A New Commandment.
I. I will try to show you that this commandment is old, and yet new. But we may as well see, first of all, what the commandment is. John does not quite say in the text what it is; but he does tell us elsewhere. He says in another letter, writing to a Christian friend, "The new commandment which is from the beginning is that we love one another." And in the night when Christ was betrayed, as our reading lesson in the New Testament has shown us, Christ said the very same thing: "A new commandment give I unto you: Love one another, as I have loved you." Then that is the commandment that is both old and new: "to love one another." Christ says it, and John says it; so that you are quite sure about it. Now, there is an old story told about John which I think I should tell you here. It was said that when he was very old he was not able to go to church, that he could not walk there, although the distance was not very great, and he used to get them to carry him upon his couch or litter a little bed which they could move into the place. He was so feeble that he could not even sit up and speak to the people, and he just lifted up his hands when he was lying upon his couch, and said, "Little children, love one another."
II. Now, the commandment, as I have said, is old and new. It is very old. Not only did Christ give it to His disciples from the time He was going away to leave them, from the beginning of the Gospel ages, but He had given it long, long before. For in substance you will find this commandment in the Old Testament. Nay, it is even older than the Old Testament. When God made Adam and Eve and put them into the garden, that is what He said: "Love each other." But whilst this commandment is old, I have now to show you why it might be called new: because there are new circumstances that make it come with a new force and meaning. And I would put it to you in these two ways. In the first place, it is written with a new hand; and, secondly, it is read in a new light. The new hand that writes and the new light that shines make the commandment new. First, it is written by a new hand. The old commandment was written, as you know, by God at Sinai; but it is a real human hand that we get this commandment from now. I do not mean to say that Christ wrote it and gave it to His disciples in a written form. But the command was new because it was read in a new light. Now, speaking generally, the new light in which we read it is Gospel light. That is exactly what John says in this verse. He says, "A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you" (He is new in giving it, and you are new in getting it), "because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." So that you read this commandment in a new light, because you read it in the light of the Gospel. Reading the commandment in the old light and reading it in the light that falls from Christ's love is like the difference between reading it beside a glimmering lamp and reading it in the summer sunshine, warm, and golden, and strong. When Christ said to His disciples, "Love one another," you remember He put the commandment in that very light of His own love.
J. Edmond, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 152.
Darkness and Light.
I. How difficult it is in health to recollect how we felt in sickness, how difficult to remember pain when the whole body is at ease. The world is full of such strange secrets of life and feeling; the same persons cannot recall their former selves very often, so different are they at one time from what they were at another. Much more is it not possible to live the lives of others, to feel their feelings, to enter into the unknown lands of hearts that are not our own. How then shall we, living in daylight, realise what it was to live when the world was dark? How can we go back in spirit to a time we have never known, and catch something of the glad surprise with which the first watchers welcomed the light of Christ? A little we know from the darkness of our own hearts being cleared away, but this is of ourselves alone. We have not seen the light of Christ first rising in its glory and its gladness on the darkness of a world that was dark. Darkness was on life; darkness was on death: darkness was the only certainty.
II. And then came light, light into the living grave, the Son of God moving upon earth, breaking through with words of power outward sorrow, disease, and death. O Christ, the noble army of martyrs praised Thee; the holy Church throughout all the world did acknowledge Thee. The high places of earth caught the light; pinnacle after pinnacle, city on city, flashed with Divine fire. Africa, Egypt, Cyrene, Alexandria, and all the old giant powers of early time passed into brighter day. Imperial Rome, with all its glorious charnel-houses, was smitten with the heavenly ray; the farthest West saw the great light, a light and a life that needed the deeds of those who still loved darkness to show its exceeding power. "Unto us a Child was born; unto us a Son was given." The first Christmas is our earthly life beginning, the second our heavenly, both seasons of joy unspeakable to those who love light.
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons,vol. i., p. 24.
References: 1 John 2:8. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 350. 1 John 2:12. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1711; W. Harris, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 336.