Saturday
Saturday
The Integrated Christian Life
I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.
2 John 5–6
The anonymous “chosen lady and her children” (v. 1) to whom John’s second letter is addressed was almost certainly the personification of a local church. And its main characteristic is its integration, that is, its integration of different elements, which we are often foolish enough to allow to be separated.
Firstly, truth and love belong together. Each is mentioned five times in the letter’s first few verses. John writes of “the truth, which lives in us” (v. 2) and of the love that united them. John’s words remind us of one of Paul’s similar expressions. According to John, we are to love in truth. According to Paul, we are to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). According to both, they should be integrated. The Holy Spirit is the source of both.
Secondly, love and obedience belong together. John reminds his readers of the old commandment, which is to love one another. The opposite is also true. If obedience issues in love, love issues in obedience. It was so in the Old Testament, in which God described his people as “those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exod. 20:6). It is amazing that Jesus applied this to himself: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21 RSV). Here is the second integration: to obey is to love, and to love is to obey ad infinitum.
Thirdly, the Father and the Son belong together. The false teachers “do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (v. 7). They taught either that the Son of God only seemed to become human or that he was adopted into the Godhead for a brief period. In each case they denied the incarnation, and this was not a minor Christological deviation; it was Antichrist. John also describes these teachers as running ahead (v. 9). Perhaps they were claiming to be go-ahead or progressive thinkers. With a touch of sarcasm John comments that they have gone ahead so far that they have left the Father behind. Instead, John begs his readers to continue in the original teaching of the apostles. Nobody can deny the Son and retain the Father. May God lead us into a truly integrated Christian life in which truth, love, and obedience all flourish!
For further reading: 2 John 1–13