One of the most moving scenes from the earthly life of our Lord is recorded for us in John 13. This is that blessed portion of Holy Scripture that tells us how Jesus, on the night of His betrayal and arrest, washed the feet of the Disciples and instituted what we know as the Lord’s Supper. It was also then, during that final time with the Disciples before He died, that Jesus gave to them the “new commandment”:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”–John 13:34-35.

A bit later in John’s Gospel, Jesus says it again:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another”–John 15:12-17.

These two passages certainty reveal to us the background for what we discover in 2 John 1:4-6. In his second little letter, the Apostle John all but repeats and then applies the previous word of His Lord:

“I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.”

Last Lord’s Day we began our exploration of this passage and we noted that the Christian life, according to John, is a “walk.” It is a way of consistently living, and one that is most distinct from the way others, who do not know our Lord, conduct their every-day lives. And there are two great points of distinction that the Apostle highlights here. First, contrary to how others live, the believer’s “walk” is “in the truth” (v. 4). And secondly, the believer’s “walk” is one of “love,” particularly for our fellow Christians (vv. 5-6). Of course, this begs two questions that we will begin to answer as we gather together this coming Lord’s Day: What is “the truth” in which we are to “walk”? And what is “love,” and how is this “love” related to the “commandment” (v. 5), and the “commandments” (v. 6)?