Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: 2 John, 3 John and Psalm 51

Writing during a time of severe persecution, the apostle John did not name himself or the congregation to which he wrote. Instead he cryptically referred to himself as “the elder”, to the local church as “the lady”, and to the members as “her children”. When he names Gaius in 3 John, that’s most likely because Gaius was such a common name at the time that it did not really identify the individual concerned.

The heart of 2 John is this:

⁵ And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. ⁶ And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. ⁷ I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

The insidious, anti-Christ falsehood being taught in this era was that Jesus had not truly been a flesh and blood incarnation of God. John, as a friend and eyewitness to Jesus in His physical life knew beyond any shadow of a doubt how devastatingly untrue this teaching was. In this letter, the issue for John, was not only to defend the plain truth about Jesus, but also to point out the important implication of this falsehood. If Jesus did not come in the flesh, then what we do in the flesh does not matter. Then it is all a matter of a disembodied “spirituality” – a “me-and-my-Jesus spirituality”. Then it is a matter of “my truth” and “your truth” because there is no objective truth to be found in the person of Jesus.

John makes it profoundly clear: Jesus did come in the flesh. To claim anything else is to abandon the truth. And how we live in the flesh is therefore of absolutely central importance. As an act of pure love, Jesus humbled Himself, giving up the heavenly glory to live among us in flesh and blood humanity. He physically lived and suffered and died for our salvation. And when Jesus calls us to discover abundant life through loving God and one another, He is not talking about some vague “spiritual” love. He is talking about an enfleshed love – a love that is expressed in sacrificial physical acts that make a physical difference in the lives of others. Living out this love is a major key to living the abundant, Christ-like Life in the world.

Life Application: Reflect on Jesus’ example of a fully-embodied life of love, and seek to emulate that love in practical ways today.