Download Audio

Introduction

These two epistles are quite distinct, but being from the same author, and being so short, we will consider them together. As it happens, some of the issues raised are intertwined in some interesting ways.

The Text

“If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 10–11).

“I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not” (3 John 9).

Summary of the Text

The letter of 2 John is written to “the elect lady and her children,” which either means that John is addressing a particular church under the image of a woman, or he is addressing a particular woman who hosts a church in her home. 3 John is a personal and private letter written to Gaius.

Occasion of the Letters

2 John is basically a miniaturized version of 1 John. The same emphases are there (love and the truth of the Incarnation), and the occasion is likely the result of what happened when the false teachers banished in 1 John made their way to another town, seeking to spread their heresy. Do not receive them, John says. The occasion for 3 John is that John (“the elder”) had sent someone to that church, along with a letter of commendation (which was customary). Diotrephes, a man “who loved to have the preeminence” refused hospitality to this apostolic emissary, and threatened church discipline for anyone who did receive that emissary. John writes another letter (this one), urging Gaius to receive Demetrius, the new emissary.

A Level Playing Field?

We should begin by noting the problem. John requires exactly the same thing that Diotrephes requires. In 2 John, God’s people are required to show no hospitality to false teachers (vv. 10-11). In 3 John, Diotrephes uses the same tactic, insisting that hospitality not be shown to an emissary from John. What’s the difference? The difference is the distance between truth and falsehood.

We are too accustomed to thinking that there is such a thing as a neutral playing field, which has to be “level,” and that in the battle between good and evil, both sides should be bound by the same rules. If one side has to get ten yards for a first down, then it should be the same for the other side. If one side cannot clip, then neither can the other side. Carrying our bad analogy across, we say that if the Pharisees cannot call Jesus names (drunkard, glutton, demon-possessed) then that means that Jesus cannot call them names (white-washed tombs, children of the devil). But this is false because the contest between ultimate truth and falsehood is not that kind of contest. The field is not neutral. It belongs to God.

It is therefore right that John prohibit hospitality to false teachers, and it is therefore wrong for Diotrephes to prohibit hospitality to true teachers. Right? Wrong? These are strange words. Tell me more about this religion of yours.

Emphasis in a Tight Spot

The size of both these letters was a standard size for that era. These letters would fit on a single sheet of papyrus, and given the space constraints, it is significant to note what sorts of things are repeated.  Fee and Stuart point out that in the first six verses of 2 John, the word truth is used 5 times, walk 3 times, and love 5 times.

Truth draws a hard line. Love is the reason why truth must draw a hard line. Truth without love will not remain truth for long, and love without truth has no reason not to devolve into sentimentality. Love becomes ugly without the truth, and truth becomes ugly without love.

The Christ is the love of God incarnate, and so every antichrist is anti-love. The Christ is the truth of God, given to men in the darkness of lies, and so every antichrist is anti-truth. Believe in love, and love the truth. Walk in both of them.

Think of truth as the skeleton and love as the flesh. We are to speak the truth in love, Paul says (Eph. 4:15). If we opt for love without truth, we have bodies like giant amoebae or bean bag chairs. If we opt for truth without love, we want to be a skeleton hanging from a rack in somebody’s science room.

Face to Face

“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” (2 John 12).

“but I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name” (3 John 14).

In both letters, John is constrained by the size of the paper. The letters are brief—3 John is the shortest book in the Bible. But even here John gives us an important principle. Communication (which includes teaching) is a matter of relationship and love, and so it is not an “all or nothing” affair. Person-to-person, face-to-face, is better for John and the lady, for John and Gaius. But their face-to-face meetings, when they occurred, are not better for us. The fact that John wrote it down means that we get something that is far better than nothing. Scripture is God’s idea, and when all things are considered, it is not a “second-best” option.

This applies to other things as well, including issues like “distance learning.” The principle is always “compared to what?” Scripture is distance learning, as are books and web pages, and letters and Skype calls. They are not examples of things that drive us apart (unless we want them to). Rather they are additional tools for a loving heart, a heart that never sacrifices the good on the altar of a hypothetical best.

We will see Christ face-to-face in the resurrection. Is that any reason to ignore the letters He has given to us now? “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). We should know how to compare them, certainly. But we also need to receive them both.

Read Full Article

Download Audio

Introduction

All passages of Scripture must be understood in context, but some by their nature require more contextualization than others. First John is one such book. Without an understanding of the errors it was written to refute, the necessary result is always going to be more error.

The Text

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:1-4).

Summary of the Text

John begins with the same kind of reference he uses in his gospel, with an emphasis on the beginning (arche), which should make us think of Genesis 1:1. But this person who was from the beginning was someone that John and his fellows had heard, had seen, gazed at, and touched (v. 1). That person was the Word of life. That Word was manifested to them (v. 2). What they had witnessed, they now declared, so that the listeners could come into fellowship with them, and then discover that their fellowship was with the Father and the Son (v. 3). This was all written out carefully, so that our joy might be full (v. 4).

Occasion of the Letter

Those who were causing the problems in Ephesus here were characterized in three ways by the apostle John. They were false prophets (4:1), they were deceivers (2 Jn. 7), and lastly they are antichrists (2:18, 22; 4:3, 2 Jn. 7). These false teachers had broken with the true church and had “gone out into the world” (4:1). This break showed that they were not really of the truth (2:19).

Those believers who had not gone out with the false teachers were in fact overcomers (4:4), but they were overcomers who had been unsettled by the battle and who were greatly in need of encouragement. This is the pastoral encouragement that John provides in this letter.

Characteristics of the Lie

From the internal evidence of this letter, and from the external evidence we have about Ephesus in the first century, we can piece together a pretty good understanding of the heresy John was attacking.

The false teachers had both a doctrinal problem (2:26) and an ethical/moral problem (3:7). The doctrinal problem was that they denied the incarnation of Jesus. The ethical problem was that they claimed to be able to be “in the light” while taking some kind of weak view of their sinfulness and sins.

As it happens, we know a good deal about this brand of heresy in Ephesus at this time. The leader of the opposition against the apostle John in Ephesus was a man named Cerinthus. Cerinthus was, I believe, the antichrist. He was a leader of an early Gnostic group. Gnosticism was characterized by two great features—the impurity of matter and the supremacy of knowledge.

The first led them to deny the incarnation, which is in effect the materialization of the eternal one. Their arrogance and pride over their “inside knowledge” led them to their lovelessness and to their lawlessness. Hence, we see John attack the heresy of the Cerinthus at every key point. Christ is the very Son of God. We must walk in love. We must keep God’s commandments. We must turn away from every form of lawlessness.

Do not confuse the beast of Revelation with the antichrist of 1 John. They are both bad men, but they are very different kinds of bad men. A beast is a savage persecutor of the church from outside, an out-of-control despot who hates the people of God. An antichrist is a smooth talking false teacher, one who weasels his way into the church and introduces the contagion of heresy. In modern terms, a beast would be someone like Stalin. An antichrist would be a liberal Methodist bishop, although I don’t have a particular one in mind. The former savages the body of Christ on earth. The latter denies that God assumed a body on earth.

We Sin Downhill

When false teachers introduce absurd errors, and apparently sane people go for them, what is going on? If I am talking to someone who is about to go for some nonsense, the question always to ask is “what’s the pay out?” What else is going on? The answer is that the devil functions with bribes. He offers intense short term pleasures, the central one being the sensation of absolute freedom (1 Jn. 3:4). All you have to do is agree to the long-term covenants that end with an inchoate and dissolute mind. This is called selling your soul to the devil. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 16:25).

Life and Doctrine, Doctrine and Life

Remember the context of this letter. John is not addressing a tormented Christian, alone in his room, wrestling with a troubled conscience over some sin or affliction in his life. John is not addressing the sensitive believer in the midst of a panic attack. He is talking about a group of false teachers who have an utter disregard for the commands of God.

In John’s mind, these issues are to be understood in terms of light and darkness; he is not discussing the twilight. His absolutism is refreshing in a relativistic era, in which our thinkers and theologians want all cats to be gray.

We focus on the ethical—love your brother (1 Jn. 2:9). We focus on the doctrinal—Christ is God in the flesh (1 Jn. 2:22-23). A denial of either is equally fatal. It does not matter whether you have leprosy of the heart or leprosy of the head.

Hold it all together this way. Jesus of Nazareth is God, and God is love.

Read Full Article