2 John: Walk in Love

Carl has entitled this series, “Persevering in the Modern World.” The three little books that we are looking at – Obadiah, 2 John, and Jude – each have something to teach us as we live in the reality and the expectation of God’s kingdom. They might be neglected as being small and insignificant, but their message is as relevant now as it was when they were written. God wanted them in the Bible for a reason.

We need to persevere because the world is against us. We are “going against the flow” as followers of Jesus. We ought not to “blend in” with our surroundings and be indistinguishable from other people. What should identify us as Christians? As we look at 2 John today we will find one answer. What did Jesus say should be the primary mark or characteristic that sets us apart as his followers? Is it our doctrinal purity? Is it our avoidance of sin (certainly not a bad thing in itself)? The answer, of course, is in John 13:35:

By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.

It is our love that should set us apart. Love ought to be the thing that people notice about us. I’ve read about surveys that have been done about how the general public perceives Christians in America today. Unfortunately, “loving” is not a term that appears much in the responses. You might guess what adjectives are used instead: judgmental, anti-gay, intolerant, hypocritical. Now part of that attitude may of course be an expression of guilt. If we make someone feel uncomfortable by our taking a moral stand, their likely retort is that we are being judgmental. They think that if we love them we should allow them to do whatever they want. Or increasingly that level of tolerance is not enough. They expect us to approve whatever it is that they are doing. If we take a stand for Biblical truth that addresses their behavior and its consequences, they are likely to get angry and defensive.

But still, any negative reaction we provoke ought to be countered by the love that we continue to show them, even as we stand for and speak the truth. One statistic I read recently said that 79% of "unchurched" Americans think that Christianity is more about organized religion than about loving God and loving people. This seems to indicate that somehow we have become sidetracked from what Jesus called the two greatest commandments: loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves. So as we think about “Persevering in the Modern World,” we need to keep coming back to the theme of today’s message: Walk in Love. Let’s see what this little book of 2 John has to teach us about this.

¹The elder, To the lady chosen by God and to her children, whom I love in the truth—and not I only, but also all who know the truth— ²because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever: ³Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love.

⁴It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. ⁵And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. ⁶And 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.

Let’s stop there for now. We know that the apostle John, who authored this book, was “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” – and he loves to talk about love. In his gospel the word “love” or “loved” appears 40 times. Love is a word that we hear all the time. Popular music is all about love, love, love. People say that they “love” pizza or that they would “love” to come over for dinner. We might assume that people in general know what real “love” is. But people use the word in all kinds of different ways. I have tried to warn my kids about worldly definitions of love. In popular culture, lust is often mistaken for love. When someone with an unregenerate heart says, “I love you,” what they actually mean is, “I love me – and you make me feel good.” Lust always seeks self-gratification, without regard to the consequences for others. Sometimes it looks like it is giving something, but only because it thinks it can get something in return.

The kind of love that John is talking about on the other hand is unselfish. It seeks the best for its object, even if that means personal sacrifice. It is not a feeling, not something we “fall into.” It is a decision, a commitment to put someone else’s interests and benefit above your own. In that sense, you can’t say that you “love” pizza, because you are not seeking the best for your piece of pizza; you are merely enjoying the sensation of consuming it. It is really sad when someone “loves” another person in the same way that they “love” their morning coffee or they “love” their new car. But it happens, and it is the reason for countless marriages starting off passionately and then crumbling away to nothing. True love means a commitment. When we love God, we show that we are committed to him by obeying him. That is what John is saying here in verse 6. We walk in obedience to God’s commands because we love him. Love is not a passive thing. We walk in obedience. This denotes action and progress, not a vague emotion or even a verbal statement of feeling or intent. The equivalent concept in James is “faith without works is dead.” What we believe, what we say we are committed to, needs to be evident in our walk. In chapter 3 of his first letter, John says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

So love is an active thing, as we “walk the talk.” The nature and depth of my love is always demonstrated in what I do. If I truly love someone then I will be willing to serve them, even if I get nothing in return. But John also says that we are to love in truth. The truth part can mean that we love sincerely, without pretense: we truly love. It can also mean that we uphold the truth as we love. Being loving and being honest may sometimes seem to be in conflict, but we always need to maintain the right balance. Being loving does not mean compromising the truth. Love and truth need to go hand in hand, as they did in the ministry of Jesus. Ephesians 4 reminds us to “speak the truth in love.” Sometimes love needs to be tough love: saying the hard things that need to be said, setting boundaries and standards and sticking with them, and holding people accountable for their decisions and actions.

The other part of speaking the truth in love actually has to do with listening. If we are trying to help someone, we need to be careful not to be too quick to give them the “right answer.” We need to listen first and understand and indeed love the person before we offer a solution to their problem. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. It’s that caring and commitment that open the communication channel with another person and actually give us the right to speak into their life. Without love, our words may have little effect.

We love because God first loved us. We clearly cannot love as we should unless we are motivated and empowered by the love that God has for us. Our own love will quickly run dry, especially if we are unappreciated or rejected. A verse that the head of our mission loves to quote is part of 2 Cor 5:14: “The love of Christ compels us.” Jesus is not only an example of how to love – sacrificially, faithfully, and in truth – but He fills us up with His love for other people, if we allow Him to. We need not only to see His love but also to experience it, to be truly “compelled” by it. God’s love that fills our hearts is first directed back to Him. We need to walk in love to God (shown by our obedience to His commands, just as John says) before we can love others as we ought. This was one of the central themes of the “Not a Fan” video series that we just completed here. Unless our good works, our sacrifice, our giving, flow out of our love for God, they are likely done from selfish motives and are worthless for bringing Him glory.

So the first part of 2 John focuses on walking in love. So much more could be said about love. There are all the wonderful qualities of love listed in 1 Corinthians 13 that I haven’t mentioned. But let’s keep going with our text. Actually, I skipped over the introductory sentences. Let’s go back and look at them a little bit. The author of the letter, John, refers to himself as “the Elder” despite the fact that he was also one of the original apostles. He probably was an old man at the time of writing this. However, it is also thought that he may have been functioning as an elder or overseer in the church at Ephesus. He addresses this letter to a lady and her children. There is disagreement among Bible scholars as to whether this lady refers to an actual person or if the expression was an encoded way of referring to a church or group of churches. It doesn’t make much difference to us; the message is still the same. John says that he loves them in the Truth – or in other words, in Christ, since we know that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. John stresses the unity of those who know the Truth and reinforces this by blessing his readers with grace, mercy, and peace. How does that unify? “Grace” was a common Greek greeting, “peace” was the Hebrew greeting – the idea of shalom or broader well-being and wholeness were included in this blessing. John sandwiches “mercy” in the middle, a reminder of God not giving us what we deserve as sinners. These blessings are assured because they come from God the Father and Jesus the Son. John makes a point of specifically referring to Jesus as the Father’s Son as a hint of the truth needed to counter the gnostic heresy that he addresses in the second half of the letter.

In verse 4, John says that he finds great joy in some of the “children” walking in the Truth – in other words, persisting in following Jesus. Certainly, those of us who are parents can attest to the great joy of seeing our children grow in their faith and hold fast to the Truth. John felt a fatherly responsibility for the believers that he was writing to, hence his joy at seeing them walking in the way that he had taught and demonstrated. They were walking in Truth. Now they needed to walk in love. The implication perhaps is that there was something that was causing disunity in the body. Could they have been maintaining strict principles but not forgiving very readily? John was asking them, reminding them, to love each other. If there was some kind of division then it would weaken them in their stand against the false teaching that we will look at in a moment.

Love makes strong families. When we truly love each other, we make up for each other’s failings and weaknesses. We build up rather than tearing down. We serve each other. We forgive each other. We encourage each other. This command “from the beginning” harkens back to Jesus telling his disciples to love each other as He had loved them. And He was headed to the cross for them. John wanted the recipients of this letter to be strong in that kind of love. Continuing on in our text,

⁷I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

John was warning them against the false teaching called Gnosticism, a heresy that was a particular threat to the church in its first two centuries. Gnostics believed that all material things are evil; only the spirit is good. Therefore, a divine Son of God could not have come in the flesh. Either Jesus only appeared to be a human or else his divine spirit left Him before the crucifixion. The Gnostics therefore denied the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Instead, they taught that salvation could only be obtained by “secret knowledge.” This was the reason they were called Gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “to know.”

This was a destructive heresy not only theologically, but also in practice. Because matter was considered evil, Gnostics either adopted asceticism, treating the body as evil and denying all physical desires, or they went to the other extreme of licentiousness, saying that it doesn’t matter what we do in our bodies since they are evil anyway. There were many different branches and flavors of Gnosticism. They were confusing and deceiving people and leading them away from the true faith.

A person teaching a different way of salvation is called the antichrist, because by adding to what Jesus taught they are trying to supersede Him, put themselves above Him, or replace Him in authority. The prefix “anti” can mean “in place of” as well as “in opposition to.” John speaks of the spirit of antichrist in 1 John 4:3:

³but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

Acknowledging the divinity, humanity, and authority of Jesus is the key here. So many cult leaders have claimed authority above that of Jesus and have led people astray. Just this week I was reading with my kids about an influential Korean pastor (connected with a company which just bought Newsweek magazine – that’s why it was in the news) who is at the center of a controversy over statements by his followers that he is “the Second Coming Christ” – not Christ himself, but someone who will complete the work of Jesus. These allegations have strained relationships with other Christian ministries around the world. The Southern Baptists withdrew from plans to sell a large conference center in New Mexico to a university in San Francisco that is associated with this pastor. The allegations are still being investigated by Christian groups, but many people think they are credible. Sometimes there is a fine line between following Jesus and running ahead of Him. The spirit of antichrist lures us with the original temptation of the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “You can be like God.”

John is the only Biblical writer who uses the term “antichrist.” This word with a capital “A” has been applied to a final, personal Antichrist who will appear shortly before the return of Jesus. This is the beast coming out of the sea in Revelation 13:

⁷It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. ⁸All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.

⁹Whoever has ears, let them hear.

¹⁰“If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword they will be killed.”

This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.

The power and authority given to the beast are from the dragon, or Satan. And he appears to win in his war against God’s people. Only the faithful are not deceived into worshiping him. Those who resist him will be imprisoned or killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints (The new version of the NIV uses “God’s people” instead of “saints.”) to persevere in the modern world. Some Bible teachers have said that this beast symbolizes secularism, certainly a growing power in the world today. Freedom of religion in America is being redefined as freedom from religion. More and more people around the world are worshiping the beast of secularism. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

The Apostle Paul does not use the term antichrist or the spirit of antichrist in his writings. The equivalent for him is “man of lawlessness,” such as in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4:

³Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come [the day of the Lord] until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. ⁴He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

The Antichrist will rebel against God and everything He stands for; exalting himself, he will demand to be worshiped as the supreme authority. Thankfully he is doomed to destruction at the end, when he will be shown up for what he is.

Why does all of this matter to us? All around us there are many popular teachings and ideas that add something to or subtract from the basic gospel message. Salvation is only by grace through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, who was and is fully God and fully man. The Bible alone is the ultimate authority in revealing God’s will for how we should live. Anyone who “runs ahead” of these principles, denying them or adding to them, is getting dangerously off track. Back to our text in 2 John.

 ⁸Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. ⁹Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

The Gnostics were adding something to the gospel, therefore they were in effect “running ahead” of the teaching of Christ, leaving the true God behind. John had helped build up his readers in their faith. If they were drawn away from the Truth, they were at risk of losing what John had worked for, their reward in heaven. Whoever continued in the true teaching would recognize that both the Father and the Son were divine.

 ¹⁰If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. ¹¹Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.

So, while John was telling his readers to walk in love, he was also cautioning them against encouraging and supporting false teachers by offering hospitality. What it the loving response to false teaching? Usually it is a gentle confrontation, speaking the Truth in love, in the hope of convincing someone of the error of their ways. Glossing over the differences by welcoming them unreservedly will only send the wrong message to them and to anyone observing the situation. I remember as a child in Nepal the arrival in Kathmandu of some “missionaries” from the Children of God cult (now called The Family International). They came to our church without identifying themselves – not that we knew much about them at that stage anyway – and I remember them participating in at least one service, singing an odd song, “You Gotta Be a Baby.” It didn’t take long for my dad and others to realize that they had some very heretical beliefs and were pushing for others to join their group. After the church was warned about them, they quickly stopped attending, though they were still active in “witnessing” in the city. It was necessary to distinctly distance ourselves from them so that people would not think that they had some connection with our church. I think this may be similar to what John is talking about here in his warning against “sharing in their wicked work.” That particular cult not only added to the gospel in a number of bizarre ways, it used sex as a means of evangelism and practiced wide-spread sexual abuse of children. Fortunately it sounds like it has mostly disintegrated as a movement, though it hurt many, many people over the years. It is very sad when people begin believing lies from Satan rather than the truth and trap others as well.

So John was warning his readers to be on the lookout for false teachers and to beware of unwittingly supporting the spread of heresy by offering them hospitality. This was an urgent message. We don’t know what else he had to tell them, but he wanted that to be face to face. He wraps up his brief letter:

¹²I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

¹³The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings.

John was looking forward to visiting with his readers and encouraging them in their faith. They were like his beloved children, and it was a joy for him just to be with them.

So that is the message of 2 John: walk in love, just as you walk in the truth, staying alert for deceptions that go beyond what Jesus taught. Walking in love involves commitment, humility, and obedience to God. Let’s ask for His grace once again to help us live and love as we ought – for His glory.