For this is the message,.... Sent from God by Christ, or what he in his ministry declared, and is the commandment which was so frequently urged by him, Joh 13:34; that ye have heard from the beginning; of the preaching of the Gospel to them, and of their conversion; see Jo1 2:7; that we should love one another; to which the command of Christ, the reason with which it is enforced, and the early notice of it, should engage.