“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…” (2 John 5–6)
The logic of this text is both plain and prescient. Simply stated, it begins with the Christian duty to love one another — “I ask you…that we love one another” (v. 5) — and moves naturally to a clear definition of what the apostle intends by love — “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments” (v. 6). The conclusion that follows is thus simple and straightforward enough: Christians are to love one another by walking according to the Father’s commandments (v. 4). This is what love is, what it looks like in concrete expression.
What this means, then, is that we haven’t been left to simply imagine what love may or may not look like. Nor do we need to search within ourselves for flickering and intermittent feelings of vague affection. According to John, we can simply walk in God’s commandments, knowing that as we do, our lives will gradually take on the shape and character of true, biblical love. This is love, he says, that we walk according to His commandments. Or, as the apostle Paul put it elsewhere, “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).
Another way of approaching this is to think of God’s commandments as the language of love. Just as human speech is comprised of varying sounds, syllables, intonations, and constructions, so love is composed of a variety of expressions — all of which have their root in God’s statutes and precepts. Thus, on certain occasions, love looks like returning your enemy’s straying ox (Ex. 23:4), and on others like biting your tongue when tempted to slander (Lev. 19:16). In some circumstances, love consists of “reasoning frankly” with your neighbour concerning an issue between you (Lev. 19:17), in others like turning the other cheek and letting the offence pass smoothly by (Matt. 5:38–42). In every instance, love is required; and in every instance God’s commandments form the basis of how love should be expressed.
By implication, then, our love is only as good as our ability to walk in God’s commandments. All the desire in the world means nothing if we don’t know how to express it. To push the language analogy still further, we cannot speak if we don’t know what to say and we cannot love if we don’t know God’s commandments. The two go hand in hand, the latter being the vehicle of the former.
This being the case, it’s no surprise that the church’s ability to love — and I mean actually love — has been so stunted in recent years. Lacking any meaningful knowledge of the Scriptures, and thus any real knowledge of what it means to truly love other human beings, many Christians have simply imported the world’s vain, sentimental speculations concerning the nature of love. They have disconnected love from truth and thus severed it from any possibility of concrete expression. Love, in other words, has been reduced to the level of mere emotion or feeling, and one that often strangely coincides with the world’s priorities and aims.
If there is ever going to be any real recovery of love, whether in our churches, our country, our families, or our homes, it must begin with a recovery of the Word of God — written and incarnate. It must begin with a renewed cherishing of the person of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the embodiment of obedience to God’s commandments and thus also the clearest expression of love the world has ever seen. It must begin by a renewed longing to know and obey the commandments, statutes, and precepts of God — by receiving His words as “sweeter than honey” and His testimonies as the “joy of our hearts” (Ps. 119:103, 111).
Make no mistake, love perishes apart from Christ. But God is merciful and will heal after He has torn (Hos. 6:1). The only hope for us, individually as well as nationally, is to turn to Him and live.