Truth and Love (Part 2 of 2)

Christians are sometimes accused of intolerance. Now, if we're going to respond to this exhortation, to walk in the truth—here we are, dwellers in the 21st century—if we're going to take John's word seriously and we're going to try and, by the help of God, walk in the truth, let's just lay it down as foundational that this is going to be an uphill walk. That this is not a stroll in the park. That if we're going to walk in the truth, it's not like Tiny Tim, you know? Tiptoe through the tulips.

Remember that guy? No, it's not going to be that at all. It's like the steepest hill you have ever encountered in your entire life, and you'll be walking up it for the rest of your life, at least in contemporary circumstances. In a world of hype and spin, what a compelling thing it is if you can meet someone that will tell the truth and live the truth in integrity. So John says, I decided to write this letter to you, folks, and I'm really encouraged to discover that some of your children are walking in the truth. And it's really important that you're walking in the truth, because there are people around who want to dismantle the very truth that you proclaim and in which you walk.

First-century reality, 21st-century reality. I don't articulate this routinely, but every so often I want to call myself to it, and that is to make sure that our study of the Bible is set within our understanding of our culture. So we need to recognize that to understand what John is saying, when he is saying it, and how he is saying it 2,000 years ago, at the end of the first century, needs then to be contextualized in the climate in which we are living our lives. And it is in our ability to connect those two worlds that we find ourselves in the realm of authenticity—an authenticity which John here refers to as walking in the truth. Now, with all of that, let's turn to the text. The writer simply introduces himself both in 2 and 3 John as the elder.

I've already alluded to this and betrayed my hand. I'm taking my stand with the late professor Donald Guthrie, who lived the New Testament theology that he taught me. And Guthrie was both a godly man and an intellectual theologian, and this is his summation. I told you last week I'm always looking for a good sentence that summarizes it.

This is Guthrie. He says, John, the son of Zebedee, known as the elder, was the author of the Gospel and the Epistles. Now, if you don't like that, you can spend a very laborious afternoon ferreting out seven hundred reasons why that is not the case. I simply want you to know that I'm taking my stand with that position, and all that I will then say concerning these two letters is directly related to the fact that I believe the elder to be none other than the author of the Gospel and the one who has written 1 John and 3 John as well. When we come to the chosen lady and her children, who are the recipients, if you are of the disposition to investigate all the possible identities of the chosen lady, then may I wish you well, and I encourage you to spend as long as you like. Let me give you a little flavor of what happens when you come to the phrase the chosen lady. We read this at our staff meeting on Monday, and one of the fellows on the pastoral team immediately said, Who is the chosen lady? And I said, Let me get back to you on that. So I knew at least I had to come up with some answer for him, if not for everyone else. In actual fact, I had to come up with an answer for myself.

I knew what I believed, but I wasn't sure how accurate it was. Who is the chosen lady? Is he writing to an individual whom he refers to as the chosen lady? Does chosen lady in Greek actually give us her name, eklektah? Or is chosen lady a metaphor for the church, for a congregation? So, just like at the end of 1 Peter 5, where Peter says, She who is in Babylon greets you, which is a reference to the church—which, of course, makes sense. The church is the bride of Christ, and so on.

Therefore, is it a metaphor that this is a way of describing, personifying a local congregation, the children being the members? Or is he writing to a lady? Well, I went to Leon Morris, whom I respect greatly.

Leon Morris says, It is slightly more likely that it is a letter to an individual. Well, I said, Okay. Leon Morris, he's a clever man. He's a godly man.

I put that down, one for the lady. Then I go to my good friend John Stott. How about John Stott? John Stott says, It is more likely to be a personification than a person. Well, I said, Now, I got Stott over here with a metaphor. I've got Leon Morris over here as an individual.

What do I do now? Let's go to Albert Barnes. I like Albert Barnes.

He lived in the early nineteenth century in America. What does Barnes have to say? There has been great diversity of opinion in regard to the person here referred to, and there are questions respecting it which it is impossible to determine with absolute certainty. Thank you, Mr. Barnes, you don't know. Here is where I've fallen.

I'm going with John Stott and with the metaphor. I'm actually inclined to the view that the language in this case is more appropriate to a congregation than to a person. So, for example, when in verse 5 he comes again and he says, 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. Well, you know, I'm not gonna write that to any other member of my congregation than my wife—or maybe my daughters, if they're here—but I'm not gonna write you a letter. I ask, dear lady, that we love one another.

And you don't want me to do that either. But I may write a pastoral letter to the congregation personifying the whole place in terms of an individual and saying, I ask that we love one another. Enough said. Suffice it to note that I'm inclined to view chosen lady and her children as a metaphor for a local congregation, and all that I will say subsequently is in concurrence with that view.

All right? The identity of the writer and the readers. Secondly, notice the priority of the truth. The priority of the truth. And here we have the first interplay between truth and love. Agape is the word for love. Aletheia is the word for truth. Agape was a word that was virtually coined, because no secular word for love could sufficiently convey the nature of what was represented in the love of God displayed in Jesus. So, for example, the word eros, which gives us our word erotic, which is largely a physical expression of love, may be regarded as all take. Philaeo, which gives us our Philadelphia, our brotherly love, could be seen in terms of give and take. And agape, which is the self-sacrificing love displayed in Jesus, might be seen in terms of all give.

All give. And it is to the congregation, he writes, and whom he says he loves—that is, he agapes in the aletheia. He loves in the truth. In other words, he doesn't love them emotively apart from truth, nor does he convey truth apart from the reality of love.

And he makes this point again and again going through. His love for the church is a peculiar love. It is an initiative-taking, self-sacrificing love. It is the love of Jesus. And he loves, if you like, in relationship to the revelation that is provided in the truth, so that his love is tempered by truth and his convictions about truth, if you like, are softened by love. Love is not here a matter of mere emotion, nor is truth here a matter of intuition.

And that is very, very important in our present climate. Because so many expressions of love, contemporary expressions of love, are just about how I'm feeling. They're just about emotions.

Well, I love you, or I don't feel like I've—and so on. And so we pour that into the biblical text, unless we are able to discriminate, and expressions of truth are, as I've suggested to you, like a nose made of plasticine. It can be shaped any way you choose, because it's simply a matter of intuition. Well, I like to think of it in this way. Well, my view of truth is this. It's very silly.

That's why I say it's a silly world devoid of truth. The Celtics won the opening game—I don't know if there was a second game yet, was there? Did the Lakers play again yet?

No? So in the first game, the Celtics won. Now, I could have gone out the next morning and said to people, said, isn't it fantastic how the Lakers won last night? The person said, well, no, the Lakers didn't win last night. I said, oh, I beg your pardon, yes they did. The person said, well, no, the score was this to this. I said, I know it was, but the Celtics still won. They said, well, you've taken leave of your senses, haven't you? Well, no, because as far as I'm concerned, the Lakers won.

The Lakers were the winners. Well, it's just stupidity, isn't it? It's absolute nonsense. As I've said to you before, if you tune in on Channel 9 on United Airlines, then you can listen to air traffic control. And all the way through. A descent to maintain 9,000 feet. Flight 786 descending to 9,000 feet. You don't want to have the guy go, Excuse me, what do you mean by 9,000 feet? And the reply comes back, Whatever you want it to mean.

That is not only silly, that is dangerous. Now, when we look at walking in the truth, when we talk about love in the truth, remember, love is not simply emotion, and truth is not intuition. The love is defined in relationship to the revelation of God's truth, ultimately in Jesus.

And until we get a hold of that, we will immediately be at sea. So love is defined in relationship to truth, and it's displayed in their relationships with one another, and also, as we will come to see in verse 6, in their obedience to God's commands. What does it mean? It means at least this—that for us at Parkside Church, the basis of our love for one another is not our shared interests, nor is it our natural instincts. The basis for Parkside family loving each other is not because of our shared interests nor because of our natural instincts. But it is on account of the fact that God has done something in the person of Jesus, in which we have come to believe, and which actually has totally altered us. We still are sinners. We still have negative thoughts about one another. There are still individuals whom we may naturally be drawn to more than others.

There may be some who regard us entirely as a pain in the neck. But since to walk in the truth and to live in love is not about those elemental natures of things, then we can bring the truth of God's Word to bear upon our lives. And you will notice that he says, "...whom I love in the truth"—and not just me, but also all who know the truth.

Notice that? Know the truth. In other words, it is objective and knowable, and because of the truth which lives in us and will be with us forever. Now, for homework, you can go to John 14, and you can read there the words of Jesus concerning all that would be the experience of his followers in the giving of the Holy Spirit.

Let's just come and notice one final thing. The identity of the writer and his readers, the priority of truth, and finally, just a word concerning the security of grace. The security of grace. You'll notice that this is a kind of souped-up greeting. The standard greeting is grace and peace. The standard greeting in a secular Greek letter was to simply begin with the word karen, which simply meant greeting.

So it would start off greeting. The Christians changed that, changed it to the word karas, which is the word grace, and eirene, which is the word for peace. And into this, John has added a third, namely, mercy. Mercy.

And with this we conclude, but let me do so as clearly as I can. Grace is, if you like, that characteristic of God or that expression of God whereby he gives to us what we don't deserve. It is in his grace that he gives to us what we don't deserve. His mercy—by his mercy, he doesn't give us what we do deserve.

All right? Now, this is simplifying it. This is Sunday school terms, but this is the kind of way I can only remember it. So that when I think of God's grace, it is in his giving to me the freedom from my sin, the freedom from guilt, and all the benefits that he showers upon us, ultimately in Jesus. The flip side of that is his mercy, whereby we look at the cross and we say, But I should be getting that. I'm the one that sinned. I'm the one that was indifferent to God. I'm the one that had no concern for him.

Yes. So why is he doing what he's doing to his Son Jesus? On account of his mercy. And then what is peace? Peace is simply the blessing that flows from grace and mercy.

Peace is that which is the experience of the individual who has been reconciled to God, who is no longer alienated from him, who lives in fellowship with him, who lives in community with the other recipients of God's favor. And you will notice that this grace and mercy and peace comes from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son. John is constant in underscoring the equality between the Father and the Son. And you will see why this is when we move further on in the letter, because this is what was being challenged by these heretical teachers.

And every cult, every deviation from the truth that is represented in a kind of pseudo-Christian expression in our contemporary Western culture will ultimately be tied to this deviation, to confusion and distortion as it relates to the person of Jesus Christ, his humanity and his divinity. And so, John sets up his stall, and he says, This grace and this mercy and this peace come from God the Father and from Christ Jesus, who is the Father's Son. And this will be with us—and here he goes again—in truth and love. In truth and love. Peace, perfect peace, whom God has joined together. Let not man put asunder. You see how wonderfully compelling this is? In an empty and dangerous world, to be able to speak concerning truth is a challenge but an opportunity.

In a world of spin and of hype, to live a life of genuine, authentic love, integrity is a phenomenal opportunity. In a world that is increasingly fractured and disrupted, to be able to speak of peace is a terrific story to tell. Some of you will have already seen the story that has just come out of Japan, of the young man just in his early twenties took a two-ton truck, drove it right into a crowded thoroughfare, killed a number of people with the truck immediately, or at least knocked them down, jumped out of the truck, took a long-bladed knife, and stabbed seven people to death in the midst of a normal, routine day. When they arrested him, he told the police, I've had enough of life. I'm sick of everything.

I just wanted to kill some people. Do you think he knows anything of peace? Do you think he needed another Nintendo game? Do you think he needed a new cell phone?

What did he need? What does humanity need in its lostness? It needs the peace which only God provides through Jesus' work upon the cross. How will men and women encounter that peace? Not when the church seeks to accommodate itself to the ill-defined vagueness of a world that wants to squeeze truth into its own manufactured style, but when the church is brave enough to say, Yes, I know this is like a long walk uphill.

I know that this is countercultural, counterintuitive to everything that sounds right in our international, multicultural world. But here I take my stand, and then the person listening to you will need to watch and see whether this expression of a conviction of truth is then matched by a life of genuine integrity and authenticity. For love left to itself will very quickly become sentimentalism, and truth unhinged from love will very quickly become harsh and judgmental and refrigerated. That's why John is so concerned to see that those who read his letter are those who are committed to walking in the truth—a truth that is interwoven with the love of God in Christ. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.

Alistair returns in just a minute to close today's program. Our mission here at Truth for Life is to teach the truth of Scripture with love in a way that is clear and relevant to our daily lives. Our goal is to reach as many people as we can through this daily program and through our free online teaching so that many will come to know and believe in Jesus. This is the mission that your partnership makes possible. Truth for Life is funded 100% by your donations.

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It's written in language they'll be able to relate to. Ask for your copy of the book today when you donate to Truth for Life using our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now, here is Alistair with a closing prayer. Father, we thank you that we have the opportunity to turn to the Bible together. We pray that we might increasingly become students of your Word, not in a way that makes us theological eggheads but makes us able for the challenges of our day, prepared for the long walk uphill, prepared to stand as Daniel stood in his day, as Paul in his, and John now. Though the whole world is against us, like Athanasius, we can say that, well, then, I am against the whole world.

Not because we're bombastic or arrogant or proud, but because we have no other place to stand. If Jesus Christ is Lord, then we cannot believe anything other than what he taught. And if Jesus Christ is Lord, then we can't behave in any other way than he demands.

So we're stuck, wonderfully stuck. Help us to take seriously the exhortation and encouragement of John to be like some to whom he refers who were for him the source of great joy because he found them walking in the truth. May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one who believes, now and forevermore. Amen. Since our salvation is secured for us by Jesus, are we then free to live however we want? We'll hear the answer from Alistair tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.