The Epistles of John, Part 27: Walking the Walk

In the late Fall of 1633 audiences in London, England, heard the following lines of dialogue sound forth.  “Tush!  Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate; talkers are no good doers: be assured we come to use our hands and not our tongues.”  The speaker was a character known only as the “First Murderer”.  He was in the employ of Richard III, Duke of Gloucester, in William Shakespeare’s historical play, titled simply “Richard III”.

In the context of the play, this character has been hired by Richard to murder his brother, George, the Duke of Clarence.  This is all in pursuit of Richard’s mad scheming to gain the English crown through betrayal, murder, false accusations, and bribery.  In short, Richard is the very embodiment of evil.  And the character of the murderer, in the dialogue above, wants to assure his employer that he will follow through with his gruesome task.  He will, rather than simply talking about murdering Clarence, actually do it.

This concept, that of following words with correlating deeds, predates Shakespeare by over a millennium.  It is an eminently biblical concept.  Of course, when expressed from the standpoint of Scripture, it refers not to the resolution of nefarious deeds.  Rather, the idea is to obey the Lord with concrete and definable actions.  One such example of this idea can be found in James 1:22, a familiar passage which reads: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  In other words, it is utterly insufficient to merely hear the commands of God delivered through Scripture.  We must, in addition to hearing God’s instructions, actually obey those same orders.  To cast this into a more modern vernacular, we must “Walk the walk, not just talk the talk.”

As we continue our short-lived sojourn in John’s abbreviated second epistle, we find yet another example of this same teaching.  The Apostle has finished his gloriously God honoring and Christ exalting introduction, that we have looked at previously.  And now he begins to dive into the heart of his reason for writing to this unknown 1^st century sister church.  John’s purpose, as stated before, is predicated upon the larger issue of the conflict between authentic and false disciples, or followers of Christ and antichrists.

And in light of that spiritual battle that is already raging, John wants to exhort his fellow Christians to stand firm against the onslaught.  Much like his fellow New Testament writer, James, John wants Christians to “walk the walk”, “put up or shut up”, and so on.  This is a letter of exhortation rather than rebuke.  We can see as much in the fourth verse of the epistle: I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.  There are two points I want to draw out from this verse.  The first is grammatical while the second is pastoral.

The phrase “some of your children” is a curious translation.  Most modern English Bibles render it this way.  But the interesting thing is that the word “some” is not in the original text.  Instead we have the Greek “ek”; a preposition meaning out of, from, or away from.  So a literal reading would be something like the following: have discovered from the children of you walking in truth.  In other words, John has knowledge that from among the “children” (i.e. the saints) of “the lady” (i.e. the church he is writing to) there are those who are walking in truth.

So why have most translation teams supplied the English “some” in place of a more precise translation of “ek”?  The reason is because they view “ek” as a partitive preposition, or a preposition that separates or divides something.  This is not inaccurate.  “Ek” certainly does have the idea of something coming out of something else, with a necessary effect that the two components are now separated from each other.  Thus, supplying “some” in the passage is an effective and clean method of presenting John’s words in a non-cumbersome manner.

But my concern, and the reason I am drawing out this point, is that I am uncomfortable with the implication that results from this translation choice.  When one reads: I was very glad to find “some” of your children walking in truth, I think there is an unspoken assumption that if some were found walking in truth then others must have been found not walking in truth.  And while this is grammatically possible, it is not necessarily what John meant.  To be sure, the goal of this letter is to highlight divisions within Christendom and warn a sister church against the enemies who are on the attack.  Therefore, it is definitely possible that such divisions already existed in the church in question, precipitating the letter from John in the first place.

But while all this is possible, it is also quite a lot of conjecture.  The simple fact of the matter, as I understand it, is that John is simply communicating his appreciation that he knows specifically about some of the Christians in this church who are walking according to the truth.  He does not ever state that he knows of the opposite: that there are some Christians in this church who are not walking according to the truth.

Furthermore, as stated previously, I do not find the overall tone of the letter to be one of rebuke.  John is not confronting sin and evil that presently exists within this church, as Paul does in 1^st Corinthians.  Rather, he is providing a stern warning to be watchful and discerning in case the opponents ever come knocking.  The Bible provides plenty of strong refutations of existing sin issues.  It pulls no punches in condemning evil where appropriate.  But I do not see the need to supply such language when no need for correction exists.  This is a positive letter.  It is a rallying cry.  It is a pre-game speech or a half-time pep talk.  I believe we should see the whole of it in such a light, based on what John actually wrote.

Such a predominant tone of affirmation can be seen even in this very same verse, which is my second and pastoral point.  Notice John’s response to finding saints who are truly walking with the Lord in truth.  He was “very glad”.  This is the Greek “chairo”.  It can mean variously to rejoice, be glad, or even to rejoice exceedingly.  John uses the same word in John 3:29 as he records the words of John the Baptist: The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.  The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.  Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.

In this passage, John is explaining his relationship with Jesus to some of his own disciples.  In his word picture, Christ is the bridegroom and the coming church is the bride.  John himself is merely the friend of the bridegroom.  In Jewish culture, on the wedding day, the bride and groom would go into their chambers to consummate the marriage while the guests and wedding party remained outside in the courtyard.  The friend of the bridegroom, what we would call the best man, stood at the doorway of the newlywed couple’s room.  His job was to bar entry to anyone seeking to disturb them, but also to listen for his friend’s voice raised in exclamations of pleasure.  This was not some weird Jewish voyeuristic custom.  Rather, it was a joyous occasion for the friends and family to know that the marriage relationship had been consummated through physical union.  They delighted in the delight of their loved ones.  And it was the best man’s job to let everyone know that the time of celebration had come.

Moving back to 2^nd John, when the apostle writes that he “chairo” to find the children walking in truth, he places it in the passive voice.  This means that he views himself as the recipient of the action brought on by the rejoicing.  In other words, he is overwhelmed and consumed by the joy that washes over him upon discovering the state of affairs in this sister church.

I think the point is this.  Do we experience this level of joy when we find our brothers and sisters in Christ truly walking with the Lord and standing confidently to confess His name among the nations or the community?  Which are we more likely to pursue; rejoicing with great joy over the righteous conduct of a friend or finding ourselves critically appalled at the unrighteous behavior of the same person?  To say it another way, are we prone to build up or tear down?  Do we prefer to praise or criticize?

Sometimes criticism and rebuke is necessary.  But I find in my heart a propensity toward imbalance in favor of the condemnation rather than the affirmation.  And I think in this simple example from the Apostle John we find a picture of Christ that is often absent from our daily lives.  At least, it often is from mine.  And I doubt that I am alone.

Now then, a question we must ask for our own edification is this.  What exactly did it look like when these children of the chosen lady were walking in truth?  Thankfully, John supplies the answer for us immediately.  He presents us with such a description at the end of verse 4 and on into verse 5, as follows: just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.  Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.

From John’s point of view, this pattern of walking in truth is not merely a best practice.  It goes beyond a nice suggestion and dwells squarely in the realm of an order from God Himself.  John says that the Father has commanded us to walk in truth.  And the image of such a walk is the visible evidence of our love for one another.  This is a familiar refrain for John.  Throughout his first epistle he repeatedly pounded the importance of brotherly love.

In 1^st John 2:7 he wrote that: I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.  In 3:11 he clarifies what this old and new commandment is: for this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.  The elder’s chief concern in his old age was that we love each other.  He desired greatly that we, through this practice, exhibit the genuine character of Christ.  And he received such a message of love directly from the Master Himself, in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

I think our tendency might be to conclude that John is over-stating his case.  He harped on this subject of Godly love being born out in the believer’s life over and over in 1^st John.  We might be tempted to think this additional exhortation is unnecessary.  We perhaps wish that John would cut us a break and switch to something different.  But I think John knew very well that this message of love was and is diametrically opposite of our ingrained natures.  Being born in sin as we are, it is as natural as breathing for us to focus on self.  It is instinctive within us to prioritize our own interests above those of others.  And the only medicine for this diseased condition of the mind and soul is a constant, steady diet of contrary truth.

I think John knew the difficulty he faced in getting this lifestyle of love to actually stick and hold in his beloved children’s brains.  And furthermore, I think John recognized the monumental importance of such a pattern of behavior.  You see, we are not called to love each other merely so that we will have nice churches where peace reigns.  We are not commanded to love primarily so that our stress level might decrease.  Rather, the instruction that John and the other apostles received from Christ was that they love as a powerfully effective tool of evangelism.  Consider the next verse from the John 13 passage above: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

How does this work?  It’s simple, really.  What is the purpose of evangelism?  Is it to get people saved so they can escape the fires of hell?  No, it is not.  The reason we are instructed to share the gospel and call sinners to repentance is so that the character of God might be more fully revealed and exalted in the world.  Consider Paul in his letter to the Romans.  Chapter 1, verses 16 and 17 read: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

The “it” which is the third word in verse 17 is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Paul says that in this gospel the righteousness, or the holy conduct, of God is revealed to mankind.  Put simply, the purpose of salvation is so that God will be known and loved and treasured.  Now then, if this is so, how does our love for one another accomplish that?  How will people know that we are disciples of Christ just because we love each other really well?  Because He did it first and did it better. 

Going back to 1^st John, in 3:16 we find: We know love by this, that He laid down his life for us.  And cross referencing once again with the Gospel of John, this time chapter 15 and verse 13, we are told: greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.  The quality of love, sacrificial and selfless and joyous love, is perfectly seen in the person of Jesus Christ.

Moving back to 2^nd John, and just in case anyone remains confused on what genuine love looks like, John anticipates the problem and provides the gem of verse 6: And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments.  This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.

There is a delightful economy of purpose bound up in John’s description of God’s commands.  It has a two-pronged emphasis.  The first we have already seen; that we love one another.  But here in verse 6 John highlights another aspect of God’s instruction to His people.  Namely, that we obey.  Now, on the surface perhaps that doesn’t seem particularly remarkable.  After all, isn’t it obvious that commands are to be followed?

Police officers issue orders to civilians and the expectation of obedience is bound up in the need to maintain control over potentially chaotic situations.  Managers give instructions to employees and they are obligated to comply so that the business can maintain a productive financial trajectory.  Parents provide expectations to their children and the responsibility of the young person to obey is necessary to their development as an industrious member of society not to mention a human being that showcases the righteousness of God.

But in every one of those situations, the command and the obedience are separate philosophical entities.  A perpetrator stopping in his tracks is not the same thing as the cop yelling “Freeze!”  A grocery store clerk stocking shelves with the correct products is related but separate to the store manager instructing him to go and complete said task.  A child cleaning their room properly is not equal to the parent telling them to do it.

That is what makes verse 6 so fascinating.  You see, in John’s mind and therefore in God’s mind due to the super-intention of the Holy Spirit which washed over and carried along the authors of Scripture, the command of God is both the command and the obeying of the command all at the same time.  John has already clarified for us what the specific details of the commandment consist of; that we should love one another.  He could have easily stopped there.  But he goes one step further.  He goes on to provide an ancillary definition of the commandment.  Namely, that we do it.  That we walk in it.  That we obey it.

God’s marching orders for His children are not separate from our dutiful obligation to follow those orders to the letter.  God’s character cannot be separated from His commands in Scripture.  The reason is that those commands are not an arbitrary list of expected behaviors that God thinks will be best for us to follow.  He does indeed know that it will be best for us to obey Him.  But the reason is that in our obedience we are really emulating Him.  The basis of God’s commands is His own attributes.  He tells us what He is like and then asks us to copy Him because He knows that is the only pattern of behavior in the universe that is both acceptable to Him and ultimately most profitable for us.  He is His own best paradigm.  When it comes to the quality of sacrificial love God is both the ultimate example and the only true source.

John, our apostle, is consumed with the desire to see people come to a realization of the importance of this kind of love.  He is desperate to have his fellow saints begin to practice the love of Jesus toward each other.  And so he pounds the point.  He picks it back up, dusts it off, and throws down the gauntlet once again.  And he perhaps literally jumps for joy when he finds people living this way. 

John challenges us over and over to this kind of extreme lovingly sacrificial lifestyle.  It is a lifestyle that is so utterly contrary to the world system we live in that it must, by very nature, be completely shocking and strange to anyone observing it.  To state the matter bluntly, if your love toward others is not significantly dissimilar from the norm; if it is not of a sufficiently zealous nature so as to be noticeably different from the world around you and therefore be the means for evangelism that it should be, then you are not living and practicing the love of Christ that John is talking about.

It should already be apparent to you why such an authentic modeling of the character of Jesus is so critically important to both the life and mission of the church.  John has clearly laid out for us a picture of loving Christian conduct that should form the warp and the woof of the tapestry of our lives.  On a personal level, sacrificial love will produce a quality of life, in emulation of Christ, that is far superior to any other. 

But John is not done yet.  He knows there is more to this lifestyle of love than just our interpersonal relationships within the body of Christ.  So he is about to up the ante considerably in verse 7 and tell us why love is so important to our very safety: For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.  This is the deceiver and the antichrist. 

That first word, “for”, alternately translated as “because”, is the hinge upon which this whole letter swings.  It forms the link between what we have just read and what we are about to.  In Greek it is known as a dependent clause and it shows a causal purpose.  In other words, John has already provided us with the “what” of his letter; to love in obedience to God’s command.  Now he is giving us the “why”.  And it is probably not what we would expect.

The reason we are commanded to love is because many deceivers have gone out into the world.  On the surface these two elements seem quite disparate.  What does the brotherly love of the body of Christ have to do with deceivers who deny that Jesus is the Christ, God in the flesh?  To answer that question we need to consider what is at the heart of the problem caused by these deceivers.  Why is their denial of Christ such a pivotal issue?

The reason is that God’s purpose, His activity in the creation, His desire for all that exists, His end game stratagem from the very beginning, has been to display Himself.  It has always been God’s ultimate purpose to tell us truly who He is so that He can be properly reverenced and worshipped.  This was true at the beginning of time, as seen in Romans 1:20: For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen. 

We can also see God’s purpose of self-revelation in the incarnation of the Son of God, described for us by John in his gospel.  John 1:4, in describing Christ as God, says: in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  Light is that which illuminates, or makes clear.  Thus by describing Jesus as light John makes the implication clear that without God we cannot see truly.  His very nature is the only possible source of true understanding and unfettered joy. 

And we can even see God’s desire to tell us who He is in Isaiah’s prophetic description of future heaven, found in the 60^th chapter of his book, verse 20: “your sun will no longer set, nor will your moon wane; for you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be over.”  The glory of heaven will be that God will finally, once and for all, be on full display for us.  There will no longer be any competition for our attention.  He Himself will shine brighter than the sun and reveal everything to us.

Now then, in opposition to this divine mandate stands Satan, the great adversary and the infamous slanderer.  From the very beginning it has been his purpose to discredit and call into question what God has said.  The shape of his words to Eve, in Genesis 3:1, reveal the truth of this: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”  

 In other words, “Are you sure that what God has said is really true?”  Or perhaps, even more subtly, “Are you sure you heard God correctly?  Allow me to tell you what He really meant.”  And since everything that God says provides some aspect of His image, by questioning God’s words Satan questions the nature of God.

This, then, is the heart of the battle that is raging in the world.  It is a war, not of bullets and bombs, but of truth and lies.  It is a deliberate attempt by Satan to discredit God’s character.  And it is the willing duplicity of the human race in acting as Satan’s accomplices in this matter.  The battle lines of the armies of heaven and hell are formed by this divide. 

On one side stand the holy angels and the church.  We take up arms by showcasing an accurate image of God’s love.  We speak both with and without words the truth of who He is by the revelation of who we are in Him, demonstrated in the Godly love we bear for one another.  At our head, as the blazing center of our vanguard, stands the God-man, Jesus Christ, who eternally reveals the fullness of God to the entire universe.

Opposed to us is the mass of rebellious humanity who suppress the truth about God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18), who stand as deceivers and antichrists, as seen here in verse 7.  Leading this army of evil is the chief deceiver, the enemy of God whose name in Hebrew means adversary, and who is described in Scripture literally as a devil, or one who slanders.

This is why it is absolutely critical that we love.  The scope of this war is the reason we have been reconciled to God in the person of Christ.  He did not rescue us from sin and death primarily for our benefit.  Certainly, God delights in saving people.  He takes great joy in granting sinners the gift of repentance (1 Tim. 2:25).  But His main goal is to proclaim who He is through us in our new birth.  Therefore, loving like Christ and thereby showing God to everyone around us, is not merely for the edification of others.  It is not simply for our own sanctification.  It is quite literally our orders from high command in heaven, as part of the greater battle plan of God.

And the stakes for us are indeed quite high.  John warns us in verse 8 about the danger of letting down our guard and falling prey to the efforts of our enemy: Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.  Now, this is an interesting verse, and one that bears careful examination so as to make sure we do not misunderstand John’s point.  Specifically, what is it that we are in danger of losing if we become careless in battle?

The Greek word that John used here for work, translated above as “accomplished”, is “ergazomai” (err-gahtz-o-my).  To understand his meaning it will help if we turn to his final letter; 3^rd John.  In verses 3 and 4 John expresses delight, much as he does in 2^nd John, that Christians were found to be walking in truth.  As we have already seen, to walk in truth, according to John, is to engage in the two-pronged accomplishment of both God’s command to love one another and His expectation of obedience.

Then, in verse 5 we read: beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish (“ergazomai”) for the brethren.  So, taking the context of the letter into account, John is saying that the mutual lifestyle of love, and the specific tangible fruit it bears, is the work that the Christians have accomplished. 

Now, with that in mind, consider what the outcome would be if Christians, who are called to love one another as the weapons and battle plans of their spiritual warfare, fail to pay attention to the war raging around them and consequently fail in their mission.  All the fruit that had been borne on the tree of the church by this mutual love; would it last?  All the “work” of love that had been accomplished in the name of Jesus; would it stand the test of time?  If we stop loving each other will we be able to somehow coast along to heaven, riding the waves of the love that had gone before?  Of course not.  If we suddenly ceased to love, it would not take long at all before no one remembered our former acts of selflessness, causing the legacy we leave behind to be one devoid of affection. 

We would be exactly like the Ephesian church who had remembered truth but forgotten love.  In Revelation 2:5 Christ, through John His messenger, blasts this church for their failure: ‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.’

Notice who the object is that John says we must watch.  He does not instruct us to watch the enemy.  He urges us to watch ourselves.  The reason is that he knows it is our own sinful flesh, rising up like a traitor from within us, that has the potential to cause us to abdicate our responsibility to love.  And if that happens, John is saying, all of the hard work we have accomplished in building up the body of Christ will be blown away like chaff in a strong breeze.

What would be the outcome of such a situation?  How would the loss of the full reward that John speaks of play out in a particular church or a specific Christian’s life?  We can turn to John’s contemporary, Paul, for a thorough description of such a state of affairs.  In 1^st Corinthians 3:14-15 he shows us what both sides of this situation will look like on the day of judgment: If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.  If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

It is really quite a simple equation to understand.  We are commanded to love sacrificially, as Christ did first.  This is both our ministry and our mission.  It is the weapons of our warfare as well as our defense against the dark.  If we remain vigilant God will reward us in the due course of time.  But if we stray from faithfulness to our task, the work of love we had accomplished prior to our failure will be forgotten, leading to the poisoning and eventual decay of that spirit of love.  Not only that, but our full reward will be lost and we ourselves, while still gaining entrance to the kingdom of God, will be burned with spiritual fire at the judgment day of Christ.

The bottom line is this.  There is a war raging in the universe.  John knows it is on the horizon.  It may already be on the doorstep of your church.  In fact, it may have already penetrated into the inner sanctum.  And he wants us to recognize the danger we are in, strap on our armor, pick up our swords, and prepare for battle.  Then, having prepared ourselves, we are expected to wade into the fray, loving tenaciously and sacrificially, so that God, through us, might achieve victory.  This mandate extends to every Christian.  We must not relax our watch.  We must stay on the alert against the traitorous tendencies of our own flesh.  We must faithfully guard what has been entrusted to us against the external and internal onslaught of Satan and his agents.  This is your mission from God.  He expects you to walk what you talk and not, in the words of Shakespeare’s character, “stand to prate”.  Recognize your role in the supernatural struggle raging around you and rise to the occasion, for the glory of Christ.