Jesus Revealed the Old Truth of the Father's Love in a New Light

What Did Jesus Do?

…it is a new commandment I am writing to you,
which is true in him and in you.
1 John 2.8a

A lot of folks these days are into things “retro.” NFL teams take the field in 1950s or 1960s style uniforms. Bell bottomed pants again fill the racks at trendy clothing stores. It seems as if half of the programs on television are re-runs or re-makes of shows 10, 20, 30 years-old. Automobile manufacturers have been resurrecting old favorites like Ford’s classic two-seater Thunderbird and Dodge’s well-muscled Challenger. There’s no doubt that modern day retakes on old favorites is big business. In the end, though, retro is nothing more than a look, it’s not the real thing, but just a facsimile. Such was not at all the case with Jesus. His incarnation of the Law, “an old commandment that you had from the beginning,” (1 John 2:7) was in fact the absolute, complete, and true fulfillment of the Father’s original instructions to his children as to how they were to live. Yet, at the same time John wrote of “no new commandment,” he could honestly say to the Church that he was writing about “a new commandment.”

It might be helpful to think of it this way. What are the first words of God recorded in the Bible? “Let there be light.” (Genesis 1:3) Other than God himself, there is nothing older than light. So, when Jesus, the true light (John 1:9), came into the world on that wonderful night when he was born in Bethlehem, it was the new and startling appearance of that which was in fact older than the world itself. That which was all but immeasurably old had been manifest in a radically new, yet absolutely true to the original, way. Starting “in the beginning,” the word of God’s Law was a “lamp to our feet and a light to our path” (Psalm 119:105). Yet, in Jesus, the old light shined in a way it never had before, and it will continue shine in that radically new way until the ending of the age. Though the Son is now seated at the Father’s right hand, the light of the old/new commandment in Jesus still shines in the world because the light is also in his Church (“in you” 1 John 2.8a).

What was so radical and new about the way the light of the Law shone in Jesus? In Christ the light revealed, completely and perfectly, the love of God which is the wellspring of the law of God. The commandment God had given from the beginning was love: love of God (Deuteronomy 6:5), and love of neighbor (Leviticus 19:18), yet, in Jesus, the law of love was so perfectly embodied and fulfilled as to appear new. The light by which God had first dispelled the darkness when he had decreed in the beginning, “Let there be…” was nothing other than his love. And John tells the Church that, since the light of the Father’s love was revealed in a new way in and through the Son, we are to let that same light shine in us by loving as Jesus loved.

As it turns out, the only thing that makes darkness pass away is love. God’s love shining from the words of his Law. The Father’s love shining from the Incarnate Son. The Son’s love shining from his Church. The Church’s love shining from her members as they love one another. John wanted believers, the Church, to know that we are to live in love, and walk in light. We can so live, and so walk, because Jesus revealed the old truth about God’s love in a new light.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4