A Panic Postcard
Series: New Testament Postcards
Chuck Sligh
January 20, 2013
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to 2 John.
INTRODUCTION
In one of his sermons titled What About the Foundation?, Ravi Zacharias tells this story:
A few weeks ago, I did a lectureship at Ohio State University. As I was being driven to the lecture, we passed the new Wexner Art Center. The driver said, “This is a new art building for the university. It is a fascinating building designed in the post-modernist view of reality.”
The building has no pattern. Staircases go nowhere. Pillars support nothing. The architect designed the building to reflect life. It went nowhere and was mindless and senseless.
I turned to the man describing it and asked, “Did they do the same thing with the foundation?” He laughed.
You can’t do that with a foundation. You can get away with the infrastructure. You can get away with random thoughts that sound good in defense of a world view that ultimately doesn’t make sense. Once you start tampering with the foundations, you begin to see the serious effects. Yet the foundations are in jeopardy; the foundations of our culture do not provide coherent sets of answers any more. (Source: Ravi Zacharias, “If the Foundations Be Destroyed,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 142.)
I think something like this was on John’s mind when he wrote a letter to a lady in a book we know as 2 John.
John says in verse 12 he had more to discuss with her, but was saving that for another time. So why does he write this and not just save it until then? You get a little bit of a feeling that John has some urgency here. Apparently he had received a report that some false teachers had crept in and John felt . the work this woman was associated with was threatened.
I have the feeling that he felt there was no time for a long, detailed, thought-out letter. Something valuable might be lost and John did not want his efforts in her life and the life of her family or her house church to go down the drain.
Illus. – When in seminary, I’d been working on an extensive project for one of my classes. It’s fair to say I’d spent hundreds of hours in research and now was almost done, putting the finishing touches on it when…[PAUSE]…my hard disk crashed! Suddenly I was frantic, thinking all the hard work I’d put in on this project was lost forever.
I rushed my computer to a technician, praying as I had never done before that somehow, someway everything could be recovered from my hard disk because not only was my paper on it, but EVERYTHING. The bad news the technician had to give me was that the disk was dead in the water. He could recover NOTHING; it was TOTALLY destroyed. The good news is that in my frantic panic about the hard disk crash, I had forgotten that a week before then, I had created a full backup! Yes, I had lost the last week’s work, but most of the work on the project had been done before that, and most everything else on my HD was pretty much up-to-date.
That fear that everything I’d worked for might be lost must have been what John was talking about in verse 8 where he says, “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”
I think this is the purpose of John’s letter: He feared that the foundations of this woman’s ministry were in danger and he needed to tell her—QUICK.
The structure of this little “postcard” is very simple.
• Introductory Greetings in verses 1-3
• Walk the Three Walks in verses 4-6
• Don’t Aid and Abet False Teachers in verses 7-11
• Parting Words in verses 12-13
Let’s use that as our guide through this little book:
I. IN VERSES 1-3 JOHN ARE JOHN’S INTRODUCTORY GREETINGS.
A.
• Verse 1a – “The elder unto the elect lady and her children,…”
The writer simply calls himself “the elder”. Since the earliest circulation of this book, “the elder” has been identified as John the Apostle, who also wrote the Gospel of John, two other letters that bear his name, 1 and 3 John and the Revelation. 2 John certainly bears all the marks of John’s writing style, so there’s no reason to doubt his authorship.
John calls himself “the elder” probably to emphasize his advanced age as the last remaining apostle and thus establish his spiritual authority.
The recipient of the letter is an unnamed lady whom he refers to at “the elect lady.” This doesn’t mean that God chose her for salvation while choosing others to perdition or to be passed over without hope, a doctrine known as Calvinism. Jesus Christ is “the Elect One of God,” and humans become one of the elect only by virtue of being united with the Elect One upon salvation.
The identity of this lady is not known. Some believe the term “elect lady” refers to a church and her “children” referred to are the church’s members, but this seems forced. This may be the case, but which view you take is not particularly pertinent since the fundamental message of the book is not affected with either view. For our purposes, let’s assume he’s speaking directly to an actual woman.
• Verses 1b-3 – “…whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth; 2 For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever. 3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
Although this is a pretty boilerplate introduction commonly found in New Testament letters, there’s one thing that stands out: John’s usage of the words love and truth in verses 1 and 3 that serves as a backdrop of the rest of the letter. Apparently this woman or church allowed just about anyone in her home in the name of Christian hospitality. This created a dangerous spiritual situation that John felt he needed to address by pointing this woman to balance love with a regard for truth.
II. VERSE 4-6 CAN BE SUMMED UP AS EXHORTATIONS ABOUT THREE “WALKS.” – “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father. 5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. 6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.”
To “walk” in New Testament terms means to live one’s life in a certain way in accordance with biblical principles.
John exhorts her to walk, or to live her life, in accordance with, three key principles:
• First, walk in TRUTH in verse 4.
In this verse John commends her children for walking in truth. That is, they were continuing to believe and live out the fundamental truths upon which Christianity is based. These fundamental truths are centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ, as we’ll see shortly.
By the way, if John were indeed referring to an actual woman’s physical children here, and not speaking metaphorically of those in her house church or of a church in general, he was a wise man. Anyone knows that the way to a woman’s heart is to praise her children. And one of the greatest joys of any parent is to be told that your children are doing right. John was smart to prepare her heart for his warnings with compliments.
It’s a reminder that most people are not genuinely all bad. Even if they’re disobedient or deficient in one area of their Christian lives, they often shine in others. Why should we focus in on just the negative?Being an encourager involves focusing on good things in a person’s life even if we must give warnings or rebuke.
• The second walk John talks about is found in verse 5 where John talks about Jesus’s command for believers to walk in LOVE.
He says that he’s not giving a new commandment here, but reminding her of one given from the beginning: that we love one another.He was referring to the new commandment Jesus gave in the upper room after eating the Passover meal with the apostles, just before going to the cross. In the upper room Jesus, after the meal, Jesus washed the apostles’ feet and warned them that he would be betrayed and put to death. Then He gave them a new command. He said in John 13:34-35 – “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
The love believers had for one another was to be the distinguishing mark of Christ’s disciples. John doesn’t have to exhort her to walk in love; that’s natural. As we’ll see, walking in love wasn’t her problem. Her problem was integrating this command with the first command.
• Third, Paul exhorts her to walk in OBEDIENCE in verse 6.
In John 14:15 Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
The proof of our love is our obedience to Jesus. So John recalls Jesus’s command about keeping his commandments to remind this woman that walking in Christ’s commandments involved walking in BOTH truth and love, not one at the exclusion of the other.
Now there’s a reason for this triple emphasis in John’s exhortations: He’s about to warn her and give her specific instructions and I believe he’s laying the groundwork for his subsequent comments because they revolve around these themes of walking obediently in both truth and love in balance. So let’s move on to that part of this postcard.
III. IN VERSES 7-11, JOHN WARNS NOT TO AID AND ABET FALSE TEACHERS – “7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. ”
In these verses, and indeed in all three of John’s letters, he addresses an incipient form of Gnostic teachings that had begun to seep into the early churches. We won’t go into detail explaining what the Gnostics believed, but with regard to our study tonight, understand that their doctrines attacked both the divinity and the humanity of Christ.
The Gnostics denied that Jesus was God on the one hand, but they also denied that He had a physical body since they believed that anything physical was inherently evil. So he wasn’t truly human either; he was a sort of phantom.
The danger was posed by the fact that many of the early churches were small house churches with simple and informal organization and unsophisticated leadership. Since the New Testament was not finished, they needed direction from God, so God provided the church with itinerant prophets who traveled from one home to another speaking directly from God about the new covenant.
But eventually false Gnostic teachers crept into the preaching circuit, for John says that “many deceivers have are entered into the world” in verse 7. These teachers were kept in believers’ homes when they were in a particular area, making their hosts easy targets for their false teachings, and through their naivete, they could spread their doctrines to the house churches.
So John warns this lady to watch out for these deceivers. In verse 8 he says, “Look to yourselves” or “watch yourselves” so that you don’t lose everything you’ve worked for by letting these dangerous people in.
And then he says in verse 9 that anyone who does not abide in (that is, continue in) the “doctrine of Christ” possesses neither God the Father nor God the Son. Well, what is the “doctrine of Christ?”—The doctrine of Christ is the body of truths about Christ that the apostles transmitted to the church that are central to the Christian faith. Each one is essential and John says anyone who denies them does not possess God; that is, they’re not saved.
What are those fundamental truths that make up the doctrine of Christ?
• The virgin birth and deity of Christ, i.e., the Incarnation (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:18-25; John 1:14, 8:53-58)
• The sinless nature and life of Christ (Hebrews 4:15)
• The substitutionary death of Christ (Romans 8:6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24)
• The efficacy (or effectiveness) of His blood to wash away all sin (Acts 20:28; Heb. 9:22; 1 John 1:7)
• The bodily resurrection of Christ from the grave (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)
• The ascension of Christ, and His present ministry in the believer (Ephesians 4:7-10; Hebrews 8:1-6)
• The literal return of Christ to the earth—yet to occur (John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
The false deceivers John refers to were a threat to all of these doctrines, so he says, “Watch out for them.”
But that wasn’t enough. John tells them not to even be hospitable to them or extend to them common courtesies.
Now wait a minute: Aren’t we supposed to “walk in love” and wouldn’t extending hospitality to a preacher be walking in love, even if we disagreed on a few issues? Yes, but the message of 2 John is that “love has limits” as Warren Wiersbe puts it.
In its introduction to 2 John, the MacArthur Study Bible says, “Not only are Christians to adhere to the fundamentals of the faith, but the gracious hospitality that is commanded of them (Romans 12:13) must be discriminating. The basis of hospitality must be common love of or interest in the truth, and Christians must share their love within the confines of that truth. They are not called to universal acceptance of anyone who claims to be a believer. Love must be discerning.”
This woman was apparently not being discerning, and thus was threatening what they had built up in her family and/or the church that met in her home. And this explains John’s “three walks” statements in verses 4-6. This lady was apparently long on walking in love but short on walking in truth. But John says BOTH are important and must be held in balance. Only then are we truly walking in Christ’s commandments.
So John is saying in effect, “Elect lady, get the balance right or you’ll be in disobedience of Christ’s commandments, and you could lose everything you and we have worked so hard to accomplish for the Lord’s sake.”
One question I sometimes hear is “Does this passage forbid us ever having people with false doctrines about Christ in our homes?” I think what John specifically forbids is doing anything that aids and abets the goals of the false teachers of the doctrine of Christ.
So I think the primary focus is on those who TEACH these things, or go around actively PROMOTING them. In those cases, don’t extend hospitality to them; don’t argue with them; don’t engage them. They’re way more trained to refute you than you are prepared for them and you could fall pretty to their crafty devices.
But many people in cults are simply nominal believers in their church’s doctrines, or largely ignorant of what they’ve been taught. If you could turn them towards truth, that’s a different story. I think you should invite them over, be hospitable to them, and try to reach them with the truth in love. But never allow Christian love to be abused by those who propagate error.
IV. JOHN ENDS HIS POSTCARD WITH FINAL GREETINGS IN VERSES 11-13. – “12 Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper and ink: but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full. 13 The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.”
John apparently had many other things to say to this woman, but felt this warning was so important it couldn’t wait until he could address all of them at one time. Hence the shortness of the letter. He closes with some final greetings from a fellow believing woman in Christ.
CONCLUSION
What can we learn from 2 John?
• First, the commands to abide in truth, love and obedience, of course, stand out.
Christianity is built upon propositional truths that must be believed in order to claim the name of Christ. – We must continue in them and live them out in our lives. But also, body life within the church of God is built on the command to love one another as Christ loved us. We’re to live in obedience to BOTH of those commands.
• Second application: remember the need to balance love with truth.
Paul talks about “speaking the truth in love” in Ephesians 4:15 so that the Ephesians would grow up in Christ in all things. – How important it is to balance the sometimes difficult truths of God’s Word with a spirit of love. But 2 John comes from the other direction and reminds us to balance love with truth. – If manifesting certain loving behaviors aids and abets error or evil, John says, “No. Don’t do that. Abide in truth and love in harmony and balance, lest the foundations be destroyed.”
