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- John writes, 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
- John wrote to this lady that he wasn't giving her a new command, rather he was emphasizing the command that we have had from the beginning, and that command is to love one another.
- By calling this command the one we have had from the beginning, John, of course, means from the beginning of the Christian faith, going right back to Jesus.
- In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew's Gospel records Jesus as saying, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets." (Matt 7:12)
- In both Matthew and Mark, we find an episode where an expert in the law comes to test Jesus concerning which commandment is the most important of all. Mark phrases Jesus' response this way, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."(Mark 12:30-31)
- In the 10th chapter of Luke's gospel we find another occasion where an expert in the law comes to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” 27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” 28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
- In the gospel of John, we find Jesus again highlighting the command to love but this time it is on the night he is betrayed. It is here that we begin to see a connection the command to love and the outworking of the love of God in the crucifixion of Jesus.
- John 13:34-35, 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
- The command that John reminded the lady about is not some boring old ho-hum command. It is the command we have had from the beginning, straight from the lips of Jesus, to love one another.
- It's not just some command that we can pay lip service to and say that we love one another and not really do it because Jesus himself said, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
- That little word, "as," is tremendously significant because it defines for us how we are to love one another. It presents to us the kind of love with which we are to love one another. We are to love one another just as Jesus loved us. Jesus loves us unconditionally and Jesus loves us sacrificially.
- Jesus demonstrated in his body precisely what kind of love God has for us. He really and truly allowed himself to be taken into custody. In the flesh he experienced what it was like to be mocked, scorned, and ridiculed. In his flesh he received a flogging, the act of which alone was enough to permanently maim or bring about the death of its victims. And in his body, Jesus was nailed to a cross, died a cruel and horrible death, was buried in a rich man's tomb, and three days later rose up bodily from the grave and to eternal life.
- We are called to love as Jesus loved us. It is this calling of which John reminded the lady in his second letter.
- In verse six John emphasizes for his readers that those who are disciples of Jesus Christ will show it by living out the command to love.
- One of the things that we take immediate note of when we read this letter is John's focus on truth and love. Truth and love go together in the Christian life because truth and love are wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." As ambassadors of Jesus Christ, believers must represent both his truth and his love.
- In the very next verse, verse seven, John spells out for the lady why we have to represent both the truth and the love of Jesus.
- 7 Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.
- Now, what is the significance of those who deny that Jesus came in the flesh? That, as Paul wrote, "in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body? (Col 2:9)
- Whether these false teachers denied that Jesus came the first time in the flesh or that he will come again is not as important as the denial itself because of where false teaching leads the listener and that is away from Christ.
- Much of the false teaching that’s out there and which creeps into the church is aimed at the person of Jesus Christ. Mormonism teaches that God had sexual intercourse with Mary; aimed at Jesus Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus is the Archangel Michael; aimed at Jesus Christ. Unitarians teach that there is no Trinity; aimed at Jesus Christ.
- Why is so much false teaching aimed directly at Jesus? It is simply that the truth of the Christian faith stands or falls on the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not merely teach truth, he does not merely represent truth, rather Jesus is the truth, and he is truth itself.
- When false teachers distort the truth about Jesus they promote a version of the story of Jesus that is not biblical and which is also dangerous because it undermines the very foundation of the Christian faith.
- John wrote, 8 Watch out that you do not lose what you [we, some mss] have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.
- A textual variant among ancient manuscripts that I've highlighted for you on the screen is "we" rather than "you," that "we" refers to the apostles and some Bible translations reflect that alternate reading. They do so because it lays importance upon the work of the apostles on behalf of the Christian community rather than upon the work of the individual.
- When we are devoting ourselves to the truth of Jesus Christ and devoting ourselves to keeping his commands to love one another, then we will be investing so much of ourselves into learning what the apostles present in the Bible as the real Jesus and modeling our lives after the real Jesus that we won't have any interest in giving any fake ideas about Jesus the time of day.
- John continues, 9 Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
- False teaching is beyond the realm of Scripture and beyond the Jesus pictured in the New Testament and as John wrote, "runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ." False teaching enters into the realm of fantasy, made its way out there in outer space somewhere like Star Wars or Star Trek. It's so far out there that it does not have God because it rejects what God clearly teaches in Scripture and trades it for merely human teaching.
- But as John wrote, "whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son."
- Let's revisit the question I started with today: Why did John tell the lady the command to love one another is so important?
- John told the lady the command to love one another is so important because demonstrating love for one another is a witness to the sacrificial love of Christ in the flesh. Mutual Christian love is an arrow that points at the reality of the bodily death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
- Last week as we were looking at 1 John 4, I mentioned that Christian love and Christian truth are two things which must not be separated. I said so because if we look at history, especially 20th c. History in the church, what we discover is that certain parts of the church which favour love over truth and up abandoning truth and certain parts of the church which favour truth over love wind up abandoning love. The result is that neither way is good because they separate two aspects of the gospel which were never meant to be separated. Truth and love, evangelism and mission are two edges of the same sword.
- An over emphasis on love to the extent where truth is abandoned leads to dying churches. And an over emphasis on truth to the extent where love is abandoned also leads to dying churches.
- When we stand for the Truth, we'll love like Jesus loves.
- If we wish to see new vitality in the church, if we wish to see a new movement of the Holy Spirit, if we wish to see lives changed for the sake of the gospel, and if we wish to see the power of God at work anew, then we need to repent of our sin, stop separating love and truth, and humbly pray that God will do a new work among us.
- When we stand for the Truth, we'll love like Jesus loves.
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