currently passing. It’s not gone yet. We gotta work at it! When we follow Jesus and walk in the light, we’re helping to drive darkness out. The more of us that are in the light, the fewer places there are for dark to be. Christianity spreads, darkness recedes. And on New Earth, darkness will be utterly gone.

Don’t be surprised if they hate you. They hated Jesus too.

Matthew 10.24-25, Luke 6.40, John 13.16, 15.18-25.

Today’s passages get frequently taken out of context by Christian jerks. So let’s deal with them up front.

Jerks either deliberately try to offend, or don’t care that they do offend. And there are a lot of Christians, religious or not, who behave this way. They want people to be outraged. They want division and strife. They don’t care that these are works of the flesh; they’re not that fruitful anyway, and are way more interested in doctrinal purity than goodness and kindness and grace. So when people get angry, they perversely assume they’re doing something right. After all, didn’t Jesus say we’re blessed when people condemn and rage against us like the ancients did the prophets? Lk 6.22-23 Everybody hates you! Rejoice!

Of course they’re going about it the wrong way. If we have God’s mysteries and share them, yet we don’t do so in love (and no, tough love doesn’t count), we’re an annoying noise; we’re nothing, and gain nothing. 1Co 13.1-3 You might play the best music on your new 150-decibel sound system, but people are gonna hate it because it’s too loud, and it’s 2 a.m. In the same way, people don’t hate Christian jerks because they’re Christian, so much as because they’re jerks. So let’s not be. Let’s be kind.

Jesus’s statements here are not for jerks. But man alive are jerks quick to quote them. “Oh, oh! I’m being persecuted. Well, Jesus said it’s to be expected. They hated him; they’ll hate us.”

Yeah, but they hated Jesus for entirely different reasons. They hated Jesus because he called BS on ’em. Exposed their fake piety. Loved people they didn’t consider worth loving. Objected to their loopholes. And worst of all: There was supernatural evidence he was right, because you can’t just cure people on Sabbath unless God endorses such behavior. Their doctrine was undermined by YHWH himself… which is why they insisted Jesus’s cures couldn’t be God things, and had to somehow be devilish.

So when Jesus brought up persecution in his Olivet Discourse, he reminded them this shouldn’t catch them by surprise. The ancients persecuted the prophets; their contemporaries hassled Jesus himself. Stands to reason people were eventually gonna come after them too. Again, not because they’re being dicks about the gospel: Because God’s kingdom runs contrary to their comfortable status quo.

So since they went after Jesus, don’t think we’re exempt. He’s the teacher; he’s the master; we’re just his apostles and students and slaves. Like he says.

Matthew 10.24-25 KWL

24 “A student isn’t above the teacher, nor a slave above their master.

25 It’s fine for the student to become like their teacher, and the slave like their master.

But if people call the homeowner ‘Baal Zevúl,’

how much more those of his house?”

 

Luke 6.40 KWL

“A student isn’t above the teacher,

and everyone so repaired will be like their teacher.”

 

John 13.16 KWL

“Amen amen! I promise you a slave isn’t greater than their master,

nor an apostle greater than their sender.”

Out of context, this passage is also occasionally used by false teachers to make the claim they’ve studied Jesus so much, so extensively, they’re just as authoritative as he. Which everyone should instantly recognize as rubbish, but you’d be surprised how many Christians are total suckers for a winsome cult leader. Everybody co-works with Jesus, but nobody co-leads with him. He’s Messiah; he’s king; he’s above every other name. No matter how wise his followers might get… and the smart ones are wise enough to stay humble and not pull rank.