I rejoiced greatly that I have found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received commandment from the Father.
This short letter goes to a woman and her household. It opens with John's joy: he had found some of her children living in the truth. Three questions follow. Why some of the children and not all? What does it mean to walk in truth? And why does that walk go back to a command from the Father?
The wording is careful. It reports what was found, and it does not claim more than that.
"I rejoiced greatly," he continues, "to find some of your children." He says some, not all. Why? Because there may have been one or more of them who had not yet confessed the Saviour and Lord. Possibly one or more might have slipped under the bad influence of the misleaders. For some good reason he goes only so far as to say "some of your children walking in the truth." This is the main point, and there is a necessary limit even here. It is not merely knowing the truth but walking in it — or as the same apostle says in the Gospel, "whoever does what is true" (John 3:21).
Even a partial report is worth rejoicing over.
Now John records his great joy: he found some of this sister's children walking in truth. He does not say "walking in love," for at this time he had to emphasise the truth. He could not say it of all her children, yet of some it was true, and for each one we may well rejoice. This was according to the Father's commandment — not the legal commandments of the law of God, but the commandments that belong to a Father's living relationship with His children.
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Walking is the simplest thing a person does, so it stands for the whole of life.
We may call walking the simplest and most basic activity of the human race. So it naturally stands for activity. To walk in truth is to have all one's activities — one's thinking, speaking, going, doing, every movement of mind or body — governed by one whole world of reality, and in keeping with it. That reality has its centre in God Himself revealed in the Lord Jesus, and its outer edge in the furthest reaches of His will and word. This is a high standard, truly, yet not too high, and not out of reach. We may walk through a world of unrealities governed by realities which are divine.
The order matters. The walk is an effect, and something must come first to produce it.
Walking in truth is the result of having the truth. The truth produces truthfulness. The man who has not got the truth cannot possibly walk in truth, and will not keep up the appearance of it for long. Walking like this was the effect of knowing the truth itself: they walked in truth, "just as we were commanded by the Father."
The verse does not leave the walk to personal preference. It anchors it in something received.
In the next verse, again, we have "from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love." "I rejoiced greatly that I found of your children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father." Now he brings in obedience: it is a commandment from the Father. He will have the Son honoured, even as Himself.
Authority and love are not rivals. But in our own experience, authority comes first.
Now we thankfully receive a commandment of the Father. Is there anything good that is not based upon divine authority? And the blotting out of divine authority would be an unspeakable loss. No doubt there is more than authority; there is divine love. Love was always in God, and He showed it to us while we were godless and evil. Yet when we are converted we always begin with divine authority and a submissive heart, horrified at our old rebellious spirit.
The praise falls on one household, which says something about a mother's first responsibility.
The positive appreciation of the walk of the children of "the elect lady": they walked in truth (v.4). This seems to confirm that the primary responsibility for a believing mother is the walk of her own children. What joy it is for a mother to see her children walk with and according to the Lord!
- Truth received. The walk is never the starting point. Someone who does not have the truth cannot walk in it, and the imitation will not last long.
- Truth walked. To walk in truth is to let one reality govern everything: thinking, speaking, going, doing. God has revealed that reality in the Lord Jesus.
- Truth commanded. The walk rests on a commandment from the Father. It is not the law, but a Father's word to His children, received with thanks.
- Truth partial. John says some of the children, not all. Some may never have confessed Christ, or may have followed those who misled them. Yet every child who walks in truth is worth rejoicing over.
- Truth rejoiced in. A household walking this way brought John joy. It is the joy every believing mother longs to see in her own children.
And now I beseech thee, lady, not as writing to thee a new commandment, but that which we have had from [the] beginning, that we should love one another.
John is writing to a woman he calls the elect lady. He turns from his joy over her children to one thing he asks of her, and he is careful to say it is nothing new. Why did the best known instruction in Christianity need repeating at all? And why does John press it as something already old?
John says he is not writing a new commandment. Its age and its freshness come from two different facts.
It is the old and new commandment. It was old because it was manifested in Christ Himself; new because it is just as true in us as in Him. Divine love flows from love, and reproduces itself in all who know the truth, that is, who know Christ.
In John's usage the phrase points to one particular time, and to words spoken then.
In John's usage, "from the beginning" points to the time when Christ was here on earth. So it may be an allusion to His words, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12.) And notice that, as to the spiritual life, this is the only instruction John sends to the elect lady. How much, however, is involved in it! No one could show love to God's people without the divine nature, "for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7). Wherever love shows itself in this way, it is the divine nature at work. So we may say that if believers are to love one another, they must enjoy God's love, and therefore the Spirit must not be grieved. Love for one another is love in communion with the heart of God. As Paul teaches, it is the spring of holiness in walk and conduct. (1 Thess. 3:12-13.)
John repeats the phrase a line later, and not by accident.
John attaches the words "heard from the beginning" with care. They remind everyone, then and now, that the instruction dates from the time when Christ appeared here.
John does not issue orders. He asks. One writer draws attention to the tone of the appeal and to what it rests on.
He speaks in the language of grace, not of law. He begs her to be consistent with the commandment known from the beginning of Christianity in the world. That commandment is the Lord Jesus' own, so it was not new when John wrote. It is simply that "we love one another." This is true consistency with the divine life planted in every believing heart.
The letter goes on to warn this woman against welcoming certain teachers. That warning sits right beside the call to love.
Here John warns this lady against receiving certain people who did not bring the truth. He had pressed the walk of love very strongly in the first Epistle. He presses it here too. Then he takes these two guards of true love: one is the truth and the other is obedience — just what Christ was when He was in the world. He was love come into the world, the witness and testimony of love. He was the truth, and He was the obedient man.
Kelly then names what love is not.
But what is love? It is not independence of each other. It is not agreeing to differ. Such human inventions are not just a departure from the truth; they are in fact morally evil and harmful. "This is love, that we walk according to His commandments." You cannot separate it from Christ; you cannot separate it from obedience.
Deceivers are in view a few lines later. Knowing the right doctrine, on its own, will not keep anyone safe from them.
We can resist false teachers only when we are grounded in truth and love, and walk accordingly... To escape error and refuse deceivers, knowing the truth will not be enough. We must also practise the truth, following the commandment we have received from the Father. The first Epistle tells us what the Father's commandment is: "that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another" (1 John 3:23).
- Old — the commandment is not a new invention; Christ Himself displayed it while He was here on earth.
- New — it stays new because the same love is now true in believers as it was in Him.
- Given — John does not impose it as law; he begs, appealing to the divine life already planted in the heart.
- Guarded — truth and obedience protect real love, and Christ showed all three together.
- Practised — knowing the truth is not enough; love lived out is what keeps a household safe from deceivers.
And this is love, that we should walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment, according as ye have heard from the beginning, that ye might walk in it.
John writes this short letter to a woman and her children. He urges the old command to love one another, then says plainly what that love is: a walk marked out by God's commandments, on a path unchanged since the start.
John does not leave love to each reader's taste. He asks what love is, and his answer rules out the popular substitutes.
But what is love? "And this is love:" it is not being independent of each other. It is not agreeing to differ. It is none of those human inventions, which are not only a departure from the truth but are in fact morally evil and harmful. "This is love, that we walk according to his commandments." You cannot separate it from Christ. You cannot separate it from obedience.
Christ Himself is the pattern. He kept His Father's commandments because He loved Him.
"And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments." Just as Christ walked according to the commandments of God because He loved Him. As He said (John 14:31), "I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father." So it is with those who follow Him.
The same writer points to two guards John sets around love. Christ Himself was both of them.
Then he takes these two guards of true love: one is the truth and the other is obedience — exactly what Christ was when He was in the world. He came into the world as love, the witness and testimony of love. He was the truth. He was the obedient man. He showed His love for His Father by obeying Him in all things.
Love that comes from God can only move in God's own channels. His commandments mark out those channels.
Love which is of God can only flow out according to the nature of God, and so in divine channels. The commandments of God express His nature, what He is, and in this way they reveal Him to us in and through the living Word. So we have sure directions for the love John speaks of. If we neglect them, confusion follows among the people of God, to their spiritual loss and damage. Love builds up, but only when we show it according to God.
So what about love that seems warm but ignores what Christ commanded?
We must not forget that the paths of love and obedience are not two paths, but one. "And this is love," said one who lived very near the heart of Jesus, speaking by the Holy Spirit, "that we walk according to His commandments." You may meet with love on paths of disobedience. But that is not the holy love which has its spring in God, the love Jesus commands His people to have.
The verse ties the commandment to what the readers heard at the beginning. For the Christian, that beginning is not Adam but Christ.
Adam was the beginning of the human race on earth. But Christ is the beginning for the Christian. With Christ came grace and truth, and the source of Christian obedience and mutual love… When the Son of God appeared in flesh as foretold, grace and truth came in Him. The light judged everything that did not match God's nature, and the truth showed every person and thing as it really is.
The verse uses the word "walk" twice. Love proves itself by obeying, and that obedience must keep going on the path known from the start.
But love shows itself in practice by obeying the will of God. There may be love on the lips without obedience in the life. But love in the heart must produce obedience in the life. And the commandment of love is this: we should walk, and keep on walking, in all that God has made known to us in Christ from the start. The danger then threatening was that, under various excuses, some would be drawn away to follow and obey ideas foreign to what had been from the beginning.
- Defined — John does not leave love to personal taste. He defines it as walking by God's commandments. You cannot cut it off from Christ or from obedience.
- Displayed — Christ obeyed the Father because He loved Him. In Him love, truth and obedience were one, and they stay one in those who follow Him.
- Directed — God's commandments express what He is. They are the channels His love flows through, and love builds others up only when it keeps to them.
- Distinguished — Love found on a path of disobedience is not the love that springs from God. The road of love and the road of obedience are one road.
- Durable — What they heard "from the beginning" is Christ, made known here on earth. Keep walking in it, and refuse ideas foreign to it.
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, they who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh -- this is the deceiver and the antichrist.
John moves from love and obedience to a reason: danger is already loose in the world. His test is not conduct or sincerity. It is confession — what a teacher says about the Person of Jesus Christ.
The safeguard John gives is not suspicion but nearness to Christ. One writer says this refusal goes deeper than a wrong idea about Christ becoming man.
Nothing so preserves the saints from wrong and false teachings as walking in the power of the truth. The nearer we are to Christ, the more readily we detect what is not of Him... This was not so much a denial that He became flesh, though that might be included. It was the refusal to own and bow to the claims and authority of Christ as "come in the flesh."
John says these deceivers have gone out into the world. They are not strangers arriving from outside. They once stood among Christians and then left.
They had once been in the church, and they went out to pursue their unholy work of defying God's word and denying the Son... A man may enter the church of God and take his part in it for a while as a Christian. He goes out a great deal worse than when he came in, however bad he was. He now hates the truth, and those who hold to it. It becomes his active business to mislead the saints, defame the truth, and deny Christ.
The phrase is carefully chosen. To come in flesh says something no ordinary human birth could say.
To confess that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is to own that He existed before He became flesh. There would be no sense in saying of a mere human being that he is come in flesh. How else could he come? So to deny that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is to deny that He existed before. It is to deny that He is a divine Person — God.
The words hold two truths together. Error comes from taking only one of them.
"Jesus Christ come in the flesh" supposes neither His deity alone nor His humanity only, but both. To me the expression has no meaning unless it means both united in the same Person. In fact, veering to one side or the other — choosing part of the truth of Christ so as to set aside the rest — is a great source of error here and everywhere. Here it does the deadliest harm.
The denial John names was not hypothetical. It matched a teaching circulating while he wrote, which held that Christ was not really a man.
An early system of philosophy that claimed to be Christian. One of their theories was that the Lord was an Æon and not really a man. Apparently to refute this, the apostle insists that Christ has come "in flesh."
Writers also see the same denial reappearing across the centuries in wider forms. One puts its full range this way:
It includes all phases of evil doctrines concerning Christ, the Son of the Father. It denies His essential deity and His true humanity. It denies His virgin birth, His infallibility, His holy character, His physical resurrection, and His bodily presence in glory.
John does not say "a deceiver among many." He writes "the deceiver and the antichrist." One writer weighs this against every other trouble a church can face.
It is far worse than bringing in division and offence, bad as these are. It is far more serious even than the undermining of morality, ruinous as that must be. To sap or corrupt morality no doubt destroys oneself, and perhaps often others as well. But this defames and degrades Christ, the Son of the Father. This, then, is a bolder effort of Satan. So John calls one guilty of it not only "the deceiver" — every false teacher is more or less a deceiver — but in this case also "the antichrist."
John's warning does not cancel love. He sets two guards around it.
He had strongly pressed walking in love in the first Epistle. Here too he begs the lady that we love one another — not as a new commandment, but as the one we had from the beginning. Then he takes these two guards of true love: one is the truth and the other is obedience — just what Christ was when He was in the world.
- Confession — The dividing line is what a person confesses about Christ. He came in flesh. So He existed before He came, and He is God and man in one Person.
- Departure — These deceivers came out from among Christians. So the danger speaks familiar language. It does not look like an outsider.
- Denial — Refusing this confession is not one error among many. It defames the Son of the Father. That is why John calls such a person "the deceiver and the antichrist."
- Detection — Nearness to Christ is what makes false teaching easy to spot. Walking in the truth is the real safeguard.
- Defence — The warning does not cancel love. Truth and obedience guard it — the two things Christ Himself was in the world.