No new commandment; no commandment now revealed to you by me for the first time.

From the beginning; from the time when the gospel was first preached to you. The apostle has special reference to the commandment of love, which is "the fulfilling of the law." This they had from the beginning, chap 1 John 3:11; John 13:34-35; John 15:12; John 15:17, and in this sense it was an old commandment. Compare 2 John 1:5. Love to men was inculcated in the Old Testament. Christ not only taught it more clearly, but perfectly exemplified it, and thus presented to men new motives, and laid them under new obligations habitually to exercise it.

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Old Testament