Text And Exposition
TEXT AND EXPOSITION
1. OPENING SALUTATION (verses 1-3)
Verse 1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not I only, but also all they that know the truth;
We are confronted immediately by the twin problems of the identity of the writer and that of the recipients. “The elder” is the writer’s self-chosen designation both here and in 3 John. We are hardly to think here of an elder in the sense which the word presbyteros usually bears in Christian contexts in the New Testament, that is, one who discharges the ministry of eldership in a local church. In this sense there were several elders in each church, and it would be strange to find one of them singling himself out with the designation “the elder” and addressing other churches with authority. The word appears in another specialized sense in second-century Christian literature, of church leaders in the generation after the apostles, particularly those who were disciples of apostles or of “apostolic men,” and were therefore guarantors of the “tradition” which they received from the apostles and delivered in turn to their own followers.220 This sense may have been borrowed from the Old Testament references to “the elders who outlived Joshua” (Joshua 24:31; Judges 2:7).
Irenaeus, for example, mentions what he heard “from a certain elder (presbyter), who had heard it from those who had seen the apostles, and from those who learned it (from them),”221 and cites him again as “the elder.”222 Later he quotes “an elder, a disciple of the apostles,”223 who appears to have been in even closer touch with the fountainhead of Christian teaching, and is probably to be identified with one at whose feet Irenaeus sat in his boyhood, Polycarp of Smyrna, who in his turn had been acquainted with “John and the others who had seen the Lord.”224 Irenaeus’s other “elder,” whose contact with the apostles was indirect, may have been his predecessor as bishop of Lyons, Pothinus, who died a martyr in AD 177 when he was over ninety years old.
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, half a century older than Irenaeus, who calls him “an ancient (archaios) man,”225 and a contemporary of Polycarp, also has something to say of the elders, from whom he eagerly collected whatever they could tell him of the teaching of Jesus. “If ever a person came my way who had been a companion of the elders,” he adds, “I would enquire about the sayings of the elders: ‘What did Andrew or Peter, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples say? And what do Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say?’ For I did not suppose that what I could get from books was of such great value to me as the utterances of a living and abiding voice.”226
The relation between Papias’s two references to John has provided material for much inconclusive debate. Does he refer to two men called John, both “disciples of the Lord” (as such orthodox scholars as J. B. Lightfoot227 and S. P. Tregelles228 thought, together with many others since their time), or to one only?229 Whichever is the true answer to this question, it may have little relevance for the exegesis of this epistle and the following one. Papias also quotes one of his elders as “the elder” par excellence. For example, the information he gives about the origin of the Gospel of Mark is said to be what “the elder” used to say.230 This suggests that in Papias’s circle there was one senior man who because of his age, experience and authority was referred to in this way. It is quite likely that the self-designation of the writer of 2 and 3 John is to be similarly explained—not that he was necessarily identical with Papias’s “elder,” but that in the circle in which he was best known he was given the affectionate and respectful title “the elder” both because he was older than the other members of the circle and because his personal knowledge of the Way went back so much farther than theirs. If to them he was “the elder,” to him they may well have been his “little children,” as the anonymous author of 1 John calls his readers. That all three epistles come from one and the same writer is, in my judgment, scarcely to be doubted.
The identity of the recipients, “the elect lady and her children,” presents a problem of another kind. The prima facie picture is of a Christian materfamilias, some at least of whose children follow the truth in which they were brought up and to whom greetings are sent from her nephews and nieces in the place from which “the elder” is writing. Attempts have been made to extract her personal name from the designation which the writer gives her—eklektē kyria. Might this be rendered “the elect Kyria” or (less probably) “the lady Electa?”231 She is evidently well known to Christians in many places, for she is loved by all who “know the truth.” No individual traits appear throughout the letter, however. In this respect it forms a contrast with 3 John, in which we have vivid thumbnail sketches of Gaius, the recipient, and of Diotrephes and Demetrius, about whom the writer has something to say.
Such considerations have led many interpreters, from the fourth century onwards, to understand “the elect lady” as a corporate personality. As a city or country was commonly personified as a woman—like “the daughter of Zion” in the Old Testament prophets or Britannia on British coins232 (a representation going back to Roman times)—so a church might be personified—whether the Church Catholic (portrayed in Revelation 20:2, 9, “as a bride adorned for her husband”) or a local church (as probably in 1 Peter 5:13, where “she who is at Babylon” is best understood as an elect sister church of those to whom the letter is addressed). If this interpretation be followed here, then “the elect lady” is a local church (not the Church Catholic, for the Church Catholic has no sister), “her children” (tekna) are the members of that church, and the “children” (tekna) of her “elect sister” (v. 13) are the members of the local church in the place where the writer is resident.
The weighing up of the probabilities for the individual or corporate character of the “lady” is part of the exegesis of the letter. If the following exegesis leans to the corporate interpretation, this does not suggest that finality is attainable on this question. As long as either interpretation claims the support of serious students of the document, the question must be treated as an open one.
The “lady and her children” are assured that the writer loves them “in truth” (cf. 3 John 1); this probably means not only that he loves them truly (cf. 1 John 3:18) but that he loves them as a fellow believer, as one who, together with them, is “of the truth” (cf. 1 John 3:19). And all who are similarly “of the truth,” all who “know the truth”—the truth as embodied in Him who is the truth (John 14:6)233—share with the writer in loving them too.
Verse 2 for the truth’s sake which abideth in us, and it shall be with us for ever:
This language is reminiscent of the words in which our Lord promises His Spirit to the disciples in the upper room: “he abides with you and is (or will be)234 in you” (John 14:17). There is nothing surprising if what is said of the Spirit in one place is said of “the truth” in another place. “It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:7). It is through “the Spirit of truth” that He who is Truth incarnate dwells perpetually in and with His people.
Verse 3 Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
The threefold “Grace, mercy, peace” in the opening salutation appears also in 1 and 2 Timothy. Jude has a comparable salutation, “mercy, peace and love.” The earlier Pauline letters and Titus have the twofold “Grace and peace,” as also have the two Petrine letters and John’s salutation to the churches of Asia (Revelation 1:4). The future indicative “shall be” is perhaps due to the influence of the same form in verse 2. According to Westcott, “the succession ‘grace, mercy, peace’ marks the order from the first motion of God to the final satisfaction of man.”235 The phrase “Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father,” is unique, but the truth it expresses is attested throughout the New Testament and is basic to John’s argument (cf. verse 9; 1 John 2:23). The addition “Lord” (kyrios) before “Jesus Christ” in the Received Text and KJV is not original. It is noteworthy that this title is not given to Jesus (nor used in any other sense236) anywhere in these three epistles. Where “truth and love” coexist harmoniously, we have a well-balanced Christian character (cf. Ephesians 4:15).
2. OCCASION OF REJOICING (verse 4)
Verse 4 I rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy children walking in truth, even as we received commandment from the Father.
“I rejoice” is aorist in Greek (echarēn). Attention is thus concentrated on the moment when the elder’s joy began, but since his joy persists we may follow RV and render by the English present.237 The phrase “(certain) of thy children” (tekna) reflects the Greek use of the preposition ek in a partitive sense (ek tōn teknōn sou). An indefinite pronoun like “certain” or “some” is required to complete the sense in idiomatic modern English, although Greek can dispense with it. Since there is no definite article before “truth” it may be held that “walking in truth” here means simply “conducting themselves in all sincerity,” whereas the article would point to the embodiment of truth in Christ. It is doubtful if such a sharp distinction can be maintained. If they conducted themselves in sincerity, they conducted themselves as befits followers of Christ, and since their conduct was in accordance with the “commandment” given them by the Father, it was as much “walking in love” as “walking in truth.” The Father’s “commandment” is communicated through the Son (cf. 1 John 3:23).
John does not necessarily suggest that the elect lady’s other children do not so conduct themselves; in using the partitive construction he refers to some of them whom he had actually met, away from the place where the “lady” was normally resident. His joy at meeting them was such that he determined to write a letter to their “mother,” that is (on the premise adopted in this exposition) to the local church from which they had come.
3. EXHORTATION (verses 5-11)
Verse 5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote to thee a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another, Verse 6 And this is love, that we should walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, even as ye heard from the beginning, that ye should walk in it.
The exhortation follows closely that given in general terms in the first epistle. Since John was so delighted to find some members of the community keeping the great commandment, his desire was that the whole community should continue to keep it. For the description of the commandment of love as no “new commandment,” but one “which we had from the beginning,” cf. 1 John 2:7.238 For the essence of love as the keeping of God’s commandments cf. 1 John 5:3. To “walk in it” at the end of verse 6 probably means to walk in love. Thus RSV says, “that you follow love” (NEB takes “it” to refer to “the commandment,” and says, “This is the command which was given you from the beginning, to be your rule of life”). We have the same emphasis on love as in the first epistle, the same identification of love and obedience, the same insistence on what has been held “from the beginning.”
Verse 7 For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.
This repeats the warning against “many Antichrists” given in 1 John 2:18 ff.; 4:1-6. The “deceivers” (planoi) are those who lead people astray (cf. the verb planaō in 1 John 2:26). They are described, literally, as those “who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ coming in flesh.” The participle is present here (erchomenon), whereas in 1 John 4:2 it is perfect (elēlythota), but the reference is, as there, to the Docetic denial of our Lord’s incarnation. The Greek construction here may be more freely, but idiomatically, rendered with RSV, “men who will not acknowledge239 the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.” The RV rendering, “they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh,” might be misunderstood as a reference to the Second Advent.240
Verse 8 Look to yourselves, that ye lose* not the things which we** have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward.
* Or, destroy.
** Many ancient authorities read ye.
To pay attention to such deceivers and follow them on the path of error would involve the waste of all their Christian service hitherto and the loss of the fruit properly accruing from it. In place of KJV and RV “we have wrought,”241 which is followed by NEB (“that you may not lose all that we worked for”), there is a variant reading “you have wrought”242 (cf. RSV “you have worked for”), which is more appropriate in the context. If, rejecting the enticement of error, they maintained the teaching which they had heard “from the beginning” and continued the work they had been doing thus far, they would be paid their reward in full. This exhortation echoes much that is taught in other New Testament writings; compare 1 Corinthians 3:8, 14; Revelation 22:12.
Verse 9 Whosoever goeth onward* and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. Verse 10 If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting: Verse 11 for he that giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works.
* Or, taketh the lead.
The Docetist teacher “goes on” beyond the apostolic teaching, and his “advanced teaching” is condemned because it is “advanced” in this sense. The apostolic teaching could be called “the teaching of Christ” either because it is the teaching which derives from Christ and is vested with His authority243 or because it is the authoritative and true teaching about Christ. Either interpretation would be appropriate. Whether we accept the former or the latter depends on our understanding the genitive “of Christ” as subjective or objective genitive respectively. There is a strong balance of probability in favor of the former construction (so Westcott). Anyone, then, who has advanced beyond this teaching in a Docetic direction “has not God,” since “no one who denies the Son has the Father” (1 John 2:23a), and everyone who “abides” in it “has both the Father and the Son,” since “he who confesses the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23b). The injunction not to receive any one who does not bring “the teaching of Christ” means that no such person must be accepted as a Christian teacher or as one entitled to the fellowship of the church. It does not mean that (say) one of Jehovah’s Witnesses should not be invited into the house for a cup of tea in order to be shown the way of God more perfectly in the sitting room than would be convenient on the doorstep. Still less does it mean that disagreements on church order should be treated as deviations from “the teaching of Christ” and used as a ground of exclusion from social as well as ecclesiastical fellowship, as was done by Edward Cronin in 1849 in a letter terminating “an unbroken intimacy and friendship of twenty-five years” with Anthony Norris Groves.244
But for a church—or its responsible leaders—knowingly to admit within its bounds the propagation of teaching subversive of the gospel is to participate in what John describes as “evil works.” To give one who brings such teaching a greeting is to say chaire to him, to bid him hail when he arrives or farewell when he leaves—here the former is more probably in view. It is plain from the early Christian manual called the Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (a work compiled not much, if at all, later than the Epistles of John) that travelling prophets and apostles were well-known figures in church life at this period, and it was necessary to distinguish the right kind from the wrong kind. The Didache gives priority to the doctrinal criterion. After summarizing the “way of life” and the “way of death” and the proper procedure for baptism, fasting and the Eucharist, it goes on: “Whosoever then comes and teaches you all these things aforesaid, receive him. If, however, the teacher himself is perverted and teaches another doctrine to destroy these things, do not listen to him; but if his teaching promotes righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord, receive him as the Lord.”245 It also lays down some practical and pedestrian rules of thumb (“if he stays three days, he is a false prophet…if he asks for money, he is a false prophet”).246 The crucial test has already been laid down in 1 John 4:1-3, and this is the test which is recommended to “the elect lady.”
4. PERSONAL NOTES (verse 12)
Verse 12 Having many things to write unto you, I would not write them with paper and ink, but I hope to come unto you, and to speak face to face, that your joy may be fulfilled.
Unfortunately we do not know for sure what the other things were which the Elder wanted to say to these friends; perhaps he wished to deal in greater detail, in reference to specific persons, with those questions which are treated briefly and in principle in the letter. The “paper” which he mentions is papyrus (Gr. chartēs). A short letter like 2 John would be accommodated on one papyrus sheet of normal size. To “speak face to face” is literally “to speak mouth to mouth” (Gr. stoma pros stoma)—a biblical phrase. God uses it of His converse with Moses in Numbers 12:8.247 The clause “that your joy may be fulfilled” is repeated from 1 John 1:4, and in both places there is textual variation between “your” and “our” (“our” is read here by KJV, RSV and NEB and is probably to be preferred, as in 1 John 1:4).248
5. FINAL GREETING (verse 13)
Verse 13 The children of thine elect sister salute thee.
The status of the lady’s “elect sister” will be comparable to her own status. If she is a local church, so is her sister (the church in the place where the Elder happens to be at the time of writing). The greetings are sent to the lady by “the children” of her “elect sister.” If the sisters are two churches and the “children” their respective members, then the singular and plural are practically interchangeable. It is useless to speculate why the greetings are sent by the sister’s “children” rather than by herself; the Elder can scarcely be referring to sympathetic members of a church whose official leadership is unsympathetic, for in that case he would hardly describe the church as “elect.” One minuscule of the eleventh century (Cod. 465) identifies the “elect sister” as the church of Ephesus; this is a piece of traditional interpretation with no textual authority.249 But both “sisters” were probably churches in that neighborhood.250
220 Cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies v. 5.1; 36.1 f.; Demonstration 3; 61; also Hippolytus, passages cited by A. Hamel, Kirche bei Hippolyt von Rom (Gütersloh, 1951), pp. 106 f. In Against Heresies iv. 27-32 Irenaeus incorporates an anti-Marcionite defense by an “elder” of the unity of the Creator with the Father revealed by Jesus; the Old Testament and New Testament quotations woven into it indicate the important part played by such “elders” in the development of the Canon between Papias and Irenaeus (see G. Bornkamm, in TDNT vi, Grand Rapids, 1969, pp. 670 ff., s.v. πρεοβυς, πρεοβυτερος).
221 Against Heresies iv. 42.2.
222 Against Heresies iv. 46.1; 47.1.
223 Against Heresies iv. 49.1.
224 Letter to Florinus, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 20.6; see note . Cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies ii. 22.5; v. 30. 1;33.3 f., for the relation of the “elders” to “John, the disciple of the Lord.”
225 Against Heresies v. 33. 4 (see note ). The adjective archaios suggests contact with the beginning (archē); cf. its application to Mnason in Acts 21:16.
226 Exegesis of the Dominical Oracles, quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii. 39.3 f. See note .
227 Essays on the Work entitled ‘Supernatural Religion’ (London, 1889), p. 144.
228 The Historic Evidence of the Authorship and Transmission of the Books of the New Testament2 (London, 1881), p. 47.
229 E.g. F. W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity (London, 1882), pp. 618 ff.; G. Salmon, Historical Introduction to the…New Testament4 (London, 1889), pp. 287 ff.; T. Zahn, Apostel und Apostelschuler in der Provinz Asien (Leipzig, 1900), pp. 112 ff.; and Introduction to the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1909), ii, pp. 451 ff.; J. Chapman, John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (Oxford, 1911); C. J. Cadoux, Ancient Smyrna (Oxford, 1938), pp. 316 f.
230 “This also the elder used to say: ‘Mark became Peter’s interpreter, and wrote down accurately all that he remembered, whether sayings or doings of Christ—not, however, in order, for he was neither a hearer nor a companion of the Lord, but afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who adapted his teachings as necessity required, not as though he were making a compilation of the oracles of the Lord. So then, Mark made no mistake in writing certain things just as he remembered them, for he paid attention to one thing—not to omit anything he had heard, nor to include any false statement among them’” (quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii. 39.15). (It is possible that the two occurrences of “he [Mark] remembered” should be rendered “he [Peter] mentioned.”). It is uncertain if the same elder was Papias’s authority for his further statement that “Matthew compiled the oracles (logia) in the Hebrew speech, and everyone translated them as best he could” (Hist. Eccl. iii. 39.16).
231 Clement of Alexandria took Electa (Eklektē) to be the lady’s personal name, and (linking this passage with 1 Peter 5:13) concluded that she and her children were Babylonians and therefore, in view of the political situation at the time, Parthians (Adumbrations iv. 437). Hence the spurious title “To the Parthians” was affixed to 2 John and then to the three Johannine letters as a group and so to 1 John (see note ).
232 Cf. also the disconsolate female figure “Captive Judaea” on Roman coins celebrating the fall of Jerusalem and suppression of the Jewish revolt.
233 Cf. also 1 John 5:20, “we know him that is true.”
234 Witnesses to the text read variously esti (“is”) and estai (“will be”).
235 The Epistles of St. John (London, 1902), p. 225.
236 The nearest approach to kyrios in these epistles is the courtesy use of the feminine kyria in 2 John 1, 5.
237 KJV, RSV “I rejoiced;” cf. NEB “I was delighted.” Compare commentary on .
238 But see also commentary .
239 The rendering “who will not acknowledge…” (rather than “who do not acknowledge…”) is probably intended to bring out the force of the negative mē (not ouch) before the participle homologountes.
240 His parousia is not “in flesh” but “in glory.”
241 So Codex Vaticanus (first hand) with the bulk of Byzantine manuscripts and the Received Text.
242 So Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, 1739, and the Latin and Syriac versions.
243 See pp. f. with note .
244 G. H. Lang, Anthony Norris Groves (London, 1939), p. 265.
245 Didache 11.1 f. (cf. p. ).
246 Didache 11.5 f.
247 But in Deuteronomy 34:10 the Lord is said to have known him “face to face” (LXX prosōpon kata prosōpon). Another, and more sinister, occurrence of our present idiom is in Jeremiah 32:4 (LXX 39:4), where the captive Zedekiah and his captor Nebuchadrezzar speak “mouth to mouth.”
248 “Our” (Greek hēmōn) is the reading of Codex Sinaiticus and the Received Text; “your” (Greek hymōn) of Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus and the majority of manuscripts. See p. with note .
249 Compare R. Eisler’s identification of the “elect lady” with the church of Palestine (The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel, London, 1938, pp. 170 f.), which lacks even the benefit of tradition. J. V. Bartlet had earlier identified her with the church of Thyatira (JTS 6, 1905, pp. 204 ff.) and G. G. Findlay with the church of Pergamum (Fellowship in the Life Eternal, London, 1909, pp. 32 ff.).
250 At the end of the epistle a few late manuscripts add “Grace be with you.” The Byzantine witnesses and Received Text (whence KJV) add the liturgical “Amen.”