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Apostle John’s Three Letters . . . 1 John 2:7–11
A New Command about Love and Hatred
Who comes to mind when you hear the command to love your brothers and sisters in Christ? John’s words are wonderfully encouraging — but they’re also searching. He shows us that walking in God’s light is revealed not only by what we say about Jesus, but by how we treat the people Jesus loves.
Throughout chapter 2, John the apostle presents at least four key characteristics of Jesus that John highlights: Active integrity, selfless love, spiritual focus, and unshakable loyalty.
This week’s passage continues John’s great theme: God is light. Throughout 1 John, he returns again and again to the truths that genuine believers know Jesus, walk in his light, obey his commands, love one another, and overcome the world through faith.
In our first studies, John reminded us that he and the other apostles had personally heard, seen, and touched Jesus, “the Word of life.” He proclaimed that eternal life is found in the Son, who was with the Father from the beginning. John also taught that those who have fellowship with God walk in the light rather than choosing a settled pattern of darkness. And when we do sin, God calls us to confess it, trusting his faithful forgiveness and cleansing.
In last week’s study shown here, John reminded us that Jesus Christ is our Advocate with the Father and the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He then showed us that knowing God is more than making a claim; it’s revealed in a growing life of obedience. Now, in verses 7–11, John turns our attention to a command that shows whether we’re walking in the light: love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
A New Command (1 John 2:7–8)
How would you do on a “love test” today? That question may make us uncomfortable, but John invites believers to examine their lives by the standard of Christlike love. After telling us that whoever claims to live in Jesus “must live as Jesus did” (2:6), he now turns to one of the clearest evidences of that life: love for fellow believers.
Such a “love test” from the Apostle John would likely focus heavily on concrete actions, moral integrity, and how you treat other people rather than just abstract emotions. His primary criteria for genuine love for God are obedience to his commands, love for fellow believers, and not loving the worldly system.
Please note: First John 2 includes more than love; it also tests obedience, allegiance, truth, and perseverance.
John doesn’t call us to a vague or sentimental kind of love. Jesus’ love is active, truthful, sacrificial, and holy. He loved people by serving them, speaking God’s truth to them, warning them when necessary, and finally giving himself for them. As those who belong to Christ, we’re called to grow in that same kind of love.
7Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining (1 John 2:7–8).
John’s command to love is “old” because his readers had heard it from the beginning of their Christian faith. It was part of the message they received when they first believed the gospel. It also reaches back into the Old Testament, where God commanded his people to love him and to love their neighbors (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37–40).
Yet John can also call this command “new” because Jesus gave love its fullest and clearest expression. He didn’t merely tell his disciples to love one another; he gave them a new standard: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Jesus’ life, death, and continuing work in his people show what this command looks like.
The command is also new because its truth is “seen in him and in you.” Jesus perfectly revealed God’s love, and by his grace that love is now beginning to be seen in those who belong to him. The darkness is passing, and “the true light is already shining.” John is describing the new reality brought by Christ: His light has entered the world, and it’s changing the lives of his people. C. S. Lewis says this about Christ’s new example of love.
“Since the beginning” in v. 7 doesn’t mean the beginning of time. John is referring to the beginning of his readers’ Christian instruction — the message they’d heard from the start. And he’s not introducing a new religious idea. He’s calling them back to the gospel-shaped command they already knew: love one another.
So, as Apostle John reminds his readers and us today,love is both old and new. It’s old because God has always called his people to love. It’s new because Jesus perfectly fulfilled that command, gave it a deeper expression through his sacrificial love, and enables his people to live it out through the Holy Spirit. As we remain in Christ, his light exposes the darkness in our hearts and teaches us to love one another more faithfully.
This command is “new” because Jesus embodied love in a fresh and perfect way. He told his disciples, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34; see also John 15:12). Through the Holy Spirit, God pours his love into believers’ hearts, and that love begins to grow as the fruit of the Spirit (Rom. 5:5; Galatians 5:22–23). John will later make the connection plain: to love one another is to walk in obedience and to walk in love (2 John 5–6).
Love One Another (1 John 2:9–11)
John now brings the command to love into sharp focus. Love for fellow believers isn’t a minor part of Christian life; it’s one of the clearest ways our walk in God’s light becomes visible. If a church community doesn’t practice Christlike love within its own fellowship, its witness to the world is weakened.
9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister [Greek adelphos: refers to a believer] is still in the darkness. 10Anyone who loves their brother and sister [who is a believer] lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them (1 John 2:9–11).
Some people in and around the churches claimed to know God and to live in his light, but their lives didn’t match their claims. John gives a searching test: A person can’t truthfully claim to walk in God’s light while persisting in hatred toward a brother or sister in Christ. God’s light produces love; darkness produces spiritual blindness and confusion.
Although John’s language is certainly strong, he isn’t describing a believer who has a passing disagreement, feels hurt, or is struggling to forgive. He’s warning against a settled posture of hatred — a refusal to love, forgive, or seek the good of a fellow believer. Such a pattern contradicts a person’s claim to know the God who is light.
Verse 10’s key words — “loves” and “lives” — give the positive side: “Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light.” Loves doesn’t mean ignoring sin, avoiding hard conversations, or agreeing about everything. Christlike love is truthful, patient, humble, forgiving, and committed to the spiritual good of others. It refuses to harm, exploit, or place an obstacle in another believer’s path. Lives represents the environment in which a Christian spiritually breathes. When you choose to love others, you’re essentially pitching your tent and making your permanent residence inside God’s realm of light and truth.
John says that, in the one who loves, “there is nothing in them to make them stumble.” The phrase may include both the idea of avoiding one’s own stumbling and avoiding becoming an obstacle that causes another person to stumble. In either case, John’s point is clear: Love helps protect fellowship; hatred damages it.
Earlier in this chapter, John examined the moral evidence of knowing God: obedience to his commands. Here he examines the relational evidence: love for God’s people. Our relationship with God can’t be separated from how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. If we claim to be in the light while refusing to love, John says our claim is empty.
In v. 11, In 1 John 2:11, the contrast sharpens dramatically as John pivots from the safety of the light to the hazard of the dark: "But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them." The person who lives in hatred “walks around in the darkness” and doesn’t know where he or she is going, because darkness has blinded them. Sin distorts our spiritual vision. Hatred keeps us from seeing God clearly, seeing others rightly, and recognizing the path of faithful obedience.
John’s picture of darkness in v. 11 is a stark warning: Hatred is spiritually blinding and disorienting. When we refuse to love, we trap ourselves in a fog where we lose our moral direction, stumble through relationships, and wander far from the reality of God’s love.
John himself knew that a person can be changed by Christ’s love. Early in his discipleship, James and John were called the “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), and John once wanted fire called down on people who rejected Jesus (Luke 9:51–55). Yet this same John became known as an apostle who repeatedly called believers to love one another. Christ’s light can transform angry, proud, and wounded hearts into hearts that reflect his love.
Click to see Warren’s take on “How to follow.”
These two closing verses call us to personally examine ourselves honestly. Are there resentments, contempt, prejudice, bitterness, or unwillingness to forgive that we need to bring into Christ’s light? We can’t truly walk in the light while holding on to hatred toward a brother or sister. But through the grace of Jesus, we can confess what’s in our hearts, seek reconciliation where possible, follow the Lord’s long-standing command to love each other, and learn to love as he has loved us.
† If you would like practical ways to live out this command to love, see Warren’s how-to-obey list.
† Summary and Key Points of 1 John 2:7–11
Click to read Warren’s take
on what Elder John
advises us in
“1 John 2:7–11.”
In this five-verse passage, John calls believers back to the command to love one another. The command is “old” because they’d heard it from the beginning of their Christian lives, yet it’s “new” because Jesus perfectly displayed it and calls his people to love as he loved. Love for fellow believers is evidence of walking in Christ’s light, while persistent hatred reveals the blinding darkness of sin.
• The command to love is both old and new (vv. 7–8). It’s old because God has long commanded love; it’s new because Jesus fulfilled and embodied it in a perfect, sacrificial way.
• Christ is the standard for Christian love (v. 8). The truth of this command is seen first in him and then, increasingly, in those who belong to him.
• The true light is already shining (v. 8). Through Christ, darkness is passing away, and believers are being changed to reflect his light and love.
• Love for fellow believers is evidence of living in the light (v. 10). Genuine love seeks another believer’s good and doesn’t become a cause of spiritual stumbling.
• Persistent hatred is incompatible with walking in the light (vv. 9, 11). Hatred leaves a person in darkness, spiritually disoriented and unable to see the path of faithful obedience clearly.
- Q. 1 John calls the command to love both “old” and “new.” Why is it old, and in what sense is it new?
- Q. 2 In what specific ways does Christ’s love set the pattern for how you love fellow believers? Where do you most need to grow?
- Q. 3 According to v. 10, what evidence shows that a person is living in the light?
- Q. 4 Are you walking in the light or allowing bitterness, resentment, or hatred to keep you in darkness? What response does Christ call you to make today?
1 John 2:7–11 (NIV)
Read the passage in another Bible version or listen to 1 John, chapter 2, read by Max McLean.
Summary Video
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