Again, I write a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away, and the true light already shines.
The commandment of love is both old and new. Old, because John’s readers have had it from the beginning of their Christian experience. New, because in the unfolding of Christian experience, it has developed new power, meaning, and obligation, and closer correspondence "with the facts of Christ’s life, with the crowning mystery of His passion, and with the facts of the Christian life" (330-331).