1 John 2:8

Again, a new commandment write I unto you, which thing is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shineth.

A new commandment ... The new commandment must almost certainly be identified with Jesus' words when he said, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). It is hardly possible that the apostle John could have meant anything else except this.

Wherein was it a new commandment? The Old Testament had taught God's people to love each other, and the new element here is the qualifier even as I have loved you! The Old Testament knew nothing of such love as that, for Christ had not yet revealed it.

Wherein is it an old commandment? It went back to Christ himself; and, also, some of the Christians might have been hearing this practically all of their lives, "From the beginning" here being best understood as "from the first of your Christian lives."[21]

Why did John stress the newness of it? He may have had in mind the word of Christ himself who declared that, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto the householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things both new and old" (Matthew 13:52).

The above view seems correct, since it answers all of the questions that naturally rise with reference to the verse; but, while holding to the above explanation, we also notice another.

ANOTHER EXPLANATION

"The contrast between the old and new is partly a contrast between the old and new covenants."[22] To love God and one's neighbor summed up all the law and the prophets, according to Jesus himself (Mark 12:29-31); and, of course, our Lord bound upon all people the same basic obligations. "From the beginning" seems naturally to suggest a more remote past than the beginning of one's Christian life; and it is impossible, always, to tell from the context just how John used this word. As Orr pointed out, "In a single sentence, John used the word truth in three different senses (2 John 1:1:1,2)."[23] Paul also used the word "Israel" in two different senses in a single sentence (Romans 11:25,26). In any case, such a view does no violence to the Scripture. As Macknight said, "Such a view makes out the least alteration in the sense of the passage."[24]

The thing John apparently had in mind was the proposition that what his readers needed was no new teaching, but a renewal of the teaching they already had. As Paul Hoon put it:

The British statesman, Lord Morley traveled from England to give an address to a Canadian university. As he came to the rostrum to speak, his first words were, "Gentlemen, I have traveled four thousand miles to tell you that there is a difference between right and wrong."[25]

Likewise, in the current era, the church needs no new doctrine or philosophy, but a renewal in people's hearts of those teachings received from the beginning of the church. And those great basics of the Christian gospel are always new, exciting and glorious in the hearts of those joyfully receiving them; and yet they are also ancient. What is older than the drama of birth or marriage? and yet how new such things always are in every experience of them!

[21] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1056.

[22] Paul W. Hoon, The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 233.

[23] R. W. Orr, op. cit., p. 611.

[24] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 44.

[25] Paul W. Hoon, op. cit., p. 234.