And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 2 John 1:6 NIV
Read 2 John.
As we concluded John’s first letter to the church, we begin tonight with a new letter. 2 John and 3 John are quite short in comparison, but we have much to learn from them. 2 John was written to a specific church in John’s day, but the concepts are applicable to us universally in modern times.
I like how the letter opens. Several translations simply say, “The Elder.” The NLT says, “This letter is from John the Elder.” As I read this, I think “John the old man,” but in an endearing way. I think of all he had endured, and all he had personally witnessed as a disciple of Jesus and as a leader of the church. John was one of the three closest friends of Jesus, and he was often referred to as the “one Jesus loved.” I can imagine all that he witnessed as he followed Jesus day by day during his ministry on earth.
After the death and resurrection of Jesus, John was one of the pillars of the early church, along with Peter, James, and Paul. In time, terrible persecution had erupted against the church, and every one of the disciples had been executed, except for John. He was the only one who survived. Tradition says that he was dunked into boiling oil and survived it. Whether or not that is true, I am not sure, but we can be sure that he endured physical suffering for the sake of the Gospel. He was then exiled to the Island of Patmos where he remained for the rest of his days. This is where he wrote the letters of John to the churches, as well as the book of Revelation.
John continues to make some of the same points in this letter that he did in 1 John. However, here is one major point. He is exhorting the believers to walk in truth and love.
If we are all about truth but don’t have love, we will become legalistic and prideful. That is the example of the Pharisees. They followed all the rules and new all the right answers, but they didn’t have it in their hearts. They were nothing but “white-washed tombs,” clean on the outside but full of dead men’s bones.
On the other hand, if our focus is solely on love, but neglecting the truth, we become permissive and “anything goes.” The leaning becomes carnal and indulgent. It may seem like love to be soft on sin, but in reality, love cannot strive without a dose of truth. Our love for others will cause us to stand firmly on the truth for their good.
Essentially, John is making the point that truth and love walk hand in hand, and as believers, we must balance the two.
If we truly have love, it will be displayed by our obedience to God’s commands. If we are disobedient to God, we do not really love Him. While it is possible to obey rules without love, we cannot ignore the command Jesus gave us to love each other. Therefore, we cannot escape the command to love!
John also reiterates his point from his first letter concerning false teachers. He warns of the many deceivers that have gone out into the world teaching lies about Christ. They deny that He actually came in a physical body, and that is the sign that they have a spirit of antichrist. We are to avoid these troublemakers and not encourage their deception. We are not to associate with them or invite them into our homes. If we do, we are partakers of their evil work (verses 10-11).
I want to focus on verse 8 for a moment before we conclude.
Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward.
This is interesting because while we have solidified the teaching that our works do not earn God’s grace, John is teaching us to be diligent so we can receive our full reward. Of course, eternal life is a free gift of God’s grace, and there is nothing we can do to earn it. Jesus paid the price in full.
Here is the bottom line, if we aren’t diligent to walk in truth and love, we could be swayed by false teachers and miss out on salvation. He explains in verse 9 that anyone who wanders away from the truth does not have a relationship with God. But, if we remain in the teachings of Christ, we have a relationship both with the Father and the Son. In other words, if one wanders from the truth, they didn’t have a relationship with God in the first place.
You may remember this from an earlier study:
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 1 John 2:19 NIV
So, let us hold diligently to the truth we have received in Christ. Let our walk be balanced with truth and love. May we demonstrate to this world our relationship with Christ by the way we live and by the way we love others.
