1 John 2:7 Commentary

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1 John 2:7

Comments

We are to walk as Christ walked. He was born under the law and he said of himself, ‘I do always those things that please him’; he therefore lived in perfect obedience to the law. To follow his example is to keep the moral law as he kept it. The command to walk as he walked is not something new but is consistent with all God has said before and is what every Jew had been taught from childhood, and what the nation had been taught from ancient times; Christ did not abolish one word of the Old Testament. It is true that only the remnant of truly converted Jews obeyed from the heart, but the standard was always there.

Application

No interpretation of Scripture that does not agree with the rest of Scripture should be accepted, for God never contradicts himself.

Questions

What commandment does John refer to? Some answer that he refers to the new commandment given in John’s Gospel (13:44), and others that he anticipates what comes later in this chapter (verses 9-10), but John’s letter, though it is profound, is always simple in structure, and his thoughts are tightly woven together with each verse building on the previous verse. The first place to look is in the previous verse, and there we find that believers are taught to live after the example of Christ. It is this that raises the issue of whether the Christian has some totally new commandment to follow, and John answers that this standard of righteousness is what God has always required.

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1 John 2:7 Commentary and Bible Study