1 John iL 8. The darkness is past and the true light now shineth.
OUR blessed Lord is supposed by many to have enlarged the demands of the Moral Law. That he speaks of giving a New Commandment is certain: " A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another*." St. John also speaks to the same effect in the words before my text ; though, in the words immediately preceding, he had declared, that it was not a new commandment. The reconciling of this difficulty will suggest the true explanation of our text. The command given us to love our neigh- bour as ourselves, was not a new commandment. It was a part of the Moral Law**; and of the law origi- nally written on the heart of man in Paradise. Yet in some respects it was a new law : both as it respected the Lord Jesus who enacted it, and as it respected us on whom it was enjoined. Let us hear what the Apostle himself says : " Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old com- mandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you : which thing is true in him, and in you." It was new as it respected the Lord Jesus Christ, who had pro- posed his own conduct as the model, (which, of course, it could not be, till he himself had completed his work on earth,) and had enforced it with his own authority as Mediator, which also must be subse- quent to his entrance on the Mediatorial office. And it was new also as it respected us, because it was never before conceived to extend to the " laying down of
our ; John xiii. 34. ^ Lev. xix. 18.
li^O.] THE TRUE LIOHT. 22?
our lives for the Brethren %" and because it was en- joined with new motives, such as could never have existed before, even the testifying of our love to Christ, *' who has loved us, arid given himself for us." Previous to the coming of our Lord, a veil of ob- scurity hanged over these things : but now they were made clear, " because the darkness was past, and the true light now shined."
In considering the change which is here spoken of, I shall notice it,
I. As Verified at that day — -
The darkness of the Mosaic dispensation was then dispelled — •
[That was a dark and shadowy dispensation altogether. God himself was not made known by it as the common Father of aU, but as the Friend only of one peculiar people, whom he favoured above all others. The way of acceptance with him was very indistinctly seen in the sacrifices which were of- fered ; there being but little spoken to direct the attention of the offerers to that great sacrifice, from whence alone they derived all their efficacy. Nor were the requirements of the moral law by any means clearly revealed ; the very command- ments themselves consisting only of prohibitions, and those prohibitions extending, for the most part, only to overt acts. Hence Paul himself, educated as he was by the first Master of his day, and pre-eminently conversant as he was with the Mosaic writings, did not, till his eyes were opened by the Spirit of God, understand the spiritual import of the law, oi* the extent of the command, " Thou shalt not covet '^." Besides, there were many enactments for the direction of magistrates in the administration of justice, which, when er- roneously construed as rules of duty in private life, seemed to authorize revenge ; as, " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."
But our blessed Lord threw the true light on the whole of that economy. He declared plainly, that he was " come to fulfil the law," and " to give his life a ransom for many." He directed the people to look to him as " the luay , by which alone any one could come to the Father; as th£ truth," in whom all the types and shadows of the law were realized ; and " as the Hfe," by whom alone any sinner in the universe could live^ He explained also the Moral Law, and freed it fi'om all the glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees, by which