And This Is Love

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 2 John 3

2 John 1–13 – The Power of Love in Christian Community
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – February 7, 2021 (am)

One of the most difficult and frustrating challenges in living Scripture is when Scripture itself gives what sounds like contradicting instruction on how we should live. We can feel this sort of tension even with the greatest commandment! Jesus said: Mat.22:37 … You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it—[displays] it—You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This sounds simple and direct but, when Jesus was asked, who is my neighbor (Luk.10:29), He answered with a story that turned the question around. The question He really addressed was: [Who neighbors me]? Answer: Anyone who perceives my need and goes as far as it takes to meet me in my it and help me out of it. And when I’m really in need, I’ll receive that help from anyone, anyone at all, even from someone I may feel like I have good reason to hate! That’s the picture Jesus paints in the story we call The Good Samaritan (Luk.10:25-37). So: Who is my neighbor? Who am I called to love as [myself]? Answer: Anyone in need, anyone at all, even someone I may feel like I have good reason to hate. And Jesus is our model. This is just what He did for us!

So, we have this command, but then we seem to hear a different message in passages like Tit.3:10 or 2Th.3:14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 1Co.5 goes even further! There we’re told that an immoral man who doesn’t repent should be handed over to Satan (5), so that [his] flesh may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord! How do we do both—love everyone in need, and still hand [some of them] over to Satan? Further, Mat.18:15-17 also tells us to discipline unrepentant sinners. But four verses later, Jesus tells Peter to forgive his brother seventy-seven times! (Mat.18:21-22)

So, which do we do? Do we cut off persistent offenders, or do we forgive them endlessly, and even go after them when they [stray]? (Mat.18:10-14) When my neighbor is a fellow believer, does loving him mean I overlook everything he does wrong? And if so, when would I ever get to the point of [having] nothing more to do with him? (Tit.3:10; 2Th.3:14)

We can go a long way toward finding some answers by turning to the shortest book in the Bible: 2Jo. 1Jo. was written to strengthen assurance among genuine if unsettled believers. John introduced three tests of life: doctrinal, moral, and relational—right belief about who Jesus is, a pattern of obedience to his teaching, and true love for one another—three unmistakable signs that Col.3:13 [God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. 2Jo. and 3Jo. are brief but poignant letters in which the apostle applied the already practical teaching of his first letter to particular expressions of need in this local church. Robert Yarbrough (ESVSBN) suggests that all three letters may have been delivered as a packet to one particular church: 3Jo. as a personal letter to the host (Gaius, 1) commending the messenger (Demetrius, 12), 2Jo. to be read to the whole church, and 1Jo. as a sermon to be preached on the main issues that troubled this church. This makes sense, but we’re just not certain.

This letter clearly comes in three parts.

John’s Richly Deep Greeting to His Readers – 1-3

John identifies himself as the elder (1) here and in 3Jo.1 but almost certainly didn’t fill that office in this church. More likely he was simply chief among some older men who were held in high regard there (the Greek allows either).

And the elect lady and her children (1) almost certainly are this church as a whole and the members within it, respectively. Why this imagery? We don’t know—perhaps for security. But regardless, it’s interesting to note that John chose a family metaphor, a [woman] and her children (1). The church is family (cf. Rom.8:12-17), bonded in love and truth (1) forever (2).

And that imagery reappears in his next statement: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. Here we meet John’s theme: love rooted in truth. Four times truth is mentioned here: twice without an article, emphasizing the quality of sincerity (Stott, 205)—he truly loves them—and twice with an article, the truth, emphasizing the true content of the gospel, namely, the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

These believers have fellowship with [one another] because [their] fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ (1Jo.1:3). And this fellowship is enabled through the grace and mercy of God and of Christ which work together to grant us peace—peace indicates the character of our salvation, mercy our need of it and grace God’s free provision of it in Christ (Stott 207). And the net result is that we can now love one another in this truth!

John’s Main Body of Instruction to This Church – 4-11

This main body of this second letter from John unfolds in three parts: The Affirmation (4-6): John [rejoices] that some in this church are walking in the truth (4), but then calls all of them to love one another (5) in obedience to that greatest commandment (6; cf. 1Jo.5:2) which is now so familiar to them.

The Warning (7-9): This love and truth should be the pursuit of the church because there are many deceivers out in the world who are antichrist (7; five times, other four in 1jo.). They literally deny the incarnation, the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh (7), and this church knows some of them personally! (1Jo.2:18-25) 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not [be led astray and] lose [out on the] reward (8) that awaits those who endure in truth and love (9).

But then comes The Charge (10-11), which offers us some profound insight into how to address the dilemma we identified at the start—how we can love people and still properly address persistent offenders all at the same time. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. John is charging this church not to receive false teachers into their gathering place, into their homes. Don’t take them in. Don’t address them as a friend or fellow believer even if you know them! Don’t give them a hearing or in any way endorse their message, even implicitly. That would be equivalent to [participating] in [their] wicked works (11). Such people are misrepresenting the only One Who’s able to save us here and now and for all eternity! They’re taking away any hope of loving one another in truth because they’re falsifying the truth! Put another way, hospitality is such a powerful expression of Christian love that offering it to enemies of Jesus and His gospel aligns us with them in their falsehood even more than with Him and the truth we profess to believe!

John’s Closing Assurance of More to Come – 12-13

John had more to say but that could wait until he sees them next, face to face (12). Still, this suggests a pretty high priority on the message he wrote here since it couldn’t wait for his next visit. And I believe this instruction is still urgent for us to hear today.

We’re being called to be a community in solidarity, centered on the truth about Jesus Christ, His Person and work, the true gospel. That’s what it means to be a church. When that fellowship is centered on anything other than Jesus, it only diminishes our unity. So, when false teaching about Jesus shows up, love turns it away—love for Jesus, love for God, love for the people who might be misled, even love in the most proper sense for the false teacher himself who is heaping up judgment on himself each time he steps up to proclaim his error (1Jo.5:12; cf.Joh.3:36: Whoever has the Son has life;….).

(On a quick side note, we must remember that this letter is to a church, the church. This is not instruction of how every individual Christian should deal, for instance, with a secularized neighbor or a wayward child. We are called to compassion and mercy with those who are struggling, either in their unbelief or in their professed belief.)

Love must be rooted in truth or it is not genuine love. We see that in v.6: love conforms to the character of Christ that flows forth in His commandments. So, when love fails to conform to His character, it ceases to be love. This tells us two things: (1) true love can’t and won’t tolerate falsehood. And (2) any tolerance of falsehood can’t be called love!

Let’s think about these two as we finish; we’ll just mesh them together. This world tells us that true love is tolerant. It’ll go along and get along. After all, it’s those bigoted people who always believe they’re right who incite riots and move armies. And chief among them are those religious people who claim they’re the only ones who know the truth.

But, friends, if we stop defending the truth, we’ll soon stop proclaiming it at all. And before long we’ll stop even believing it! And surely that isn’t the answer to this world’s problems—people coming to the place little by little where they believe nothing and accept everything!

Rather, the truth we proclaim actually is the answer this world needs! And that truth must be proclaimed in love. In fact, the same love that proclaims the truth to those in need, defends the truth when it’s attacked! And love defends the truth not because it’s bigoted but precisely because it’s love. It recognizes that any attack on truth is an injury not just to truth itself but to all who are trapped in lies. So, love moves in to save—to love people in truth, to love them truly.

The most familiar way we see this is when we correct our children. If their actions don’t conform to the truth, to the character of God as revealed in Christ and in Scripture, then we correct them for it. That’s an expression of love. It would be cruel to ignore this need.

On a bit wider front, it also happens in the church. A member is trapped in a persistent sin. Love moves forward to confront. It even expels the person if the sin persists. But it does so always hoping, always praying, for repentance. And it does so trusting that the sweetness of the bond of love within the body will end up being more desirable than the sin. And thus, love supplies that invisible, magnetic force that draws a sinner back toward truth, repentance, and restoration.

And it doesn’t stop there. As a body of believers that loves one another in truth, we spread out into society. Jesus said: Joh.13:35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. How do you suppose all people will see it? They see it as the light of our love moves outside our walls and shines in conspicuous contrast to the surrounding darkness (Mat.5:14-16). They see it as the salt of our passion for truth seeks to preserve even this fallen society through gospel witness despite growing opposition (Mat.5:13). Love moves Christians to stand firm in defense of truth on issues like abortion, the definition of marriage, gender identity, and other self-gratifying departures from the truth that tear at the fabric of peace. And when we do it rightly, we’re acting on the same motives that move us to go out feed the hungry or house the homeless or adopt the orphan.

But it doesn’t stop even there. It’s only this sort of love in truth that can build a solid foundation for just war in defense of truth and righteousness on an international level. It’s only when we see the necessary interdependence between love and truth that we can build a persuasive argument that defends why it’s best for nations like Great Britain and the United States to move out in military response against the likes of an Adolph Hitler in WWII. If a war is truly just, it’s waged as love of neighbor. It’s loving in truth because love defends truth. It must, even in this fallen world. And when it does, we are all blessed by it!

Conclusion

If we don’t understand this connection, then I think we will barely appreciate John’s command regarding how to respond to deceivers as the church.

We’ll also likely struggle with how best to discipline our kids. And we may even begin to understand why we’re not more troubled about the social or even the moral issues that are so under attack in our day.

If we don’t understand this correlation between love and truth, then we’ll likely struggle to explain or defend God’s command to Israel to wipe out all the peoples living in the land of Canaan when they took possession it.

And if we struggle with that, we very well may struggle with the question of how a loving God can send people to hell for all eternity just for not believing in Jesus.

So, we want to perceive, understand, appreciate this loving truth and truthful love that is interwoven at the heart of our faith, expressing the very Person and work of Jesus. And here’s the key: We look to His Word to tell us when to act and when to rest, when to object and when to agree, when to confront and when to forbear. And we do so to advance His will, His purposes, not ours.

Love can’t lose its courage and truth cannot lose its warmth. When that happens to love, it becomes little more than sappy sentimentalism whose only hard work is to process the latest personal slight. And when it happens to truth, it becomes a stone slab of doctrines that crushes every deviation as though all opposing ideas are equally heretical.

Love in truth is God’s people drinking deeply of the truth which comes to us most clearly in Jesus Christ the Father’s Son (3), and of the love which is granted us by God’s grace and mercy, such that we live and proclaim His peace for His glory.

Next Sunday: It Is a Faithful Thing You Do, 3 John 1–15