The Second Epistle of John is among the most neglected books of the New
Testament. It, like his third epistle, is simply a short personal letter
from the Apostle. There is little doubt that the Apostle John was the
author, but there are a number of conjectures as to whom it was written: someone
called "the Elect Lady."
(This article contains a conjecture that would seem to have no support from
the extensive list of commentaries which have been consulted; however, bear with
us and judge for yourself.)
The Recipient
The letter is addressed eklekte kuria, "the Elect Lady," and her
children. Kuria is a feminine proper name; but eklekte
is a strange construction, never assigned to any other individual in the New
Testament as a single predicate.1 There are two
prevailing views among the abundance of expositors:
(1) To the Church at large
Most commentators regard this as simply an idiom for the Church in a
collective sense. And yet, the Church is never pictured as having
children. In fact, the Church is always presented as a virgin
2 and as a bride.3
The view of kuria taken as a symbolic description of the Christian
Church has been the dominant view as early as Jerome.
4 The view of believers as "children of the church"
may have been comfortable for Jerome, et al., for ecclesiastical reasons, but it
flies in the face of Scriptural usage: we are "children of God," not "children
of the church." It is also significant that this word does not appear
elsewhere with this signification.
The further allusion to the recipient's sister and her children (v.13) would
also seem fatal to this view but for the preponderance of the expositional
history which has attended this epistle.
(2) To a prominent individual within the
church
A straightforward reading of the letter would seem to indicate that the
letter is addressed to some prominent member of the local church, and this has
also been a common alternative interpretation.5
The writer knows her sister and her sister's children (v.13). This view
would make this the only book in the Bible specifically addressed to a
woman.
A Provocative
Conjecture
Who would be the most "Elect Lady" in the entire Bible? To me, the most
likely prima facie
suggestion (which, however, is not even discussed among most
commentators6 ) would be that the recipient of
this intimate letter is the most "elect" of all women, the very one that Jesus
Himself entrusted to John's personal care: Mary, the mother of Jesus!
7
In fact, it is surprising that Jesus didn't consign her to one of her other
four sons. Jesus was raised among a family of at least seven: five
brothers and two sisters.8 James and Jude became
believers after
the resurrection and, in fact, each wrote the books in the New
Testament that bear their names. Jesus appeared to James after His
resurrection.9 If our surmise is correct - and
it is only a surmise - the others probably also became believers.
10
And Mary did have a sister as alluded to in v.13.
11 We know so little of her subsequent history from
the Scriptures; there are only minimal allusions in the Book of Acts.
12 She apparently remained in the care of John in his
retirement in Ephesus.
Obviously, most of what is commonly published by the Roman Catholic Church
has been contrived to promote a number of doctrinal heresies.
13 Most Biblical believers, from their revulsion to
the tragic and heretical deification of Mary, tend to disregard her altogether
and ignore her situation and predicament.
(We cannot miss the ostensibly dismissive allusion at her prompting during
the wedding at Cana.14 )
"The Truth"
The "Elect Lady" is loved "by all they that have
known the Truth"(v.1). Who else would be loved by all
other believers? To whom else could this
refer? This, too, seems to point to far more than simply a prominent
personage within their local church!
Clearly, the prominence of "truth," in concert with "love," is the keynote of
this letter. John uses the word "Truth" five times in the first four
verses. He uses the word "love" four times. However, in this letter,
we learn that Truth "dwells in us and shall be with us forever" (v. 2). "The
Truth" may be intended as a more personal title.
Even Pilate's cynical question still echoes in our ears, "What is
Truth?" For believers, Jesus' declaration is conclusive and comprehensive:
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."15
It would seem that John is using, here, Truth as a
title of Jesus Christ, just as he so often uses the Logos
, the Word.
16 (The recipient of John's letter also was not a latecomer:
she was there "from the beginning."17 ) If our
suspicion is correct, it would place a unique complexion on the entire letter,
and it would also yield a number of other significant insights.
We should not presume that any of us is beyond the need for encouragement or
exhortation. Why would Mary - a blessed but human believer - be any
exception? Especially during a time when widespread attacks on the deity
of Jesus Christ was the topic of the day! Mary was subject to the same
frailties as we are: pride, doubts, and a need of frequent encouragement,
counsel, and, perhaps, exhortation. A tendency toward pride could certainly have
been her most serious challenge: the most blessed of all women who had ever
walked the earth! And yet, having to live with the clouds of legitimacy,
and other doctrinal issues, over her firstborn.18
Read through the Second Epistle of John from
Mary's perspective, and see what
the Spirit confirms to you.
Dating the Letter
On Paul's return from his third missionary journey, he met with the Ephesian
elders at Miletus (some 30 miles south of Ephesus) and delivered to them that
touching farewell address in which he warned them of the forthcoming false
teachers.19 It was this subsequent rise of these
false doctrines which is the focus of all three of John's later epistles.
It would seem that II John was written to this very community, but at an
earlier date than I John (since the false teachers, the "Gnostics," evidently
still had access to the church in II John, but had seceded from it in I
John).20 This conjecture concerning the identity
of "the Elect Lady" would also imply that II John was written earlier than A.D.
85, since Mary would have been about a century old by then.
By the time that John is subsequently in exile on the isle of Patmos, Ephesus
was prominent as the first of the seven churches in Revelation for which Jesus
includes a report card. The church at Ephesus, by then, had apparently
exercised effective diligence regarding false doctrine, but had "left their
first love."21
The apostle John, according to tradition, spent his final years in Ephesus,
where he died and was buried.
The
Key Lesson
In any case, John's letters focus on our walking in love, in truth, and in
the intimate knowledge of God. They deal with, in a sense, a challenge
similar to the indictment by the Prophet Hosea:
Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a
controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. - Hosea 4:1
The issue in all three letters is that love and truth
must be practiced , or
"walked." "To walk in the truth" means to obey it. It is easier to study
the truth, or even argue about the truth, than it is to obey it. Knowing
the truth is more than giving assent to a series of doctrines; it means that the
believer's life is controlled by a love for the truth and a desire to magnify
the truth.
For a practical contemporary guide on this same subject, authored by my own
personal "Elect Lady," Walking in Love and Truth and Intimate Knowledge of
God, by Nancy Missler, is a
summary of her famous trilogy, The Way of Agape, Be Ye
Transformed, and Faith in the Night Seasons
.
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