Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - 2 John 1:4 - 1:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 2Jn_1:4-6
4I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. 5Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 6And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.
2Jn_1:4 "I was very glad" This is an aorist passive (deponent) indicative. Possibly the Elder heard about this church from some of its traveling members.
▣ "to find some of your children walking in truth" This refers either to
1. godly, loving lives of some in the church (cf. 2Jn_1:3-4)
2. a way of acknowledging the presence of heretics within the congregation who had led some astray
▣ "just as we have received commandment to do from the Father" This is an aorist active indicative which refers to the giving of the commandment to love one another, even as Jesus loved them (cf. Joh_13:34-35; Joh_15:12; 1Jn_3:11; 1Jn_4:7; 1Jn_4:11-12; 1Jn_4:21).
2Jn_1:5 "we have had from the beginning" This is an imperfect active indicative which refers to the beginning of Jesus' teaching (cf. 1Jn_2:7; 1Jn_2:24; 1Jn_3:11). The content of the commandment is reaffirmed as "love for one another" (cf. 2Jn_1:5) and "acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh" (cf. 2Jn_1:7). Notice it is content, personal and lifestyle.
▣ "that we love one another" This is a present active subjunctive (as is the last verb in this verse, walk). It was characteristic of the heretics to be exclusivistic and unloving. This forms the first of John's three tests for how one knows he is a Christian. In the book of 1 John these three tests are: love, lifestyle, and doctrine. These three tests are repeated in 2 John.
1. love (cf. 2Jn_1:5; 1Jn_2:7-11; 1Jn_3:11-18; 1Jn_4:7-12; 1Jn_4:16-21; 1Jn_5:1-2)
2. obedience (cf. 2Jn_1:6; 1Jn_2:3-6; 1Jn_3:1-10; 1Jn_5:2-3)
3. doctrinal content (cf. 2Jn_1:7; 1Jn_1:1 ff; 1Jn_2:18-25; 1Jn_4:1-6; 1Jn_4:14-16; 1Jn_5:1; 1Jn_5:5; 1Jn_5:10)
2Jn_1:6 "And this is love" Love (agapç) is an ongoing (present tense) action, not just a feeling. Love is "the sign" of all true believers (cf. 1 Corinthians 13; Gal_5:22; 1Jn_4:7-21).
▣ "from the beginning" See note at 1Jn_1:1. I think the phrase is used in 1 John and 2 John as a reference to the beginning of Jesus' public ministry.
▣ "walk in it" Christianity is an initial commitment and a lifestyle change (cf. 1Jn_2:6). Our lifestyle does not save us, but it does verify that we are saved (cf. Eph_2:8-10).