John encourages believers to be certain they walk in obedience to the truth, love the brothers and sisters, and rejoice in what God is doing in other people.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Part 1 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, & 3 John Bible Study Podcast entitled, Walking in the Truth, where we’ll discuss 2 John 1-6. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, this is a brief letter, so maybe today as we begin, give us a sense of the epistle as a whole, and then we’ll walk through verses 1-6 together today.
Andy
Well, one of the things I’ve loved doing as I’ve studied the Scriptures is to try to understand the purpose of each book in the cannon. Why did this particular book make it among the 66 books that make up our Bible? And it’s really remarkable. A number of years ago I thought about the differing levels of glory in heaven and the statement that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15:41, “Star differs from star in glory.” Well, truly that is the case with the 66 books of the Bible. They’re not all equally important. They’re certainly not all equally long. They’re not all equally glorious, but they’re all perfectly true and they all have a function. And so, this second, this epistle, 2 John, is the shortest in the New Testament word by word count. And you could rightly ask, how did it make the cut? How did it make it into the Bible, and why would such a short epistle be here?
But it has some important themes. Now, a lot of the themes that are most important to this epistle we’ve already seen developed at length in 1 John, but that doesn’t make them any less true or any less important. And the idea is walking in the truth, a consistency in the Christian faith, a lifestyle that lines up with God’s commands and glorifies him. But I think the second part of the epistle is also a warning about false teaching and the antichrist that’s gone out, the spirit of antichrist and false teachers. And specifically, a forbidding of welcoming them into their homes and helping them or aiding or abetting them in their false doctrinal work. If you do, you’ll share in their work, and you don’t want to do that.
And so, I think the whole epistle is about walking in the truth, the joy that John has as effectively a father in their faith. And he’s speaking to the elect lady who’s probably the church, we’ll get into all that, but that her children are walking. So, the idea is that our spiritual children continue in the Christian faith and watch out for the false doctrine and the false teachers because that’s a great threat to that very thing. I think that’s a unity of the entire epistle as we’ll walk through it.
Wes
Well, lemme go ahead and read the first six verses as we begin our look at 2 John together.
The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you dear lady – not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning – that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.
Andy, what does John call himself at the beginning of this epistle, and to whom does John address this epistle?
He calls himself the elder. And so, I think at this point, probably later in his life, an older man looking back. And we have the picture of John in his later years on the island of Patmos writing the Book of Revelation. So, he calls himself an elder, but also, it’s important that he doesn’t call himself an apostle. He’s speaking in that official role of being an elder in a local church. So, he is writing, and he writes to the chosen lady and her children, a lot of different ideas about this. It could be an aristocratic woman that had let’s say a house church and all that. And there’s a number like Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, and also Mary, the mother of John Mark, had a home that people were praying when Peter was in prison. And so, it could be a woman like that who’s wealthy, and she has some literal biological children that are walking in the truth. But many commentators think that it’s kind of code language for a local church because there is that sense of the church being the Bride of Christ. And so, the chosen lady is the church and her children are disciples, just true Christians that are walking in the Christian faith.
Wes
Now, what does John mean by the truth, and how does the truth unite all Christians?
Andy
Well, simply the truth is Christian doctrine or orthodox Christian doctrine, the pattern of Christianity that we’ve learned. Ultimately, it’s Jesus because he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). So, to walk in the truth is to walk in the right doctrine, connected primarily with the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that they are accepting the doctrines that have been laid out. Keep in mind the New Testament hadn’t been formed yet. It was in the process of being formed, but there were doctrines going out. And this body of doctrines was growing and was being established. They were told to guard the faith or to keep the faith, et cetera. The faith is Christianity. And I think the faith and the truth are probably the same thing. It’s the doctrinal truths about Christianity.
…to walk in the truth means not only to believe that these things are true and to love them, but to live your whole life practically in light of them.
And therefore, to walk in the truth means not only to believe that these things are true and to love them, but to live your whole life practically in light of them. Your walk is your daily lifestyle, the things you’re practically choosing to do with your time, your energy, your money, with the words, the works you do, everything lines up with Christianity. So that’s what it means I think, to walk in the truth. John also speaks of how this truth unites all Christians, not only I but all who know and love the truth. And so, this is really important, the idea of a local church and people by name and you’re going to interact with physically day after day. But then that universal church, the fact that there are people all over the world that are believing these same things, they’re walking in these same doctrines and are living the same basic kind of Christian life. And that’s a beautiful thing to think of – how the truth of Christianity, which is now codified and established in the New Testament for us all to read, unites us in a pattern of life and faith all over the world.
Wes
And what does John go on to say about the truth in verse 2?
The truth, he says, “lives in us and will be with us forever.” And so, this word is so vital, the idea of truth. Jesus calls himself the truth, as I mentioned, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” He also says, “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). And so, there’s a very strong connection between the written word of God and Jesus. Truth is that which lines up with reality, that which is, that which truly exists or actually exists. And so, you think about God calling himself the I AM, he’s the ultimate reality in the universe. The opposite of truth is falsehood, lies. And so, Satan spinning off lies all the time, like you told lies to Eve and also to Adam who was with her at the time. And so, the idea is that which lines up with what really is, both in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm.
So, the truth is ultimately God. God is the ultimate reality in the universe. And then everything that God says and everything that God commands that we do, and a pattern of life, all of that is the truth. But ultimately when we say Jesus is the truth, everything leads to the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is incarnate by the Spirit, who came and lived the only perfect life that’s ever been, whose doctrine is absolute pure truth. And that is what I think he means by the truth. And he says the truth lives in us. So, the idea is we’ve heard its precepts with the ear, and then the Spirit worked in us a recognition of their truthfulness. And we believed it, and it came and became imbibed within us or from the core of our being. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” I think that Paul would say that’s truth right there. That’s what it is. The truth is shining within our hearts. And so, John says, the truth lives in us, and the truth will also be with us forever. It’s not going anywhere; it’s never going to change. So that’s a beautiful recognition of the truth of Jesus Christ and the gospel.
Wes
The greeting in verse 3 is very common in all New Testament epistles. What does it mean for the apostles to wish the church’s grace and peace from God?
Andy
Yeah, so grace is a very important word. It operates in the context of human sinfulness, human wickedness. We never see that angels receive grace or need grace. Grace has to do with our need for forgiveness, our need for healing. So, grace is a determination in the heart of God. It starts there of dealing with us in our sin kindly and lovingly and not what we deserve. To do us good though we deserve condemnation. We deserve to be judged. And so, it is a determination in the heart of God to do us infinite and eternal good who deserve infinite and eternal damnation. So that’s the determination, but it’s more than that. Grace is also what God does as a result of that determination. Sending his Son is grace, sending the Spirit is grace, giving us the Bible is grace, and all of the energetic things he does to keep us walking in Christ to keep us protected from sin.
All of that is grace. All of the good things that God does to save us ultimately is grace. And so, the idea of an epistle like Paul’s epistles, grace and peace to you from God our Father in Lord Jesus Christ is a conduit or a pipeline of energy and goodness and work coming from God through the words of the epistle doing us good, strengthening our souls, it’s grace from God. So, the actual reading of 2 John gives us grace from God just as the reading of Philippians or Ephesians gives us grace from God. And it also works peace in us from God the Father so grace and peace comes to us.
So, there’s two aspects of that. First, if we are believers in Christ, we are at peace with God and he at peace with us forever. It’s a status of peace such as in Romans 5:1, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But then there’s an experience of peacefulness, a tranquility that comes over the mind and heart. So, it says in Philippians 4: 6-7, “Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” That is an experiential peace, a feeling of peacefulness that comes over you. So, which is this? Well peace from God, the Father comes by faith in Jesus Christ, but these people are already Christians. So, I think it’s first of all, a sense that God is at peace with you and you at peace with God. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, just want you to know, since you’ve been justified by faith, you have peace with God. You know that, right? So alright, a status of peace, but also a feeling of peacefulness that comes over us.
So, let’s extend it to the end of this epistle. It will ruin your peace to have messengers of the antichrist come stay in your home and then spread their doctrinal filth everywhere. It will destroy your peacefulness. And while it should, I want to protect your peace, and I want you to guard yourself. I want to protect your peace by urging you to walk in the truth and to love one another and to not have conflicts with one another. So, I want to minister peace to you. So that’s what I think it means by grace and peace from God the Father.
Wes
Now John adds mercy to the standard grace and peace. How do you understand the overlap and differences between grace and mercy? And how are all three of these guaranteed to all true followers of Jesus Christ?
Andy
It’s very difficult to make a distinction between grace and mercy, but I would do it this way. I think grace has to do with our sinfulness and our status of being sinners in the sight of God and that we need forgiveness, official forgiveness and judicial righteousness from God, justification. We need that, that’s grace. And we need a lot of help.
And so the good things he wants to give despite our sinfulness, we call all of that grace. Frankly, I look at mercy as a subset of that, that God is determined to do us good. And some of what we need is mercy. And I would say mercy, some scholars have found as a centerpiece of mercy is human misery has to do with wretchedness and misery such as being blind like Bartimaeus or being paralyzed like some of the people. And they call out for mercy, have mercy on us, alright? And so, the idea is alleviate our suffering, alleviate our misery. And so, mercy comes in light of poverty and pain and sorrow and suffering. It’s an alleviation of those things. So that’s how I see mercy. So in general, I think we generally use the word to mean, don’t give me what I deserve. You’re pleading for mercy, but that’s related to grace as well. So there’s strong overlap between grace and mercy.
Wes
How does John describe Jesus Christ in verse 3?
Andy
He says, “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ.” And so, he describes Jesus as the source of grace, mercy, and peace. So, they come to us through Jesus Christ and they’re coming as a gift from Jesus Christ. And then he calls him the Father’s Son or the Son of the Father. So, the Father is God the Father, and he is his only begotten. His monogenticase, I think is the Greek word or μονογεντικάση is the only begotten. He’s utterly and completely unique. The Father’s only Son Jesus Christ is the Father’s Son uniquely. That’s the title he gives him here.
Wes
Now as we move into verses 4-6, why should it cause all genuine Christians to rejoice in the faithful lives of other Christians as it does for John here in verse 4?
Andy
Well, it’s an emotion, happiness, joy. And there’s so much sorrow and misery in the world and that which brings ultimate joy, the real joy giver in this world is Jesus. The one who changes sorrow into gladness, into joy is Jesus. And so, the gospel of Jesus brings joy. We were condemned on our way to hell. We were miserable and sorrowful and wretched and suffering. And Jesus came and everything changed, and he brings joy, he brings delight, and that’s why he died. It says in Hebrews, he, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross scorning its shame, he came to bring us everlasting and perfect joy in heaven. But we get foretaste of joy. Now, the fruit of the spirit, one of them is joy. And so, when we see God’s grace at work in someone else’s life, it should bring us joy.
We should be just as excited that God is saving someone else, a brother and sister in Christ as that he’s saving us. Also, we know very, very much the cycle of the three parables in Luke 15 is all about celebrations, about joy. And so, the shepherd that loses a sheep, he’s got a hundred on the hills and goes to look for the one that wandered off. And when he finds it, he says he puts it up on his shoulders and brings it back. And then he calls all of his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. And then the same thing with the woman that loses the coin, and she sweeps her house all day long to find it. Then she finds it and calls all her friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin.
And then the prodigal son, when he comes back, the father kills the fatted calf and gets everyone together and has a big party. We must celebrate, rejoice with me. You should celebrate this. The older brother couldn’t bring himself to do that. But Jesus basically is saying to the people who are questioning his ministry to tax collectors and sinners and all that, he says, look, that’s why I came. You should be happy that these sinners are being redeemed. So, John puts it this way, look, I have no greater joy in this world than knowing that my children are walking the faith. You’ll see that in 3 John. And I have incredible joy to find out that your children are walking in the faith. So in the end, here’s the thing that’s so cool in heaven, we’re going to find out all the details of how God saved the elect from every tribe, language, people in nation, from every era of history.
We have a lot of learning to do, Wes, because we don’t know hardly any of these people. And when we find out what God did by his sovereign grace, we’re going to be overwhelmed with joy, pulses of joy. One person after the other, tell me your story. I want to hear what God did to save you and then what he did to use you. And we’re going to be overjoyed. So, speaking simply now, we should be so intertwined and excited about what God is doing with the gospel, that we respond with joy when we hear that people are walking in the truth or that they have crossed over from death to life.
Wes
Now, we spoke a little bit about this idea of walking in the truth earlier as we began looking at verse 1. What more do we learn about this metaphor here in verse 4?
Andy
I love the idea of the walking. It’s just moment by moment, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, and then it’s practical. There’s a pathway of righteousness. There’s a highway of holiness in the Book of Isaiah that we walk on. And we’re told in Deuteronomy, don’t turn aside to the left or to the right. That God’s word and his commands lay out a pathway ahead of us and we don’t turn aside from it. And so now we are making progress. And the Two Journeys ministry that we’re doing here, that idea is one of making progress. We’re going ahead toward something. And so, the idea is we can’t stay where we are, we need to move ahead. And so, there’s that walk. And the idea is day after day, moment by moment, every moment matters. Walking. So, to walk in the truth means to walk moment by moment in light of biblical truth, in light of the ultimate truth, Christ crucified and resurrected, in light of his holiness walking in the truth. And he says, it gives me great joy to find that your children are walking in the truth.
Wes
It really seems significant that our Christian faith should be affecting our daily lives. How does that kind of godly lifestyle relate to the commands the Father has given us in his word?
Andy
Well, there’s nothing exempt. There’s nothing outside of it. There’s no area that God says, look, I don’t really care what you do with that. That’s got nothing to do with me. I want you to work on this and this and this, but the rest is just up to you. There’s nothing like that. Everything in the universe belongs to God. Every moment of our lives belongs to God. And we’re constantly having a secularizing kind of thing where it’s like, well, that’s the holy part of my life. And then there’s the regular, the secular stuff. And that’s just not the way it is. Every moment, everything we do, we should have a sense God is pleased with it and wants us to do it. And so, the idea here is that everything that we do is, well, something we have to answer to God for. We have to be his servants.
make certain that everything you’re doing, you’re doing because you have a sense God wants you to do it.
I think it struck me with I think Titus 1:1, where Paul calls himself, I think a slave of God. I think it usually says, “of Jesus Christ.” In Romans he says, “of Christ.” But it’s like, I’m God’s slave. I’m God’s servant. And the idea there is I don’t have my own will. I don’t have my own life. Every moment I’m going to do what God told me to do. And so, it’s a beautiful thing there. So, I guess I would urge our listeners, make certain that that’s true of you. Ask the Lord. Because anything that does not come from faith is sin. So, make certain that everything you’re doing, you’re doing because you have a sense God wants you to do it.
Wes
Now, in verse 5, John uses almost an exact sentence from his longer epistle, the one we just walked through in 1 John 2:7, which relates strongly to Jesus’s statement in the Gospel of John in John 13 related to love. Why does John make so much of this command, and why is it so vital in the Christian life and church?
Andy
“I am not writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.” So how is that not a new command? Well, it’s absolutely woven through the Old Testament. There’s no doubt. And the centerpiece is in Deuteronomy. Very famous, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And Jesus said, that’s the first and greatest commandment. So, we are made for love. And then the second commandment is like it, love one another as I have loved you or as you love one another. He says it’s not a new command. We’ve had it from the beginning, but he also says in 1 John, it is a new command because Jesus made it new. Jesus made it new by showing us what love is. As 1 John 3:16 says, he demonstrated his love by laying down his life for us, “and we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
He did the same thing with the foot washing. He says, “Do you understand what I’ve done for you?… I’ve given you an example. As I have washed your feet so you also must wash one another’s feet” (John 13:12,14). So, you’ve got the foot washing and then even more, you’ve got the death of Jesus on the cross laying down his life for us. We’ve got husbands that are told to do that for their wives, “Husbands love your wives just as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). So, we have this old commandment that’s in the Old Testament, made very powerfully new by Jesus. Here he says, it’s not a new command. I’m not writing you a new command, but one you’ve had from the beginning. So, there’s nothing new about what I’m saying. You know that we need to do this, that you love one another.
Wes
How does John link loving one another with walking in the truth or obeying God’s commands?
Andy
It’s all woven together in one. And that’s what makes this epistle just so swirly and circular. It’s all related, and I think it is all related. If we love God, we will love one another. We’ll love who God made. If you love the Father, you love the child as well, he said. And so, we’re going to love the children of God. And we don’t know how to love except that he’s told us what to do. So, this is how we love one another. For example, how do you love yourself? It’s like, what do you mean? Well, you feed it. Feed yourself, your body. You care for yourself. Well, do that for others as you care for yourself. So, care for others or do to others what you would have them do to you. It’s like, oh, I get it now, I know what it means to love.
So, we’re told by the commandments what love is. So, to genuinely love we’ll do it by fulfilling the commandments. And we have so much information we can, all the one anothers, we can pray for one another, serve one another, we can prefer one another, or take each other’s ideas as superior to our own or consider them better than ourselves. We’re told in so many ways what it means to love. So, “This is love,” verse 6, “That we walk in obedience to his commandments.” Also, we realize this is something God’s telling us to do. So, we’re worshiping God by loving the and sisters in Christ.
Wes
And conversely, I think it adds weight when we think about what it would mean not to love our brothers or sisters. That this would really be an affront to God himself as we are disobeying this direct command from him to love one another. Why does John emphasize that this is a command they have heard from the beginning? And what final thoughts do you have for this first really half of the letter that we’ve looked at to this point?
Andy
We’re building on work that God’s done in us for years now. We’re not starting from scratch every day.
Yeah, so like we said, “It’s not a new command, you’ve had it from the beginning,” means I’m not entirely saying everything you’ve heard from me in the past, forget it, it’s all done now, it’s obsolete. We have a whole new paradigm here. He’s like, no, I’m not doing that. So, what it does for me is it gives me a sense of a building in the Christian life. We’re building on a foundation. We’re building on work that God’s done in us for years now. We’re not starting from scratch every day. It’d be something, Wes, you’re a worship leader, I’m a preacher. Imagine if we had an entirely new paradigm for Sunday morning every week. That’d be exhausting. Yikes. And people are like, I can’t track even what this is, what is going on? What is going on? This is no, no, no. That’s not how it works. There’s a science of life. There’s a building. This works, then this. And if that happens, then the other, it’s like, oh wait, all of it fits together and it builds. So, I’m not writing a new command. I’ve given you stuff, this from the beginning. Now I’m asking you to keep doing it. Keep walking in that what you receive from the beginning. So, this is a super encouraging way to begin this epistle. It motivates me to want to be certain that I’m walking in obedience to God’s commands, that I’m loving brothers and sisters and really rejoicing in what I see God doing in other people. So, I can’t wait for the second half of this brief epistle.
Wes
Well, this has been Part 1 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, & 3 John Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Part 2 of Episode 9, where we’ll discuss 2 John 7-13. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Part 1 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, & 3 John Bible Study Podcast entitled, Walking in the Truth, where we’ll discuss 2 John 1-6. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, this is a brief letter, so maybe today as we begin, give us a sense of the epistle as a whole, and then we’ll walk through verses 1-6 together today.
Andy
Well, one of the things I’ve loved doing as I’ve studied the Scriptures is to try to understand the purpose of each book in the cannon. Why did this particular book make it among the 66 books that make up our Bible? And it’s really remarkable. A number of years ago I thought about the differing levels of glory in heaven and the statement that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 15:41, “Star differs from star in glory.” Well, truly that is the case with the 66 books of the Bible. They’re not all equally important. They’re certainly not all equally long. They’re not all equally glorious, but they’re all perfectly true and they all have a function. And so, this second, this epistle, 2 John, is the shortest in the New Testament word by word count. And you could rightly ask, how did it make the cut? How did it make it into the Bible, and why would such a short epistle be here?
But it has some important themes. Now, a lot of the themes that are most important to this epistle we’ve already seen developed at length in 1 John, but that doesn’t make them any less true or any less important. And the idea is walking in the truth, a consistency in the Christian faith, a lifestyle that lines up with God’s commands and glorifies him. But I think the second part of the epistle is also a warning about false teaching and the antichrist that’s gone out, the spirit of antichrist and false teachers. And specifically, a forbidding of welcoming them into their homes and helping them or aiding or abetting them in their false doctrinal work. If you do, you’ll share in their work, and you don’t want to do that.
And so, I think the whole epistle is about walking in the truth, the joy that John has as effectively a father in their faith. And he’s speaking to the elect lady who’s probably the church, we’ll get into all that, but that her children are walking. So, the idea is that our spiritual children continue in the Christian faith and watch out for the false doctrine and the false teachers because that’s a great threat to that very thing. I think that’s a unity of the entire epistle as we’ll walk through it.
Wes
Well, lemme go ahead and read the first six verses as we begin our look at 2 John together.
The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you dear lady – not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning – that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.
Andy, what does John call himself at the beginning of this epistle, and to whom does John address this epistle?
He calls himself the elder. And so, I think at this point, probably later in his life, an older man looking back. And we have the picture of John in his later years on the island of Patmos writing the Book of Revelation. So, he calls himself an elder, but also, it’s important that he doesn’t call himself an apostle. He’s speaking in that official role of being an elder in a local church. So, he is writing, and he writes to the chosen lady and her children, a lot of different ideas about this. It could be an aristocratic woman that had let’s say a house church and all that. And there’s a number like Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, and also Mary, the mother of John Mark, had a home that people were praying when Peter was in prison. And so, it could be a woman like that who’s wealthy, and she has some literal biological children that are walking in the truth. But many commentators think that it’s kind of code language for a local church because there is that sense of the church being the Bride of Christ. And so, the chosen lady is the church and her children are disciples, just true Christians that are walking in the Christian faith.
Wes
Now, what does John mean by the truth, and how does the truth unite all Christians?
Andy
Well, simply the truth is Christian doctrine or orthodox Christian doctrine, the pattern of Christianity that we’ve learned. Ultimately, it’s Jesus because he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). So, to walk in the truth is to walk in the right doctrine, connected primarily with the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that they are accepting the doctrines that have been laid out. Keep in mind the New Testament hadn’t been formed yet. It was in the process of being formed, but there were doctrines going out. And this body of doctrines was growing and was being established. They were told to guard the faith or to keep the faith, et cetera. The faith is Christianity. And I think the faith and the truth are probably the same thing. It’s the doctrinal truths about Christianity.
…to walk in the truth means not only to believe that these things are true and to love them, but to live your whole life practically in light of them.
And therefore, to walk in the truth means not only to believe that these things are true and to love them, but to live your whole life practically in light of them. Your walk is your daily lifestyle, the things you’re practically choosing to do with your time, your energy, your money, with the words, the works you do, everything lines up with Christianity. So that’s what it means I think, to walk in the truth. John also speaks of how this truth unites all Christians, not only I but all who know and love the truth. And so, this is really important, the idea of a local church and people by name and you’re going to interact with physically day after day. But then that universal church, the fact that there are people all over the world that are believing these same things, they’re walking in these same doctrines and are living the same basic kind of Christian life. And that’s a beautiful thing to think of – how the truth of Christianity, which is now codified and established in the New Testament for us all to read, unites us in a pattern of life and faith all over the world.
Wes
And what does John go on to say about the truth in verse 2?
The truth, he says, “lives in us and will be with us forever.” And so, this word is so vital, the idea of truth. Jesus calls himself the truth, as I mentioned, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” He also says, “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). And so, there’s a very strong connection between the written word of God and Jesus. Truth is that which lines up with reality, that which is, that which truly exists or actually exists. And so, you think about God calling himself the I AM, he’s the ultimate reality in the universe. The opposite of truth is falsehood, lies. And so, Satan spinning off lies all the time, like you told lies to Eve and also to Adam who was with her at the time. And so, the idea is that which lines up with what really is, both in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm.
So, the truth is ultimately God. God is the ultimate reality in the universe. And then everything that God says and everything that God commands that we do, and a pattern of life, all of that is the truth. But ultimately when we say Jesus is the truth, everything leads to the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is incarnate by the Spirit, who came and lived the only perfect life that’s ever been, whose doctrine is absolute pure truth. And that is what I think he means by the truth. And he says the truth lives in us. So, the idea is we’ve heard its precepts with the ear, and then the Spirit worked in us a recognition of their truthfulness. And we believed it, and it came and became imbibed within us or from the core of our being. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” I think that Paul would say that’s truth right there. That’s what it is. The truth is shining within our hearts. And so, John says, the truth lives in us, and the truth will also be with us forever. It’s not going anywhere; it’s never going to change. So that’s a beautiful recognition of the truth of Jesus Christ and the gospel.
Wes
The greeting in verse 3 is very common in all New Testament epistles. What does it mean for the apostles to wish the church’s grace and peace from God?
Andy
Yeah, so grace is a very important word. It operates in the context of human sinfulness, human wickedness. We never see that angels receive grace or need grace. Grace has to do with our need for forgiveness, our need for healing. So, grace is a determination in the heart of God. It starts there of dealing with us in our sin kindly and lovingly and not what we deserve. To do us good though we deserve condemnation. We deserve to be judged. And so, it is a determination in the heart of God to do us infinite and eternal good who deserve infinite and eternal damnation. So that’s the determination, but it’s more than that. Grace is also what God does as a result of that determination. Sending his Son is grace, sending the Spirit is grace, giving us the Bible is grace, and all of the energetic things he does to keep us walking in Christ to keep us protected from sin.
All of that is grace. All of the good things that God does to save us ultimately is grace. And so, the idea of an epistle like Paul’s epistles, grace and peace to you from God our Father in Lord Jesus Christ is a conduit or a pipeline of energy and goodness and work coming from God through the words of the epistle doing us good, strengthening our souls, it’s grace from God. So, the actual reading of 2 John gives us grace from God just as the reading of Philippians or Ephesians gives us grace from God. And it also works peace in us from God the Father so grace and peace comes to us.
So, there’s two aspects of that. First, if we are believers in Christ, we are at peace with God and he at peace with us forever. It’s a status of peace such as in Romans 5:1, “Since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But then there’s an experience of peacefulness, a tranquility that comes over the mind and heart. So, it says in Philippians 4: 6-7, “Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” That is an experiential peace, a feeling of peacefulness that comes over you. So, which is this? Well peace from God, the Father comes by faith in Jesus Christ, but these people are already Christians. So, I think it’s first of all, a sense that God is at peace with you and you at peace with God. As Paul writes in Romans 5:1, just want you to know, since you’ve been justified by faith, you have peace with God. You know that, right? So alright, a status of peace, but also a feeling of peacefulness that comes over us.
So, let’s extend it to the end of this epistle. It will ruin your peace to have messengers of the antichrist come stay in your home and then spread their doctrinal filth everywhere. It will destroy your peacefulness. And while it should, I want to protect your peace, and I want you to guard yourself. I want to protect your peace by urging you to walk in the truth and to love one another and to not have conflicts with one another. So, I want to minister peace to you. So that’s what I think it means by grace and peace from God the Father.
Wes
Now John adds mercy to the standard grace and peace. How do you understand the overlap and differences between grace and mercy? And how are all three of these guaranteed to all true followers of Jesus Christ?
Andy
It’s very difficult to make a distinction between grace and mercy, but I would do it this way. I think grace has to do with our sinfulness and our status of being sinners in the sight of God and that we need forgiveness, official forgiveness and judicial righteousness from God, justification. We need that, that’s grace. And we need a lot of help.
And so the good things he wants to give despite our sinfulness, we call all of that grace. Frankly, I look at mercy as a subset of that, that God is determined to do us good. And some of what we need is mercy. And I would say mercy, some scholars have found as a centerpiece of mercy is human misery has to do with wretchedness and misery such as being blind like Bartimaeus or being paralyzed like some of the people. And they call out for mercy, have mercy on us, alright? And so, the idea is alleviate our suffering, alleviate our misery. And so, mercy comes in light of poverty and pain and sorrow and suffering. It’s an alleviation of those things. So that’s how I see mercy. So in general, I think we generally use the word to mean, don’t give me what I deserve. You’re pleading for mercy, but that’s related to grace as well. So there’s strong overlap between grace and mercy.
Wes
How does John describe Jesus Christ in verse 3?
Andy
He says, “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ.” And so, he describes Jesus as the source of grace, mercy, and peace. So, they come to us through Jesus Christ and they’re coming as a gift from Jesus Christ. And then he calls him the Father’s Son or the Son of the Father. So, the Father is God the Father, and he is his only begotten. His monogenticase, I think is the Greek word or μονογεντικάση is the only begotten. He’s utterly and completely unique. The Father’s only Son Jesus Christ is the Father’s Son uniquely. That’s the title he gives him here.
Wes
Now as we move into verses 4-6, why should it cause all genuine Christians to rejoice in the faithful lives of other Christians as it does for John here in verse 4?
Andy
Well, it’s an emotion, happiness, joy. And there’s so much sorrow and misery in the world and that which brings ultimate joy, the real joy giver in this world is Jesus. The one who changes sorrow into gladness, into joy is Jesus. And so, the gospel of Jesus brings joy. We were condemned on our way to hell. We were miserable and sorrowful and wretched and suffering. And Jesus came and everything changed, and he brings joy, he brings delight, and that’s why he died. It says in Hebrews, he, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross scorning its shame, he came to bring us everlasting and perfect joy in heaven. But we get foretaste of joy. Now, the fruit of the spirit, one of them is joy. And so, when we see God’s grace at work in someone else’s life, it should bring us joy.
We should be just as excited that God is saving someone else, a brother and sister in Christ as that he’s saving us. Also, we know very, very much the cycle of the three parables in Luke 15 is all about celebrations, about joy. And so, the shepherd that loses a sheep, he’s got a hundred on the hills and goes to look for the one that wandered off. And when he finds it, he says he puts it up on his shoulders and brings it back. And then he calls all of his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep. And then the same thing with the woman that loses the coin, and she sweeps her house all day long to find it. Then she finds it and calls all her friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin.
And then the prodigal son, when he comes back, the father kills the fatted calf and gets everyone together and has a big party. We must celebrate, rejoice with me. You should celebrate this. The older brother couldn’t bring himself to do that. But Jesus basically is saying to the people who are questioning his ministry to tax collectors and sinners and all that, he says, look, that’s why I came. You should be happy that these sinners are being redeemed. So, John puts it this way, look, I have no greater joy in this world than knowing that my children are walking the faith. You’ll see that in 3 John. And I have incredible joy to find out that your children are walking in the faith. So in the end, here’s the thing that’s so cool in heaven, we’re going to find out all the details of how God saved the elect from every tribe, language, people in nation, from every era of history.
We have a lot of learning to do, Wes, because we don’t know hardly any of these people. And when we find out what God did by his sovereign grace, we’re going to be overwhelmed with joy, pulses of joy. One person after the other, tell me your story. I want to hear what God did to save you and then what he did to use you. And we’re going to be overjoyed. So, speaking simply now, we should be so intertwined and excited about what God is doing with the gospel, that we respond with joy when we hear that people are walking in the truth or that they have crossed over from death to life.
Wes
Now, we spoke a little bit about this idea of walking in the truth earlier as we began looking at verse 1. What more do we learn about this metaphor here in verse 4?
Andy
I love the idea of the walking. It’s just moment by moment, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, and then it’s practical. There’s a pathway of righteousness. There’s a highway of holiness in the Book of Isaiah that we walk on. And we’re told in Deuteronomy, don’t turn aside to the left or to the right. That God’s word and his commands lay out a pathway ahead of us and we don’t turn aside from it. And so now we are making progress. And the Two Journeys ministry that we’re doing here, that idea is one of making progress. We’re going ahead toward something. And so, the idea is we can’t stay where we are, we need to move ahead. And so, there’s that walk. And the idea is day after day, moment by moment, every moment matters. Walking. So, to walk in the truth means to walk moment by moment in light of biblical truth, in light of the ultimate truth, Christ crucified and resurrected, in light of his holiness walking in the truth. And he says, it gives me great joy to find that your children are walking in the truth.
Wes
It really seems significant that our Christian faith should be affecting our daily lives. How does that kind of godly lifestyle relate to the commands the Father has given us in his word?
Andy
Well, there’s nothing exempt. There’s nothing outside of it. There’s no area that God says, look, I don’t really care what you do with that. That’s got nothing to do with me. I want you to work on this and this and this, but the rest is just up to you. There’s nothing like that. Everything in the universe belongs to God. Every moment of our lives belongs to God. And we’re constantly having a secularizing kind of thing where it’s like, well, that’s the holy part of my life. And then there’s the regular, the secular stuff. And that’s just not the way it is. Every moment, everything we do, we should have a sense God is pleased with it and wants us to do it. And so, the idea here is that everything that we do is, well, something we have to answer to God for. We have to be his servants.
make certain that everything you’re doing, you’re doing because you have a sense God wants you to do it.
I think it struck me with I think Titus 1:1, where Paul calls himself, I think a slave of God. I think it usually says, “of Jesus Christ.” In Romans he says, “of Christ.” But it’s like, I’m God’s slave. I’m God’s servant. And the idea there is I don’t have my own will. I don’t have my own life. Every moment I’m going to do what God told me to do. And so, it’s a beautiful thing there. So, I guess I would urge our listeners, make certain that that’s true of you. Ask the Lord. Because anything that does not come from faith is sin. So, make certain that everything you’re doing, you’re doing because you have a sense God wants you to do it.
Wes
Now, in verse 5, John uses almost an exact sentence from his longer epistle, the one we just walked through in 1 John 2:7, which relates strongly to Jesus’s statement in the Gospel of John in John 13 related to love. Why does John make so much of this command, and why is it so vital in the Christian life and church?
Andy
“I am not writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.” So how is that not a new command? Well, it’s absolutely woven through the Old Testament. There’s no doubt. And the centerpiece is in Deuteronomy. Very famous, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And Jesus said, that’s the first and greatest commandment. So, we are made for love. And then the second commandment is like it, love one another as I have loved you or as you love one another. He says it’s not a new command. We’ve had it from the beginning, but he also says in 1 John, it is a new command because Jesus made it new. Jesus made it new by showing us what love is. As 1 John 3:16 says, he demonstrated his love by laying down his life for us, “and we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
He did the same thing with the foot washing. He says, “Do you understand what I’ve done for you?… I’ve given you an example. As I have washed your feet so you also must wash one another’s feet” (John 13:12,14). So, you’ve got the foot washing and then even more, you’ve got the death of Jesus on the cross laying down his life for us. We’ve got husbands that are told to do that for their wives, “Husbands love your wives just as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). So, we have this old commandment that’s in the Old Testament, made very powerfully new by Jesus. Here he says, it’s not a new command. I’m not writing you a new command, but one you’ve had from the beginning. So, there’s nothing new about what I’m saying. You know that we need to do this, that you love one another.
Wes
How does John link loving one another with walking in the truth or obeying God’s commands?
Andy
It’s all woven together in one. And that’s what makes this epistle just so swirly and circular. It’s all related, and I think it is all related. If we love God, we will love one another. We’ll love who God made. If you love the Father, you love the child as well, he said. And so, we’re going to love the children of God. And we don’t know how to love except that he’s told us what to do. So, this is how we love one another. For example, how do you love yourself? It’s like, what do you mean? Well, you feed it. Feed yourself, your body. You care for yourself. Well, do that for others as you care for yourself. So, care for others or do to others what you would have them do to you. It’s like, oh, I get it now, I know what it means to love.
So, we’re told by the commandments what love is. So, to genuinely love we’ll do it by fulfilling the commandments. And we have so much information we can, all the one anothers, we can pray for one another, serve one another, we can prefer one another, or take each other’s ideas as superior to our own or consider them better than ourselves. We’re told in so many ways what it means to love. So, “This is love,” verse 6, “That we walk in obedience to his commandments.” Also, we realize this is something God’s telling us to do. So, we’re worshiping God by loving the and sisters in Christ.
Wes
And conversely, I think it adds weight when we think about what it would mean not to love our brothers or sisters. That this would really be an affront to God himself as we are disobeying this direct command from him to love one another. Why does John emphasize that this is a command they have heard from the beginning? And what final thoughts do you have for this first really half of the letter that we’ve looked at to this point?
Andy
We’re building on work that God’s done in us for years now. We’re not starting from scratch every day.
Yeah, so like we said, “It’s not a new command, you’ve had it from the beginning,” means I’m not entirely saying everything you’ve heard from me in the past, forget it, it’s all done now, it’s obsolete. We have a whole new paradigm here. He’s like, no, I’m not doing that. So, what it does for me is it gives me a sense of a building in the Christian life. We’re building on a foundation. We’re building on work that God’s done in us for years now. We’re not starting from scratch every day. It’d be something, Wes, you’re a worship leader, I’m a preacher. Imagine if we had an entirely new paradigm for Sunday morning every week. That’d be exhausting. Yikes. And people are like, I can’t track even what this is, what is going on? What is going on? This is no, no, no. That’s not how it works. There’s a science of life. There’s a building. This works, then this. And if that happens, then the other, it’s like, oh wait, all of it fits together and it builds. So, I’m not writing a new command. I’ve given you stuff, this from the beginning. Now I’m asking you to keep doing it. Keep walking in that what you receive from the beginning. So, this is a super encouraging way to begin this epistle. It motivates me to want to be certain that I’m walking in obedience to God’s commands, that I’m loving brothers and sisters and really rejoicing in what I see God doing in other people. So, I can’t wait for the second half of this brief epistle.
Wes
Well, this has been Part 1 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, & 3 John Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Part 2 of Episode 9, where we’ll discuss 2 John 7-13. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
