THE TEST OF LOVE

September 7, 2025|The Test of Love|1 John 2:7-11

JD Cutler

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As we continue working our way through the letter of 1st John we come to one of the both clearest passages and one of the most challenging ones.

We have already identified one of John’s primary purposes for writing this letter, so that these Christians might better understand that not everyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus is. There were those that had sprung up in the church that were teaching things that sounded spiritual but were in fact contrary to the gospel and whose lives did not match their professions.

After his prologue where he establishes himself as an eyewitness, reminding them that what they proclaimed was what they had both seen and heard, John moves to his first way to evaluate the claims of those teachers.

Do they walk in the light? In this section he reminds us that none of us are sinless but that through Christ we can be forgiven. We are not perfect, but those that continue to walk in darkness, no matter what they claim, are liars and they are deceiving themselves.

He also reminds us that when we, as believers, do sin, that we can confess our sins, bring them into the light, and experience the blessings of our forgiveness secured for us in Christ.

Not wanting us to see in that blessed promise a license to sin, he shows us the second evaluation tool, is obedience to God’s commands.

No one who claims to know him but walks in active disobedience truly knows him.

He finishes that section with these words,1 John 2:6 (ESV) 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

This is pretty basic Christianity 101 for these believers so far. As radical as it may sound to some of our modern ears, this is the message of the gospel. When we come to Christ we are born again by the Spirit and there is a radical change that takes place, we are new creations as the Bible says. To claim to be born again and yet display no change is inconsistent with the claims you are making.

In our text today, John presses deeper into what he said in verse 6 by reminding us that, one, this is not new, and two that the tangible outworking of walking as he walked is seen in our love for our brother. 

There are really twin themes in our text today, love and light, which is important in our culture today. The world has so twisted the idea of love that it has come to mean something almost unrecognizable from the Bible’s picture and description of love. Light, as we saw in week 2 is John’s way of talking about both God and those who know God. To walk in the light is to live our lives in and for Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we look at these verses this morning I pray that what love truly is would be clear to us and as we examine our lives in light of John’s words that we would find encouragement and comfort by realizing we are in the light or that we would find conviction and cause for repentance if we are not. 

If you haven’t already, please take your copy of God’s word and open to 1 John 2, beginning at verse 7. 

We will look at these verses under the heading The Test of Love this morning. 

1 John 2:7–11 ESV

7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Let us turn our attention to verse 7 this morning as we look at… 

I. THE OLD COMMANDMENT

1 John 2:7 “7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.” 

John begins by addressing them as beloved.

Last week we saw him use the term ‘little children’ or ‘my own dear children’.

Here again we are reminded that this letter is not written out of dissatisfaction in the churches he writes to or even a doubt of their position in Christ, but out of a deep love for these believers as he warns them against false teachers and imposters as well as equips them to evaluate them. This is the first of six times John will refer to his audience as beloved. agapētos (ag-ap-ay-tos') from the root word agapē (ag-ah'-pay) or as you may be more familiar, agape. My dearly loved is one way to think of beloved.

Those who I have much and dear love for. This pastoral, fatherly love is the very foundation for John’s writing and permeates the entirety of the letter. When John wrote his gospel, do you know that he did not use his name, he uses the expression, the disciple whom Jesus loved, not as a way to single out himself, but as a way to remind his readers that the most precious thing to the apostle was that he had experienced the overwhelming, present, sacrificial love of Christ firsthand.

It makes sense that someone who was loved by Christ would express love like Christ. After all John says later in this same letter, 1 John 4:19 (ESV) 19 We love because he first loved us.

So John says, my dearly loved ones, I am not writing you a new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. While John does not spell the commandment out in verses 7 and 8, it becomes abundantly clear in verses 9 and 10 that he is talking about the commandment to love. A commandment that he says they have had from the beginning, the word that they have heard. I think John is referring to the gospel message that he and the apostles proclaimed. The same message he said in chapter 1 was that which they had seen and heard. 

In John’s gospel account, we find very similar language from Jesus to the 11 apostles in the upper room on the night in which he was betrayed. In John chapter 13 we find these words from Jesus. 

John 13:31–35 “31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” 

After reminding them that he was quickly approaching the time he would be separated from them and glorified as the Son of Man, he imparts to them a new commandment.

Think about the context.

Jesus is not speaking as just their rabbi, their master, or their friend. He is speaking from his position as the Son of Man, the only begotten son of God who is on his way to the cross to secure salvation for all those that belong to him, ultimately leading to his ascension to the right hand of the Father where he would pour out the promised Holy Spirit to indwell those that belong to him and be with them to the end of the age.

He says, here is what I want you to do. Love one another.

Will they receive in some 40 days, the great commission? The command to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel? Yes. Will they receive power to be his witnesses? Yes.

But before that, the command among these innermost disciples is a pastoral and fatherly concern that they, each and every one become living expressions of the love of Christ to one another.

See, they were not to love one another according to Jewish standards. They were not to love one another according to Greco-Roman standards. Jesus says, love one another, just as I have loved you. 

Immediately prior to this, Jesus had done something that was both shocking and instructional. Do you remember? Again, drawing from John’s gospel account, we find these words. John 13:1 “1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He loved them to the end. Right after this commentary from John, he records Jesus rising from the table, putting aside his outer garments, tying a towel around his waist, pouring water into a basin and beginning to wash the disciple’s feet and drying them with the towel he wore. Telling them that they would not understand this now, but afterward they would understand. 

As he washed them clean, taking the filth from their feet onto the very garment he wore, he was painting a picture of what was coming when he would bear the sins of those who were his in his flesh on the cross, making them clean. A picture he would more vividly paint in the institution of the supper when he gave them elements that portrayed his broken body and his spilt blood. 

He was giving them a picture of his heart for them, a heart willing to endure the agony of the cross so that they could be reconciled to the Father, but also a practical example of what it meant to sacrificially love someone else.

The willingness to humble yourself and serve the needs of others, motivated not by what we can gain from them but what we can do for them.

When he had finished he said, do you understand what I have done to you? 3 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 

Right after that he issues the new command, that you love one another, as I have loved you.

This John says, is the old commandment they have heard from the beginning.

Those that belong to Christ ought to love like Christ.

So much so that Jesus says, all people will know that you are his disciples, by your love for one another. 

But as John says, it is also a new commandment. Let us turn our attention to…

II. THE NEW CONDITION

1 John 2:8 “8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.” 

If Christ had simply commanded his disciples to love one another as he had loved and they were to walk that out in their flesh, they would all fail miserably.

In that same upper room discourse, he promised them that he would manifest himself to them in a new way, that although he was going away they would still experience his love through the work of the Holy Spirit. Listen to what he says to his disciples. 

John 14:18-23 (ESV) 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Jesus will manifest himself to them because through the work of the Holy Spirit, he will come and make his home with them, along with the Father.

The same Jesus who had loved them to the end, would continue his love for them, although in a new and even more powerful way. A reality the bible says is available to all who love and obey Christ.

Think about that for a minute.

How do we know the love of the Father, he sent his son, how do we know the love of the son, because he willingly went to the cross as the propitiation for our sins, how do we experience this love, through the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the guarantee of our future inheritance and glory, experienced in the here and now as followers of Christ. 

This indwelling, empowering work is the reason we can walk in the light and love as he loved. Remember, we love because he first loved us. Although the commandment to love is not new, the expression of that love is new in light of the cross and what it shows about how Christ loved us.

What John or any other disciple could not have known during that last conversation with Jesus prior to the cross is how deeply Jesus actually loved them. But, as they saw the depth of his love for them, as the light shone in their hearts through the Holy Spirit, the depth of the commandment to love as he loved was clearly seen, and was true in him. 

John says, which is also true in you. That is, as you have the light of the world indwelling you in the ministry and presence of the Holy Spirit, you too understand the depth of Jesus’ love.

Perfectly, not yet, because the darkness is passing away.

The light of the world has come into the world and is shining, but will not be fully revealed until the dawn of the son of righteousness, when Christ returns and we see him as he is and we are transformed to be like him and to dwell with him forever.

Friends, the true light is already shining in the lives of those who know Christ.

The old commandment to love one another as Christ loved us finds newness in the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

As we learn to love as he loved, as we learn to forgive as he forgave, as we learn to serve as he served, right? 

Apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, we could never come close to fulfilling the commandment to love one another. We are far too self-absorbed and self-centered. Sin factories full of pride and vanity that always places ourselves at the center. But as we experience the inexplicable desire to love the one another's God has placed around us, as we find ourselves sacrificing ourselves, gladly and joyfully, for the good of others, as we find our hearts knitted together with people with whom we share nothing in common but a savior, it is evidence that the true light is shining in our hearts. The love of Christ becomes true in us as it flows through us to those around us.

This is the new condition based on the evidence of Christ’s love on the cross and the power of the Spirit working in us.

A reminder from John that as we experience the depths of God’s love and express God’s love to others, we have moved from darkness to light. 

At least, John says, this should be the experience of those who confess to know Christ and walk in the light.

We turn our attention to our last division this morning, what we are calling…

III. THE CONFESSION CHECK

1 John 2:9–11 “9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” 

John now applies the next evaluation tool for a confession.

I will remind you of the things he has said so far.

1 John 1:6(ESV) 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

1 John 1:8 (ESV) 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:10 (ESV) 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 2:4 (ESV) 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him

1 John 2:6 (ESV) 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

These are the conditional statements we marked at the beginning of our look at 1st John, that John uses extensively throughout his writing. Here he says, whoever says he is in the light John picks back up the theme of light that he introduces in chapter 1. There he said. 

1 John 1:5 (ESV) 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all

1 John 1:7 (ESV) 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

So, we understand that John is talking about a confessing believer.

Someone who says they have fellowship with God, someone that says they know him, someone that says they belong to him.

By the way, according to the latest research, there are still a large percentage of people who claim to be Christian in the United States. In the Bible belt, you can be sure that most of the people you meet would claim to know Jesus.

This is not a hypothetical conditional statement. You will meet people everyday that claim to know Christ and to be a Christian, or a follower of Christ. 

John says very clearly, if someone claims that, is there evidence that corroborates their confession?

Do they hate their brother?

Two words to dig into here. Hates and brother.

The normal way to understand Hates- is to hate, pursue with hatred, detest

The normative usage of Brother in the testament is- our brethren in Christ John uses it this way throughout his letter, even as he circles back to the same theme again and again.

1 John 3:10 “10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

1 John 3:15 “15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” 1 John 3:17 “17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

1 John 4:20 “20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

1 John 4:21 “21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

1 John 5:16 “16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death,… 

Now we could certainly find reason to enlarge this to the idea of any fellow man, Christ commanded specifically for us to love our enemies and the law tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, which Jesus taught included those for whom we have no natural affinity or reason for loving, as he illustrated in the story of the Good Samaritan in light of the question, who is my neighbor.

John certainly wouldn’t disagree with that, but if we remember his concern in writing, it is professors of following Christ, and he says, if they hate the brothers, there is no evidence of the love of Christ and the light of God in them.

They are still, or as of yet, or even until now, up till this moment, in spite of the increasing light and their own confession, they are still in darkness. 

You say, well I don’t hate anyone. Not so fast.

In John’s usage of these opposite themes, darkness and light, truth and deception, love and hate.

There is no spectrum.

If you are not in the light, you are in darkness, if you are not in the truth, you are in deception, if you do not love, you are in fact guilty of hate.

The heart is not empty, Bengel says, where love is not, there is hatred.

The question is not one of emotions, it is one of actions. The word translated love here is agape. John is not saying we have to ‘feel’ a certain way towards others, but that we must ‘act’ properly toward them. The idea of agape is the desire and will for the good of another. When we act properly toward our Christian brothers and sisters, out of a desire to be obedient to God, we love them. 

Now John applies the evaluation tool to the opposite.

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light.

If we do not love our brother we are not abiding in the light, but whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

I believe the idea here is not that there will be no cause for stumbling in our own lives if we simply love our brothers. When we are striving, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, with the love of Christ, we remove the very things that so often cause us to stumble. Pride, centeredness, vanity, etc…

When we seek to follow the humility of Christ, the servanthood of Christ, and the compassionate love of Christ we will not trip over ourselves in our walk with Christ. 

On the other hand, if we hate our brother, John says we walk in darkness, have no idea where we are going, and stumble continually, because the darkness has blinded our eyes.

Will we do this perfectly? Of course not.

But should there be at least a desire in us to love our brothers in Christ? Absolutely.

Friend, if you find within yourself a lack of love for the brethren, it is a worrisome thing.

If you cannot love those whom Christ died for, whom he loved to the point of death, can you really say that you have experienced his love?

With these simple words, John asks us to check our confessions.

Does our life indicate that we abide in the light because we have love for the brothers, or despite what we may say, does our life indicate that we are in darkness, even now?

John encouraged his readers to look at the lives of those who were claiming to know God and speak for God and see whether or not their lives matched their confession. Whether they were obeying the most basic Christian command to love one another as Christ loved.

Friends, this is still one of the ways we ought to evaluate those that claim to know God and speak for God.

But more importantly, we need to make sure we open our own hearts and lives to the examination of God’s word and ask ourselves. ‘Do I love my brothers or do I not?’

To press a little more in, the question is not merely do I feel love for my brothers, but is my deep desire for their good, as defined by God; are my actions towards them rooted in faith towards and love of God the father. This is love.

If the answer is no, then as we wrap up this morning, I want to point out how, even in this test, we are reminded of the grace of God when John says, still in darkness, or as we saw, as of yet.

That is, if you find in your heart this morning that you do not love your brother, it is not too late to come into the light.

As long as the darkness is passing away and the light has not fully come, the invitation is to come to the light. 

Jesus Christ is the light of the world and he invites us to come out of darkness into the light, that our works may be exposed and we may experience the overwhelming love of God through Christ.

Let us pray.