Second John 1

The Bible says in Second John verse 1, “The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth.” The Apostle John identifies himself only as “the elder.” This word “elder” denotes both the age of John and his position among the believers. Historically older believers were given greater honor. They were the teachers. They made the decisions. If you want to get the most experienced people, the most spiritual, the most knowledgeable in the things of the Lord, then you will start with the oldest. Older usually means wiser or at least it should. If someone is seventy years old and they have been following the Lord since they were twenty, then they are going to be much more advanced in the things of the Lord than someone who is forty years old and who has also been following the Lord since they were twenty. Too many churches have a pastor without knowing how to benefit from the “elders” in the congregation.

In the epistle of Second John, John said that he was writing to “the elect lady and her children.” The word “lady” is a term of endearment and respect, and is undoubtedly symbolic of the church as a whole even if John was writing to just one woman and the church that may have been meeting in her home. The churches of the first century were small and mostly met in the homes of believers. In First Corinthians 16:9 the Bible says, “The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.” It also says in Colossians 4:15, “Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.”

John was writing to the “elect” lady and her children. The word “elect” means “chosen.” It means to select someone or something from a larger group. You had a choice to make, a selection to make, and you made it. In this case God is doing the choosing. In the group of the whole human race there are only certain ones who have been selected to be God’s children. The ones who are selected are the ones who bow before the Lord Jesus Christ and worship Him as God. Once you believe you become one of the elect, and then you become one of those who are the special objects of God’s love. If you are one of the elect, God wants you to love the other chosen ones: all of them.

Because the Apostle John was an elder and therefore wise in the things of the Lord, John knew that the most important commandment was to love the people of God. And so John told this church to whom he was writing, “whom I love in the truth.” There is a very close connection between love for the people of God and the truth. There are those who claim to love the people of God, but they do not know enough about the truth in order to have true love: the kind of love that benefits the people of God. It does no good to say that you love the people of God and then to teach them that which is false. You would be harming the people of God and harming their faith. On the other side of the spectrum there are those today who claim to have a strong attachment to the truth. The apostles themselves would find nothing wrong with their doctrinal statements. How much they boast about their faithfulness to the truth and their attachment to the truth: the truth of God’s Word and the truth of the gospel. But in so doing somewhere along the way they lost love for the people of God. In the name of faithfulness to the truth, they have stabbed in the back, and they have condemned and hated the very ones for whom Christ died. This is what the world has come to. The false teachers of both extremes are all around us: the liberals have denied the truth by denying the inerrancy of God’s Word, and they have terribly harmed the people of God by the lies that they have told. On the other side of the religious spectrum some other Christians have terribly harmed the people of God by the love that they did withhold and by the hatred that they so easily showed to whoever disagreed with them on anything.

The Apostle John did not do that. He wrote to all of the believers that he knew and he said to them, “whom I love in the truth.” And the Apostle John also said that not only did he love all the children of God, “but also all they have known the truth” love the children of God. All the ones who know the truth love all the children of God. Wait a minute. This is the Word of God given by the Holy Spirit. This is the truth. There is no other truth but this truth, and it says that “all they that have known the truth” love the children of God. Guess what that means. It means that those unloving Christians who claim to love the truth do not love it. They do not even know the truth. They do not even know the fundamental truth of true Christianity: to love the children of God, all of them who have been saved by faith in Christ. You do not have to join in compromising alliances in order to love or in order to show your Christian love. You can start by doing what John did and tell the believers that you love them. It starts with what you say. Make sure that you tell the believers that you love them.

Why did the Apostle John in his second epistle write to these believers and tell them how much he loved them? John gives us the answer to that in verse two. He wrote, “For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us forever.” If you are going to talk about truth, then you must talk about love in the same context. To emphasize truth without the appropriate emphasis on love is to be cold and harsh and dead. They did not teach truth because they taught every truth but love, and without love they are nothing. Why did John love these believers: “for the truth’s sake.” Without love the truth will not be spread. Without love terrible things will be said and done that will divide the true believers, and the work of Christ through His followers will be diminished.

John writes that the truth “dwelleth in us and shall be with us forever.” It sounds like John is talking about Jesus Christ. The “truth” certainly centers around the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus called himself the truth. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” Because the truth lives within me, I do not have to go anywhere else to find the truth. Once I have found the truth by bowing before the Lord Jesus Christ, I have the truth within me. There is no geographical location and there is no building where I must go to find the truth. The truth is within me, and not only that but I cannot lose the truth because the truth “shall be with us forever.” Some of God’s promises are unconditional. He keeps those promises no matter what any person does or does not do. That is the basis for eternal security. In John 13:1 the Bible says about Jesus, “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”

In Second John verse 3 the Bible says, “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.” Five great words are here associated with God the Father and with the Lord Jesus Christ: grace, mercy, peace, truth, and love. John had said that he loved these believers. If you love someone, these are exactly the things that you want to wish for them and pray for them. These are things that money cannot buy. No position, no power, and no human accomplishment can acquire these things. Grace, mercy, peace, truth, and love come from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace is when God and Christ give to you what you cannot earn and have not earned. Grace is possible because of God’s giving nature. Grace is possible because Jesus died for the sins of the world, and if your sins have been forgiven, there is nothing between you and God that would prevent His grace from coming to you and being a part of your life. Believers in Christ live by the grace of God. Believers in Christ do not depend upon their own efforts as the ultimate basis for having help from God: they depend upon the free grace of God that is in Christ. If you are facing a challenge, if you have a need, then you need grace. If some terrible thing happens to you or to yours, how will you possibly get through it? By the grace of God. The Apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians 15:10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Paul also wrote in Ephesians 3:8, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

A believer needs grace and a believer also needs mercy. Grace is when God gives to us what we do not deserve, but mercy is when God does not give to us what we do deserve. Whenever we sin we deserve punishment. God does punish sin. There are many reasons for bad things that happen in this world, and one of those reasons is punishment of sin. Even if you are saved, you are still a sinner. As long as you walk this earth, you will be doing so with feet of clay. If God were not a merciful God, you would be as Sodom and Gomorrah. There is always mercy available through Christ, and if you are going to walk with God in this world, it will be because of God’s mercy and not because of your goodness. First John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

True peace has the same source as grace and mercy: God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Why are the unbelievers filled with anxiety, worry, and mean-spirited competitiveness? They have no peace. They certainly have no peace concerning the guilt of their own sins. They have no peace concerning their eternal destiny. They have no peace concerning their true relationship with God. They can obtain peace in regards to these things by doing what the believers did: by turning to Jesus Christ for forgiveness. If they are separated from God, they are at war with God in a certain sense. Only through Christ can that spiritual war be replaced by peace. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

There is another aspect to peace that believers themselves always need more of: peace in respect to each circumstance and situation of life. That kind of peace only comes by truly trusting in the Lord for each of those circumstances and situations. Someone can have peace “with” God as spoken of in Romans 5:1 but not have the peace “of” God as spoken of in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

It appears as though the Apostle John is making a definite emphasis in verse three with the phrase “in truth and love.” In other words you cannot have one without the other. In many places in modern religious organizations it is easy to find an emphasis on one or the other, but not both. Whenever such an emphasis is made of truth without the proper amount of love, or love without the proper amount of truth, a terrible departure from the work of God takes place. If you have love, and then depart from truth, you will have damnable heresy. Read what Paul wrote about anyone who might depart from the truth of the gospel in Galatians 1:9, “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

On the other hand, if you have truth, and then depart from love, you have nothing. Read what Paul wrote in First Corinthians 13:1-3, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.”

___________________________________________________