The Old Command

The Old Command

1 John 2:3-11

Reminisce with me a bit. I’m waxing nostalgic these days. Remember when preachers were passionate. I’m not talking about the screamers. We got plenty of that and that sort of thing should serve only as an example of what we ought not do. In fact, let me tell you a couple of preacher stories.   

One is about a preacher who had finished writing his sermon. Going back over it, he noted in the margin, “Logic weak, yell louder.” As if noise would overcome his error in logic. Another is about a young preacher who had written what he considered to be a wonderful sermon. He gave it to his mentor to read. The older man pondered the sermon, and then said two words, “More fire.” The younger man said, “Oh, you mean I need to put more fire into my sermon?” The old preacher replied, “No, I mean you need to put more of your sermon into the fire.” We don’t want dull preaching. We don’t want shouting. We want conviction. What we want is passionate preaching from pastors who actually believe what they are saying. There needs to be an intensity and a sincerity to our preaching. And that’s what draws us to this first of John’s letters - the intensity and the sincerity.  

We’ll understand John better when we recognize that his heart is really in this letter. He is sincere and passionate about what he’s writing. That’s reflected in two things John does. One is this: I write this to you because ... We’ve already seen that back at the beginning of chapter 2: I write this so that you will not sin. Keep your eyes open for that; he’ll say it again a couple times. The other is this: This is how we know. Or, We know that ... There is a sense of certainty. We know this is true because. Or, this is how we know that this is true. There is no, “I think ...”, no “maybe ...”, no, “it is possible.” I heard a preacher say, “I think that I think ...” and I’ve used that line a time or two since. But John says, “I know that I know, and this is how I know ...” John’s passion is evident in his purpose and in his certainty. There is no faltering note in his music.

So, John begins this paragraph with We know ... People outside the church are fond of telling Christians, “You aren’t supposed to judge.” The only Bible verse they know, it seems, is “Judge not ...” Except, as you know, Jesus was not telling the disciples not to judge; he was telling them how to judge (Mt 7:1-7). You don’t give what is holy to the dogs and you don’t give pearls to pigs. So you need to know the difference between a pearl and a pig, between the holy and the unholy. Jesus went on to tell them, “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ...” (Mt 7:16-20). And you will know a Christian by the way he lives.

We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. This is an echo of the several times in John 14 and 15 that Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands;” “The one who loves me is the one who obeys me;” “You are my friends if you do what I command.” Those who know Jesus are the ones who follow Jesus’ commands. Those who don’t obey, John says, don’t know Jesus. You can’t claim to follow Jesus if you aren’t following Jesus. You can’t claim to be obedient if you aren’t obeying. John says it this way, Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar.” In other words, there is no middle ground: If you claim to be a Christian, that is a follower of Jesus, you are either obedient to Christ, doing what he has commanded, or you are a liar. There is not such thing as a “cultural Christian,” and, as I said last week, no such thing as a sinning Christian. Years ago, someone said to me, “My son gave his heart to Christ, but he’s just not following him right now.” I didn’t, but I wanted to say to her, If your son is not following Jesus, he hasn’t given his heart to him. There is a strong movement in the church that wants to have it both ways – we can believe but live however we wish. So long as we have made some sort of profession of faith, so long as there is some mental assent, behavior doesn’t matter. But, have you noticed, Jesus didn’t call the disciples to mere belief; he called them to obedience, and he made obedience the standard of discipleship. If you are not going to obey the commands of Christ, stop calling yourself a Christian.

But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in him. That person is a growing disciple, maturing and growing into the fulness of the image of Christ. And, here he goes: This is how we know ... Can I just add that there are those who believe we can never really know if we are saved? How do you know? John strike a strong chord of assurance: This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. If your focus is on following Jesus, obeying his commands, having the same attitude (Phil 2:5), and being like Jesus, you can be assured that you are in Christ and he is in you. We can know that we know.

Just to be clear, it may be true that people don’t remember, or don’t know what Jesus taught, or what his commands were. The problem for us is that when we hear the word “command,” we think law. We think there is a code of conduct, or a list of rules that we have to memorize. John wants us to know that’s not the case. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus coupled “Take my yoke” with “you will find rest.” That’s hard for us to grasp. “Yoke” means work, right? What Jesus was doing was illustrating this: When a new ox was ready to be put to work, it was yoked with a stronger and experienced ox. The larger one did most of the work, while the younger one learned from the older. Jesus does almost all of the work, and his “yoke is easy” because the commands are not burdensome. 

John says, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. “Beginning” here is the beginning of their walk with Christ, when the gospel first reached them and they believed. So, it is not new to John’s readers; they already know it. They know it because it was the first message they received regarding following Jesus. But, maybe they have forgotten, so, yet I am writing you a new command. John is renewing the command for them.  

Let’s remind ourselves what that command is. First of all, when Jesus was asked for the greatest command, he responded with two from the Torah: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and, love your neighbor. Then in John 13, Jesus gave them a new command. We know it: “A new command I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:34-35). Then, in case that’s not plain enough, Jesus repeats himself: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). And again, “This is my command: love each other” (Jn 15:17). Is that plain enough? Five times? What does Jesus command us to do?

Now, it’s a simple command, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. But it’s not some sort of mushy, feel-good love, the sort the world talks about. Paul tells us what this sort of love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13. It is a love that judges between right and wrong, between true and false, and between what is good for us and what harms us. To be honest, sometimes this sort of love is quite difficult – especially toward people who don’t like us. But Jesus told us to love even our enemies and to pray for them – not to pray against them. He told us to love those who hate us and who persecute us. No, this sort of love is not easy. Sometimes, it’s downright painful.

And again John applies a yardstick to us: Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother lives in the light and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.   

Now, John is talking about those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. They claim to be believers. They may sit in worship with us. But there is a darkness. They hold hatred in their heart for someone. Now, I took the time to look this up. We sometimes try to soften Jesus’ words and maybe claim a bit of a contradiction in the Bible.   

In Luke 14:26, Jesus says this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” We have difficulty with this because Jesus used the word “hate.” But the point of what he was saying here is that we must love Jesus more than all the others, and by comparison with our love for Christ, it will be as hatred for the others. He doesn’t mean that we should actually hate our parents. He can’t because he also cites the law requiring that we honor our parents (Mt 15:4,6; Mk 7:10). But since we can’t serve two masters, we must turn our backs on anything that holds us back from full obedience to Christ. And turning one’s back on the social expectations toward family would likely have been considered to be hatred.  

And here, John tells us that hatred for a brother means we are not walking in the light with Christ. Hatred for a brother means that we are still in the dark. Now, I have a brother that I don’t get along with very well. I don’t hate him, but we are better if there is distance between us. I know what strained relationships, and what broken relationships are like. But a couple questions arise: Is John talking about our siblings? Or, is he talking about fellow believers? Or, could he be considering “brother” in light of the parable of the good Samaritan - an attitude toward strangers or foreigners? Since John is writing to the church, he probably intends “brother” in the sense of a fellow-believer. But if one cannot love a fellow believer, he is probably not capable of loving his neighbor, either.

If turning one’s back to social expectations would be considered to be hatred, is it hatred then to turn one’s back to a brother in need? We want to define hatred positively, as an active abhorrence or dislike for someone. It is, we suppose, to have strong negative feelings toward someone. In fact, that is the dictionary definition: hatred is to “dislike greatly or intensely,” to loathe or abhor someone or something. That’s what the Greek word means, also. But what if hatred is negative, that is, defined by what we do not do. The prophet Micah asked and answered the question: what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Mic. 6:8). What is hatred is not active, but passive? We just don’t do what we are commanded to do. James wrote, If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them (Js 4:17).

Glenn Barker writes, “To walk in the light is to love one’s brother, and God’s love will express itself in concrete actions. If these are missing, it is not because love can be neutral or can exist unexpressed. Love unexpressed is not love at all. Love has no neutral capabilities. When it is absent, hate is present.   

“In this instance, then, hate is the failure to deny oneself, the unwillingness to lay down one’s life for a brother (John 15:13). It considers it’s own plight first ( 1 Cor 13:5); disregards the robbed and afflicted (Luke 10:30-37); despises the little ones (Matt 18:10); withholds the cup of cold water from the thirsty (Matt 25:42); and makes no effort to welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, or help the sick (Matt 25:43). Whenever a brother has need and one does not help him, then one has despised and, in fact, hated his brother.” (Glenn W. Barker, “1, 2, 3 John”, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), p. 317)  

Remember that love is verb. It is active and relational. It desires the overall well-being of the other. Love cannot be neutral. But, we need to be careful. A denominational manual calls it’s members to live compassionate lives and to do good to the bodies and souls of those around them, with this caveat: “as opportunity and ability are given.” You can’t give what you don’t have. Remember Peter to the man at the temple gate: “Silver or gold I do not have” (Acts 3:6). And you cannot help if you are unaware of the need. We need not feel guilty for not helping if we were unable to help. Unable and unwilling are not the same. We also need to be sure that we are actually helping and not just enabling.

Let’s close on this note: John is known as the “apostle of love,” and the disciple Jesus loved. His passion is like that of Charles Wesley, “Was it for me?” Overwhelmed by Christ’s love for him, John wants that same love to permeate his own life and the lives of all believers. He calls the church to love, genuinely, deeply, passionately. And this is how we know that we know Jesus – if we live as Jesus lived, and love as Jesus loved. Our goal is to be like Jesus.