Study of II John

Study of II John

INTRODUCTION

This is a letter to a Christian lady of John’s acquaintance in the Ephesian church. Her husband is probably deceased because he is not even mentioned, but there are extensive references to her children. Of necessity there is probably a wide span of ages, and it appears that the Apostle has encountered some of them abroad, for he commends their devotion. One of the major themes of John’s writings is truth; something that is in short supply in our culture. In this epistle we are looking at truth and the things it requires, testing and tolerance.

I TRUTH

John immediately reveals his passion for truth in the opening salutation and accompanying verses, 1-4, The 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 because of the truth, which lives in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, will be with us in truth and love. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. The truth is the foundation of their relationships. It is the matrix in which they exist. Grace, mercy, peace and love all flow out from the truth, and as the apostle states, the truth is in us and will remain forever. How can this be? The answer is that a person is the truth. Of course we know that the Bible is truth, and Jesus even says so in His prayer to the Father in John 17:17, Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. More importantly, He who is the eternal Word declares in John 14:6, I am the truth. To know the truth is to know Jesus, to love the truth is to love Jesus, to walk in the truth is to walk in Jesus. It is Jesus who declared to His disciples that He would never leave them or forsake them. Now in the concluding verses, 5 and 6 of this section of the letter John reminds us again that truth is the source of all the other blessings including the greatest of these, love. And 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. 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. Why is our society so loveless: so angry, so mean and rude?One of the leading Christian apologists of the twentieth century, Francis Schaeffer, coined the term “true truth” because people began speaking of your truth and my truth. In other words truth is totally relative and subjective. For many there is no objective truth outside them. Thus John’s insistence on walking in the truth is vital, and only true believers can do it because Jesus is the truth.

II TESTING

The importance of putting things to the test of truth is the next item on John’s agenda in verses 7-11, I 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. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone 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. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work. It is very clear that John is not in the least gracious to these false teachers. They are to be shunned. In today’s world, unfortunately, we have a Church that is not only divided into denominations, but in a frightening way, divided into liberals and conservatives. The liberals believe anything, and the conservatives believe the Bible. We have lost John’s carefully worded message that false teachers are to be shunned. Whole denominations have been corrupted and lost in this. When Satan deployed persecution against Christians they grew stronger, but when he employed deception they grew weaker. Purity of doctrine and reliance on Scripture is essential. You may belong to a conservative Bible believing church, as I have, but beware. Most churches started out that way, but I can assure you from personal experience that Satan goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He looks for small gaps in the armor and chooses that as his point of attack by deception. His emissaries believe that the end justifies the means and they will lie in order to accomplish the end that they think is best. Test everything by the truth of God’s holy Word that does not change.

III TOLERANCE

Tolerance is a word oft spoken today and often in the wrong context. If a man’s family is threatened he should not “tolerate” it. If a country is threatened the leaders should not “tolerate” it. However, in our personal relationships there is a place for tolerance. We are all sinners and when we relate to one another friction is inevitable. Jesus said forgive others as God has forgiven you. It’s in the Lord’s prayer. Is this possible? Yes, but only through grace. Listen to the closing words of II John 12 and 13, I 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. The children of your sister, who is chosen by God, send their greetings. John’s gracious words flow from a heart of grace, and, like Paul, grace dominates his life and letters. To some of us “grace” is just a word, and to others an amazing blessing, but few of us truly understand what grace is, and why it is essential in human relationships. Grace is not something we can produce and it is not something of which we are capable. Ian McLaren has an essay on grace that explains all of this. It is so powerful that I want to share it with you. “’Grace’ is a free, undeserved, unsolicited, self-prompted, and altogether gratuitous bestowment, a love that is its own reason, as indeed the whole of the Divine acts are, just as we say of Him that He draws His being from Himself, so the whole motive for His action and the whole reason for His heart of tenderness to us lies in Himself. We have no power. We love one another because we apprehend something deserving of love, or fancy that we do. We love one another because there is something in the object on which our love falls; which, either by kindred or by character, or by visible form, draws it out. We are influenced so, and love a thing because the thing or the person is perceived by us as being worthy, for some reason or other, of the love. God loves because He cannot help it; God loves because He is God. Our love is drawn out – I was going to say pumped out – by an application of external causes. God’s love is like an artesian well, whensoever you strike, up comes, self-impelled, gushing into light because there is such a central store of it beneath everything, the bright and flashing waters. Grace is love that is not drawn out, but that bursts out, self-originated, undeserved. ‘Not for your sakes, be it known unto you, O house of Israel, but for Mine own name’s sake, do I this.’ The grace of God is above that, comes spontaneously, driven by its own fullness, and welling up unasked, unprompted, undeserved, and therefore never to be turned away by our evil, never to be wearied by our indifference, never to be brushed aside by our negligence, never to be provoked by our transgression, the fixed, eternal, unalterable centre of the Divine nature. His love is grace.”