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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - 1 John 2:8 - 2:8
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1Jn 2:8. Ἐντολὴν καινὴν, a new precept) which is now first written to you in this Epistle. This passage savours of the fulness of the Spirit in the apostle.-ὃ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς, that which is truth) Truth, substantively, as in 1Jn 2:27, where truth and a lie are opposed to each other. Thence also ὃ is put for ἣ, that is, the commandment (ἐντολή). The sense is: the commandment, or precept, is truth; that is, the darkness truly passes away, etc. As in 1Jn 2:7, to the word old, so in this ver., to the word new, its definition is immediately subjoined, what is the old, and what is the new. The old is that which we had from the beginning: the new is that which is true in Jesus Christ and in us. The difference of time in the words, ye had, and it is, tends to this. In Christ all things are always true, and were so from that beginning; but in Christ and in us, conjointly, the precept is then truth, when we acknowledge the truth, which is in Him, and have the same flourishing in us. John praises the present state of those to whom he writes, as one even more highly favoured than that very state which they had had at the beginning of their hearing the Gospel, as Rom 13:11-12; whence also the old precept could with pleasantness be proposed to them under a new method.-ὅτ because. This is that precept, the love of a brother, from the light. Hence at the beginning of 1Jn 2:9 therefore is to be understood. Comp. ch. 1Jn 1:5-6.-παράγεται) He does not say παράγει, passes by, but παράγεται, is caused to pass, is changed, so that at length it is absorbed. The same word is used, 1Jn 2:17, where it is opposed to abiding. Thus Ezr 9:2, Septuagint, παρήχθη σπέρμα τὸ ἅγιον, the holy seed was transferred, or caused to pass to the nations, and was mingled with them. Herodian: ὄνομα παραχθὲν, a name changed, transferred from another, or to another.-Book I., ch. 16, and V. 7. The present is to be observed, as in shineth.-τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν, the true light) Jesus Christ: Joh 1:9.-ἤδη) now, with you; but it will shine the more for ever: 1Jn 2:28. Comp. until now, 1Jn 2:9.-φαίνει, shineth) On this account it was now less needful for John to bring forward the prophets in his Epistles than it was for Peter; whose 2d Epistle, 2Pe 1:19, comp. respecting the day and the morning star. Peter, with his Epistles, stands about midway between the suffering of Christ and the close of the life of John.