II John 1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth
Have you ever heard of a hateful Christian? Well, such a thing really should not exist. That is a contradiction in terms. You can either be hateful or you can be a follower of Christ, but to be a hateful Christian is an oxymoron. Have you heard of a heretical Christian? A Christian can be wrong about something, but a Christ-follower is not a false follower. You are either heretical or you are a Christian.
How do you know the difference between a Christian and someone who is not? Sometimes we make a false choice. We say you can either be loving or you can go after the truth. That is not the case. The fact is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I John says that God is love. So, this idea that you have to choose one or the other, either love or truth, is just false. People often point to John 13:35 where Jesus says, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one to another.” That is true. People don’t know your doctrine, philosophy, or whatever, but they can automatically sense your attitude. Love is truth in action.
When you come to II John, something becomes very clear: truth is the foundation to the Christian life.More specifically, Jesus is the foundation to the Christian life, but Jesus says, “I am…the truth.” First, there is no love without truth. Verse 1 says, “The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth.” At the get-go truth is what II John is all about. You also see a lot about love because they are not mutually exclusive. One leads to the other. There is no truth without love; and there is no love without truth.
Verse 3 says, “Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.” Then he says, “I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth.” There is no greater joy than that. There is no love without truth. I love in the truth. Truth and love are not mutually exclusive. One is the result of the other. If I see someone I love in a burning house, I don’t stand around affirming my love with words or a song. I warn them about the burning house.
Where it can get confusing is when people really don’t have love and use the truth as a club over someone’s head. Romans 13:10 says, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love is doing what is right by people. In John 14:15 Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” I John 5:2 says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” So, truth, Jesus Himself, is the foundation of the Christian life. There is no love without truth.
How would you even define love? Am I loving another if I am not doing right by them? No! Is there even a right without truth? No, there is just my opinion and your opinion. So, truth is the foundation of the Christian life because there is no love without truth.
Second, there is no discernment without truth. Truth is the foundation. There is no distinguishing good and bad, right and wrong without truth. II John 7 says, “For many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” A deceiver is someone who is not telling the truth. How can you define truth if there is no truth? This is so opposed to the governing attitude of our day. I am thankful we can show love to other people and that we can all show the love of Christ to people who don’t know the truth of Christ, but there still needs to be discernment.
John gets quite severe by the American mind today when he says if someone comes to you and brings a doctrine that is not the doctrine of Christ, he doesn’t know the Father or the Son, and you should not receive him. So, if someone doesn’t bring the truth, don’t receive him because you have to receive the truth. There is no discernment without truth.
In verse 11 he talks about rejection. “For he that biddeth him [the false teacher] God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” It is not loving to fellowship with falsehood. We are to reject falsehood, not because we hate people, but precisely because we love them. We love the truth and we love what the truth does for people. Truth is never an alibi, an excuse, for being hateful or unloving, but love is never an excuse for following falsehood. They actually go together in harmony.
There is fellowship in verse 13, the exact opposite of the rejection in verse 11. It says, “The children of thy elect sister greet thee.” It seems he is giving greetings from one church to another church. In verse 1 he says, “The elder to the elect lady and her children,” talking about this church. So, there is rejection of falsehood and fellowship in what is right.
Sometimes we have this mistaken notion that we need to balance everything, like balancing love and truth, as if they are opposites. They are not opposites. One is a manifestation of the other. Truth is a manifestation of love and there is no love without truth. So, we don’t balance them any more than we balance blood and oxygen is our bodies. We don’t balance blood and oxygen. We harmonize them. Our bodies do this automatically by the Creator and creation.
Today, I don’t need to balance with half love and half truth. No, I need 100% love and 100% truth, and being truthful is being loving. If I am loving, I am going to be truthful. I don’t love someone by telling them a lie, and I don’t give truth to someone by beating them over the head. Truth is the foundation to the Christian life; Jesus is the foundation of the Christian life. There is no love or discernment without truth. May God help us to have both in our lives as we follow Christ and show Him to a lost world for whom He died.