1 John 2:7
Brethren, lI write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.
Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.
Ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν γράφω ὑμῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐντολὴν παλαιάν, ἣν εἴχετε ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς· ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ παλαιά ἐστιν ὁ λόγος ὃν ἠκούσατε ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς.
Textual key: ‘from the beginning’ [second instance]
l:
1 John 3:11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
2 John 1:5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
Leviticus 19:18 ¶Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Matthew 5:43 ¶Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
This commandment must be that which he insists on, 1Jn 2:9-11, and which in different respects he calleth both old and new. Not new, he says, in opposition to their Gnostic seducers, to intimate he was not about to entertain them with vain novelties, as they did; all whose peculiar doctrines were no other than innovations upon true Christianity: but old, viz. a part of original Christianity, as it came pure first from our Lord Christ himself; the commandment, or word, which they had, or had heard, from the beginning. This phrase, from the beginning, being here put in conjunction with some act of theirs, ye had, or have heard, as also 2Jn 2:5,6, shows it to intend a much later term of commencement than 1Jn 1:1. Though also, considering them as Jews, whom he here writes to, it might run up as high as the law given by Moses; or, even as men, to the creation, and the first impression of the law of nature (whereof this was a very noble part) upon the heart of man.