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whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as he lived.

The New Commandment.[a] Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to you but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.(A) And yet I do write a new commandment to you, which holds true in him and among you,[b] for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 2:7–11 The author expresses the continuity and freshness of mutual charity in Christian experience. Through Christ the commandment of love has become the light defeating the darkness of evil in a new age. All hatred as darkness is incompatible with the light and Christian life. Note also the characteristic Johannine polemic in which a positive assertion is emphasized by the negative statement of its opposite.
  2. 2:8 Which holds true in him and among you: literally, “a thing that holds true in him and in you.”

Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.(A)

Dear friends,(B) I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning.(C) This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command;(D) its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing(E) and the true light(F) is already shining.(G)

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