"The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.. . . Thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers, which have borne witness of thy charity before the Church:whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well. Because that for His name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth. I wrote unto the church:but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words; and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church" (3 John 1-10).
John’s third epistle follows his second in moral as well as chronological order. Together, they meet two opposite tendencies which are both opposed to the Spirit of Christ. One is the laxity which is not love, although it claims to be; the other is the narrowness which is not faithfulness to Christ, but calls itself by that name. What can love be worth which sets aside truth, or what truth can there be apart from the love which is the greatest truth?
The union of these is insisted on in both epistles, truth being put foremost in the second and love in the third. Love is the energy of the divine nature and light is the manner of its display. Where God acts, He acts in His whole character, although there may be to us a difference in His actions_a predominance of one attribute or the other. Thus love cannot be described without bringing in other attributes; and the Word of God needs to describe it and define it as the apostle does in the first of his epistles, for in nothing do we make more mistakes. He therefore gives tests and counter-tests. If the love be to God, yet "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20). If it be to our brother, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God" (1 John 5:2). He defines love to God further:"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3).
Love must have its object, and this is carefully insisted upon. It is first of all Christ in whom God has revealed Himself, then those who are Christ’s, the brethren. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). Here the circle marked out shows sufficiently the center from which it is described. Lose the center and all is lost. It is this, then, on which John insists in the second epistle. If you have not "the doctrine of Christ," you have not Christ, but antichrist. Thus you must not greet the one who, coming in a Christian guise, brings not the doctrine of Christ. If you receive deliberately one who displaces Christ, you are an accessory to that displacement and become "partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 11). He may be deceived, but you dishonor Christ with your eyes open. Association is in God’s sight one of the most serious questions; fellowship with God and with what is opposed to Him cannot go on together.
Thus the Second Epistle of John comes naturally before the third. First of all, he fixes the center before he marks out the circumference. And Satan too, first of all, aims at the center; for could he take away that, there would be no more circumference to mark out. However, even where the honor of the Lord requires separation there may yet be in fulfilling a plain duty a spirit of harshness which already needs the check of the third epistle. We must always remember what Christ’s people are to Him, and with what discriminating care and tenderness He deals with them. How many have we repelled from the truth by the lack of grace that we have manifested. How many have we abandoned to the evil whom we might have drawn out from it had we had a hand to put forth for their help. Strange it is that those who supposedly have learned their own need of grace can in their conduct toward others act so readily in the spirit of law and yet expect to find results which only grace can produce. Sad indeed that God’s way of loving us out of our sins should be so little known to us. We need much searching of heart as to such things which have engendered a cold, harsh spirit of suspicion. So often where any departure from what is esteemed a most rigid orthodoxy is in question, tolerance is counted as laxity and indifference; and the needful "separation from evil" is in fact lost in a real biting and devouring of one another which would end, except as prevented by the mercy of God, in being consumed one of another.
In the Third Epistle of John we meet Diotrephes who had some measure of power in the assembly and who loved to have the preeminence. The Epistle to the Corinthians shows us one stage of the breakdown of God’s order for the Church. In Corinth restless and ambitious persons were dividing the saints into contentious parties. Here in John’s third epistle was a further stage of decline in which one who was thirsty for power had succeeded in reducing all the rest to obedience to himself. One individual had absorbed into himself the corporate condition; and the assembly in practice no longer existed_it was merely a tool in the hand of Diotrephes.
We see here the beginning of the system of clergy and laity. Many, perhaps, thought the development of such a system a needed development. How much better, they may have reasoned, was the rule of Diotrephes than the strife at Corinth.
There is, in truth, but a narrow path for us, and a very fine line divides between good and evil. Are there not leaders in the assembly? Yes, assuredly; Scripture plainly says so (Heb. 13:7,17). Ought we not to obey them? Again, "We beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake" (1 Thess. 5:12,13). We are to know our leaders, and if the assembly in 3 John had known Diotrephes they would hardly have followed him! If we are to know our guides, then plainly there is no responsibility taken off our shoulders, but the contrary. We are responsible for the guides we allow as such; we are, first of all, to know before we follow, not to follow blindly. How shall we know a guide but by the guidance, and by what can we judge as to guidance but the Word of God? So the apostle says, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow" (Heb. 13:7).
Believing obedience to the Word of God, then, must characterize such leaders, and we only follow their faith when the Word of God is to us what it is to them. The guidance is by the Word, and faith must be in it, not in them, and only those are to be followed who follow it. If the guide can show me God’s path for me, it is well and good, and I must follow; but woe be to him who stands between the soul and God, and whom men obey upon the warrant of his superior knowledge, wisdom, or holiness! Our walk is to be with God.
The guides and leaders of Christ’s people must be like Christ_tender toward the individual, careful to maintain the sense of responsibility in the soul, nurturers of the life rather than zealots of the form. God gives us guides like these, men who will speak to us the Word of God, and whose faith we can follow.
In the assembly referred to in 3 John there was a free and devoted activity in the ministry of the truth. Some had gone forth for the name of Christ taking nothing of the world, to which they offered the better riches. The apostle’s commendation is given decisively to such a course. Gaius had received and helped them, and those who do so he assures that they are fellow-workers with the truth. Let none claim this with whom it is not true. It is one thing to give a dole to the Lord’s work, as to a beggar at the door, and quite another to be a helper in a cause that is one’s own. Giving is as much a ministry as is preaching, but only as the heart and soul are put into it is either the one or the other acceptable with God.
Gaius was one who did this; his fellowship with the truth expressed itself in practical reality, a hearty linking of himself with those who for Christ’s sake had gone forth. "If thou shalt bring forward on their journey after a godly sort" should read "in a manner worthy of God." How much is involved in "a manner worthy of God"! In how great a cause are we permitted to be engaged, and how liberal we should be in giving of time and money to the cause of Him who spared not His Son!
It was in behalf of this free evangelization, as is evident by the context, that the apostle John had written to the assembly, only to prove how helplessly it had fallen under the control of one who loved the preeminence in it he had obtained. We are not told upon what ground Diotrephes based his opposition toward the other servants of Christ. It is no doubt purposely that we are told so little of what he said or against what he opposed himself. Whatever he said against the apostles, we may be sure he did not lack arguments that seemed reasonable and convinced many. Did not Paul rebuke Peter, and did not Peter deserve such rebuke?
The truth really was that the work of the Spirit of God had aroused the opposition of man’s will and self-love in which Satan had found his opportunity. This has been largely the history of the Church ever since. It has fallen under the power of the enemy and been dominated by ambition. The Spirit of God has been opposed and quenched and His human instruments have been cast out. In every fresh movement of God this history seems to be repeated. We are admonished to hold fast. The warning is not needless, and those who swim against the stream will not fail to find the tug and strain of the stream upon them. But the Lord Himself gives great encouragement and He will soon come. "I come quickly:hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. 3:11).
(From Help and Food, Vol. 8.)
FRAGMENT If any of us look for power or acceptance from anything that is of man, from manner, learning, fervor, or eloquence, we are at once off the ground of dependence upon the power of the Holy Spirit, because we are calling to our aid that which has its source in man and natural abilities.
FRAGMENT A preacher has never to be anxious about results; that is God’s concern. He has only to be anxious about three things:(1) the state of his own soul; (2) being in communion with the mind of God as to those to whom he is speaking; and (3) faithfulness in delivering the message.