Truth: The Boundary of Love and the Test of Loyalty
2 John 5-8
Second John is our study tonight, 2 John, this little epistle of 13 verses and brief ones at that. Just occupying really a portion of one page in all of Holy Scripture and yet inspired by the Holy Spirit for our instruction and edification, it brings to us wondrous, wondrous blessing when we understand the glory of its message. As you know from prior studies, I've titled this little look at the epistle of 2 John, "Living in the truth." In the first four verses the word "truth" appears five times. Thus we are introduced immediately to the theme of this letter, it is about the truth. It is about loving in truth, about knowing truth, about upholding the truth, living for the sake of the truth, walking in the truth. It's about the truth.
And it would be impossible really to overemphasize the importance of divine truth. God is the God of truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. Scripture says He is full of grace and truth. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. The Scripture is called the Word of Truth. Believers are said to worship God in truth, to serve Him in truth, to worship Him in truth, to walk before Him in truth, to speak the truth, obey the truth, arm yourselves with the truth, battle with the truth, love the truth, guard the truth. The church, of course, is the pillar and support of the truth.
We live in a world of lies. The whole of humanity is in a thick black dark cloud of deception and cannot see the truth of God. Believers, on the other hand, those of us who know God live in the light of the truth. Truth characterizes us because the truth is so essential to spiritual life, so necessary for salvation, sanctification, because it is so critical to the effectiveness of our testimony. And because Scripture repeatedly warns about deception and warns about deceivers and calls for us to protect the truth passionately, we need to give great attention to the truth. We are to guard the truth. We are to uphold the truth. We are to defend the truth. And we are to proclaim the truth.
In this brief letter, the Apostle John writes to an unnamed lady, "The elder, John, to the chosen lady and her children," an unnamed lady, unnamed family. And the purpose is clearly to call her and all who read to live in the truth. This also, by the way, is the theme of 3 John and when we get to 3 John, we're going to see how the truth also prevails in that second letter.
As noted in our study, the immediate reason for the letter was the invasion of false teachers into the homes of well-intentioned hospitable believers who were not discerning. They had been told they were to love those who were in Christ, that they were to open their homes to those who represented Christ and preached Christ and traveled around as missionaries for the gospel. And so they were then vulnerable to false teachers who claimed the name of Christ but really were of antichrists who said they represented Christ but really represented Satan. They played on their love. They played on their hospitality. False teachers came embedding themselves in the homes of true believers who were not discerning and from that vantage point in the home they began to disturb the confidences of the believers there and then to extend that disturbing infiltration to the church of which those believers were a part, endeavoring to undermine the truth and teach their damning lies.
This letter is basically a warning about that ploy. It's a warning about that strategy. It's a warning about being loving and hospitable toward those who say they belong to Christ, but not being discriminating and thus allowing into your life and into your home and into your church those who say they belong to Christ, but belong to antichrist. And the only way you're going to be able to distinguish that is when you know the truth.
Truth then is at the basis of our fellowship. We love and demonstrate Christian hospitality to those who are truly of the truth. Truth is the basis of our fellowship. Truth is also the basis of our separation. We join with those who are in the truth, we separate from those who are outside the truth.
Now in the opening verses, as I said, the direction of the letter is set by the five uses of the Greek word aletheia which means truth. And we looked at verses 1 to 4 in our last study and titled it, "Living in the truth." All our life as believers is lived in the truth. We are saved by an understanding of the truth. We are sanctified by the truth. The only way to be saved is to come to the knowledge of the truth. The only way to be sanctified is by Thy Word, Thy Word is truth. All our lives are lived in the sphere of divine truth. And we saw last time that the truth unites us, in verse 1, the truth indwells us, in verse 2, the truth blesses us, in verse 3, and the truth controls us in verse 4. Our whole existence is in the sphere of the truth. So we begin by looking at this concept of living in the truth, that's where we live.
Well that brings us to a second and intimately related reality. We not only live in the truth, we love in the truth...we love in the truth. While we are living in the truth there is no excuse for being so devoted to the truth as to be unloving. John is not saying here that you're supposed to become so critical and so analytical and so discerning and so skeptical that the truth literally overpowers your responsibility to love. Rather, he says, truth is always upheld in perfect balance with love. Notice verse 5, "And now I ask you, lady, not as writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning that we love one another." John wants to make it very clear that while we live in the truth, we also live in love and truth and love are in perfect balance.
We do not use the truth as a way to be unloving, inhospitable, unkind, unmerciful, ungracious. Just the opposite, the truth is always held in love. The purest kind of truth embraces love because love is a part of that truth.
Now let's look at verse 5 for a minute and just dig a little deeper. "And now," this is a logical link with verse 4, "Since we are united in the truth, since we are indwelt with the truth, since we are blessed by the truth, since we are controlled by the truth, and now then I ask you, lady, not as writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we've had from the beginning that we love one another." Part of the truth is to love one another, so if we're living in the truth, if we're indwelt by the truth, blessed by the truth, controlled by the truth, part of the truth is we love one another. This is a command of Scripture. Loving is part of the truth. John knows that the people of the truth will not resist his request to love. So he simply says, "I ask you, lady," this is a request consistent with living in the truth. This is a request consistent with being blessed by the truth. And this is not something new, not as writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning that we love one another.
John says, "I'm just reiterating what you already know." This is very important because in a moment we're going to see John calls for discrimination, he calls for a measure of skepticism, he calls for being analytical, he calls for not just accepting everybody who says they're in Christ, everybody who says they represent the gospel. But before he gets into that skeptical category here, he wants to reinforce the fact that I'm not telling you something you don't already know, this is not a new commandment, this is the one we've had from the beginning, that we love one another. And what he means by the beginning here is the beginning of your life in Christ. You knew this from the very go. You have been called into a fellowship marked by love. We are to love one another, talking here about other believers. We are to open our hearts sacrificially to one another, to embrace them and that certainly includes hospitality along with a lot of other things.
This is an echo of what John said in 1 John 2 and I want you to turn back to 1 John 2 because here you have a more full explanation of what he means by what he says. It's almost a direct parallel, 1 John 2:7, "Beloved," in 2 John he said, "I ask you, lady," here it's directed to "beloved," the church to which he writes. "I'm not writing a new commandment to you. I'm not telling you something new, but an old commandment which you've had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you which is true in Him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. The one who says he's in the light yet hates his brothers in the darkness until now, the one who loves his brother abides in the light and there's no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in darkness and doesn't know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes."
He says, "If you're a part of the truth, if you belong to God, if you are in the light, you love your brother. And this is not a new commandment, this is an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. In fact, it's an old commandment which you heard probably before you even were converted." John, as you know, became known as the apostle of love, but he once was the son of thunder. He wanted to call down fire from heaven and incinerate a village that rejected the disciples and their Lord, Luke tells us about that in his gospel. But he became a man of love, is known then as the apostle of love. And here John says, "I'm not writing a new commandment to you." It's the same thing exactly he said in 2 John, I'm not writing a new commandment, kainos, new in quality. I'm not telling you something you don't know. It doesn't mean new in time, it means new in essential character. I'm not asking you to love as if it's something brand new. This is something old, he says in verse 7, it's an old commandment which you had from the beginning and again he means there the beginning of your spiritual life. You learned from the very outset as a Christian that you were called unto the body of Christ and you're to love one another. This is an old commandment. In fact, he repeats at the end of verse 7, "The old commandment." Not an old commandment only which you heard from the beginning of your spiritual experience in Christ, but it's the old commandment. The Word which you have heard. You probably heard it all your life if you were raised in Judaism.
In fact, I mean, look at the Old Testament, some people would say, "Well, the Old Testament is not about love, it's about Law." Do you understand what the Law was? The Law was nothing but a summary of love. That's right. The Law is simply a summary of how to love. The Old Testament in Deuteronomy 6:5 said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." The Old Testament in Leviticus 19:18 said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus repeats that in Matthew 22 and says, "The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself and in this is the fulfilling of the whole Law."
The Ten Commandments which is the summation of the Law are divided into two parts. The first half has to do with how you love God, the second half has to do with how you love each other. That's why Paul in Romans 13:8 to 10 says, "Love is the fulfilling of the Law." If you love God you're not going to take His name in vain. If you love God you're not going to have an idol in His place. If you love God you're going to respond to whatever it is that He asks you to do. If you love God you're going to give Him the appropriate honor. And on the other hand, if you love others you're not going to kill them, you're not going to covet what they possess. You're not going to lie against them. You see, all the commandments are are simply ways to define how you love God, the first part of the commandments, and then how you love each other.
The message of love then is embedded in the Old Testament. It's all about loving God and loving each other. And so John in 1 John chapter 2 says, "I'm not writing you something brand new when I call you to love each other. When I say that the defining mark of a true believer is that he loves his brother and the defining mark of a non-believer is that he hates his brother. This isn't anything new, you've always known not only from the beginning of your salvation, but way back, that old commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself." John says, "I'm not inventing something new. I'm not innovating, as the heretics always do. This is just something you've heard from the very start."
And yet, look at verse 8, "On the other hand," he says, this is really good, "On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you." Now wait a minute. You can't have it both ways, John, you just said you weren't writing a new commandment, kainos, new in quality, and now you say "On the other hand I am writing a new commandment to you." You're saying the opposite of what you just said. How can this be?
Well John explains it. While the command itself is old from the beginning of your salvation you knew you were to love each other, and even before that the old commandment is part of the word which you heard all your life if you were raised to understand the Old Testament. So in that sense, loving each other is not new, but in another sense I am writing a new commandment to you and here's why. First of all, he says in verse 8, "Which is true in Him." What do you mean by that, John? I mean this, never have you seen what love really looks like the way you now see it in Jesus Christ. God has never been a man before. You've never had the opportunity to have such a perfect model of love. John 13, "Having loved His own which were in the world," it says of Jesus, "He loved them unto perfection." The disciples saw what perfect love looked like. They saw the perfection of God's love for them in the incarnation and the self-emptying and the condescension of Jesus described in Philippians chapter 2 where He empties Himself and takes on the form of a man in order that He might die on a cross for the sake of those He loved. And so while the command to love isn't new, there's a newness in its demonstration. You've never seen love like this which is true in Him. You've never seen love like you've seen it exhibited in Jesus. And, of course, these people are living around the end of the first century in the period between 90 and 95 of that first century and they would by then had the record of the gospels, at least Matthew, Mark and Luke for certain. And the love of Jesus manifest through the record of His life and through the other epistles that had been written to comment on His love and they would have seen God's love manifest, they would have seen the perfect example of love. Do you remember in the Upper Room in John 13 Jesus said to His disciples, "You're to love one another as I have...what?...loved you." And so there is a trueness in love that we've never seen.
So while the command to love isn't new, it's very old. On the other hand, there's a newness to it because it's true in Him in a way that's never been seen before. And then he adds something else. It's not only true in Him, but it's true in you. What does that mean? Well what that means is there is not only a new understanding of love because of what you see in Christ, but there's a new understanding of love because of what the Holy Spirit is doing in you. Romans 5:5, "The love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts." This is new. The fruit of the Spirit is...what's the first one, love. You now have a new comprehension of love, not only by the example of Christ, but by the indwelling of the Spirit. The work of New Covenant grace has granted to the believer the gift of the Holy Spirit. And with the coming of the Holy Spirit comes an experience and a comprehension of love heretofore not experienced, not known in that degree of fullness. We have...listen to Philippians...listen to rather Ephesians 3, "We are able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge."
It's not a new command to love, but there's a newness to it in the comprehension that we have by the example of Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who grants us this love in a measure never before experienced. That's why Jesus can say you're to love the way I've loved you and I'll put My Spirit in you and His fruit will be love. First Thessalonians, I think one of the really rich statements of the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians 4:9, "As to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write you for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another." What a statement. You don't need a lecture on love, you're taught by God to do it. That's why John can say, "On the one hand it's not new, on the other hand, it is new. There's a dimension of it that's never been seen before, lived out in the example of Christ, a dimension that's never been experienced before, that love planted in you by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You are taught of God on the inside to love."
There's a third reason why this love though old has a newness. First of all, it is true in Christ in a way that it's never been. Then it is true in us in a way that it's never been. And then he adds, "Because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining." And John adds this really remarkable statement. He says, "The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining." The true light is Jesus Christ. And He has manifested His glory, the glory of His Kingdom. In a sense you could say He's inaugurated the Kingdom of light which for those of us who believe has dispelled the darkness. His Kingdom is light. As you remember, light referring to spiritual life. His Kingdom is also love. His Kingdom is marked by, stamped by, characterized by light and love. In the arrival of Messiah the first time, the Kingdom was inaugurated and the light began to dispel the darkness. And so John says the darkness is passing away, present tense, parageti(??), the long awaited age of salvation has come. The present age is passing away. And so we live in the overlap. The darkness is still here, but the light is shining. Old Testament saints didn't have that experience. So we're living in the overlap of the coming Kingdom and the passing darkness. We are already Kingdom citizens, are we not? We already belong to the future. We belong to heaven. We are citizens of the age to come. We are citizens of the world to come. We have been, according to Galatians 1:4, "Delivered out of this present evil age." "We are now blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies."
And so we literally have a new way to experience spiritual reality as we begin to feel the realities of the coming glory in the Kingdom. The old commandment to love is not new, but there is a newness to it, a newness because we see the truth of that love exhibited in Christ, because we've experienced the truth of that love planted in us by the Spirit and because we live in the overlap and we are already tasting, as it were, of the powers of the age to come. We belong to the Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of this world. We belong to Christ who gave to love the perfect manifestation. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who enables us to love in a way unknown before this wonderful gift. So love is an old command, but it's also new. For us it literally becomes a way of life. We love one another.
Let's go back then to 2 John. And this is love, verse 6, he says we love one another, it's not a new commandment, it's the one we had from the beginning of our salvation, but it has newness to it. "And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments." Let me tell you what that means, very simple. I said it already. The commandments of God are simply the manifestations and the definitions of how you love. Every command in Scripture that tells you how to honor God, every command that is directly connected to the relationship between a believer and God is an expression of love to God when obeyed. Every command that defines how you interact with other people is simply a definition and an expression of how you love those people. That's why Paul in Romans 13 said, "Love is the fulfilling of the whole Law." I don't...I don't need a sign in my house, "Don't beat your children. Don't beat your wife." I love my children, I love my wife, that precludes the Law. Love is the fulfilling of that Law. I don't need signs to tell me not to mistreat people. The signs really won't do any good if I don't love those people. When you look at all of God's Law, and you sum it up, first of all in the Ten Commandments, and then in the two commandments, it's about loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving others as yourself. And so he says in verse 6, "This is love that we walk according to His commandments." As we are obedient to the Word of God and the will of God, it shows up in how we love. All the commandments that relate to my honoring God when obeyed demonstrate my love for Him. All the commandments related to my action and interaction with others reflect my love and when obeyed demonstrate that I love them. This is love that we walk according to His commandments. There's no antinomianism here. There's no escape from obedience in love. In fact, you can only love in the truth. And that's where we're going with this second point. We love in the truth. That is to say our love is defined by our obedience to Scripture.
And then John adds in verse 6 in his sort of inimitable way reaffirming, reasserting and restating his point, "This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning that you should walk in it." How do you love as a way of life? You love in the truth. You love in the truth. You obey everything the truth says about God. You obey everything the truth says about your relationship to others and thus you love God and you love others. It's not about sentimentality. We are to walk according to His commandments. And then he repeats it, "This is the commandment, just as you've heard from the beginning, you should walk in it." You've known this since the time of your conversion. We live according to God's truth and so we love according to God's truth.
In 1 John 5, "Whoever believes that Jesus...verse 1...is the Christ is born of God. And whoever loves the Father loves the child born of the Father. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe His...what?...His commandments." This is not about sentimentality. This is not about emotion. This is about obedience. When I am obedient to those commandments that relate to God, I'm loving God. When I'm obedient to those commandments that relate to others, I'm loving others. Verse 3, 1 John 5, "This is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome." We love by being obedient, I hope you understand that point.
So again I say, we're not talking about some sentimentality here. In fact, in Ephesians 5:2 it says, "Walk in love as Christ also loved." How did Christ love? By being perfectly obedient to His Father. By being perfectly loving toward us to provide what we needed and offering Himself as a sacrifice for sin. So we live in the truth and we love in connection with the truth. You cannot really love someone if you set the truth aside. No true love between Christians can be marked by sin and disobedience to the truth of God. Living in the truth encompasses loving according to the truth which means that our love is best expressed when we obey the Word of God. All that is directed between us and Him and us and each other. I have to love you in the way the Bible defines that love and that means that if I love you when you stumble, I'll come and pick you up. That means if I love you and you sin, I'll come and confront you. That means if I love you when you have need, I'll come and meet that need. If I love you and you're grieving, I'll come and comfort you. If I love you and you're ignorant, I'll come and instruct you. If I love you and you're disobedient, I'll come and correct you. Because that's what Scripture calls me to do. All the "one anothers" that are part of obedience.
Living in the truth then encompasses loving in the truth. And that brings us to a third principle, I hate to leave that one but I don't want to get too bogged down there. I want to give you one more. Loving in the truth demands being loyal to the truth. You can't live in the truth and you can't love in the truth if you're not loyal to the truth. And now we get down to the heart of the matter in this letter.
Verses 7 and 8. Here John who has already set limits on our loving and the limits on our loving are set by the Scripture. You can't say you're loving someone when you treat them sinfully, or when you engage in sinful attitudes or sinful tolerances, or sinful compromises with them. You can only truly love in absolute obedience to the Word of God. You must know the Word of God then in order to love God according to His revelation and to love each other according to His revelation. You have then to be loyal to the truth. You cannot live and love in the truth unless you're loyal to the truth. And here John sets some very careful limits.
Verse 7, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, this is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves that you might not lose what we have accomplished but that you may receive a full reward." You are seriously warned. You cannot love deceivers. You cannot love antichrists. If you're going to live and love in the truth, that is in obedience to God's commandments, since Christian love is fixed as to its definition, in the truth of Scripture, you cannot then embrace those who are against that Scripture, or truth will be quickly lost. We know that. O do we know that. We've seen it in the seminaries of our nation through its history. We've seen it in the Christian colleges. We've seen it in churches and denominations, how this unbiblical love, this love without truth starts to wrap up liars and deceivers and antichrists and embrace them and then the truth is lost. And many deceivers have gone out into the world.
The New Testament, of course, is full of warnings about them. I'm certain that you are very much aware of all of those warnings, and I don't need to go over all of them. There are just too many to cover them all. Jesus said, for example, in Matthew 24:24, "For false Christs and false prophets w