The Vital Word

In the opening of his book, The Unquenchable Flame, Michael Reeves says, “Looking back today, it feels [nearly] impossible even to get a sense of what it must have been like in [the pre-Renaissance, pre-Reformation] era. ‘Medieval’—the very word conjures up dark, gothic images of chanting cloister-crazed monks and superstitious, revolting peasants. All very strange. Especially to modern eyes: where we are out-and-out democratic egalitarians, they saw everything hierarchically; where our lives revolve around nurturing, nourishing and pampering the self, they sought in everything to abolish and abase the self (or, at least, they admired those who did). The list of differences could go on. Yet this was the setting for the Reformation, the context for why people got so passionate about theology. The Reformation was a revolution, and revolutions not only fight for something, they also fight against something, in this case, the old world of medieval Roman Catholicism. What, then, was it like to be a Christian in the couple of centuries before the Reformation?”[1]

Well, a very brief and surface-level answer might be that the last of the Medieval period, at least in Western Europe, was marked by widespread religiosity, deeply divided classes, and comprehensive superstition.

To say that every European in the 1300s and 1400s was religious is not to say that all were sincere and/or faithful, but it is to say that religion was pervasive in European society and politics and culture in such a widespread fashion that every European thought of himself in terms of “Christian” more than anything else… not Bohemian, not nobleman, not peasant… but a Christian in Bohemia, or a Christian landowner, or a Christian peasant. Therefore, just prior to the Renaissance and the Reformation, people identified themselves with the Church of Rome much more than they did with any particular nationality or class.

Having said that, Medieval society, politics, and religion was also deeply divided by class. The world was separated between the “haves” and the “have nots,” those with money and/or power and those without. Landowners and warriors, merchants and politicians, these were the people who ran the world… sort of. The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church – especially those in the highest positions – were also landowners and politicians, and these “holy” members of the upper class were in a constant dance of power with the “secular” ones.

Not only was the world divided between the “haves” and the “have-nots,” it was also divided between the “secular” and the “sacred,” the “profane” and the “holy,” the “material” and the “spiritual.” The Church and those who had some formal role in its structure (bishops, cardinals, deacons, friars, priests, monks, and nuns… just to name a few) delt with the “sacred” things and were themselves designated as “sacred” or “set apart” unto special service for God. Everyone and everything else were “secular” or “profane” or “worldly.”

Because of this hard bifurcation (or division) between the “secular” and the “sacred,” the Medieval era was also marked by comprehensive superstition. It’s been said that one cannot understand Martin Luther’s world (the late Medieval world) unless one first expects to meet a goblin or a fairy when walking in the forest. Good and evil spirits were everywhere, and the Roman Church had perfected an entire system that took advantage (intentionally or otherwise) of a thoroughly superstitious people.

For growing hair or crops, you could pray to a Saint. For years off of purgatory, you could visit a relic (or a hundred of them). For salvation and good standing in the Church, you simply observed the priest when he transformed bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and consumed the Eucharist at the front of the church building… which some did every single day. The church members never drank of the cup themselves, and they only ate the bread once a year… They were “secular” and “profane,” and we can’t have a clumsy church member dropping the body of Christ on the ground.

The world was fixed… the Church was holy… and the average person was profane. The devil and his imps ran wild, and the sinner could expect nothing but Christ’s judgment, both in this life and in the one to come (for hundreds or maybe thousands of years).

It was in this world that the reformers lived and worked and learned and taught… and they rediscovered a message of fantastic news for guilty sinners. The gospel was not lost altogether from 500 AD to 1500 AD, there were many within Christendom who preached the biblical gospel throughout history, but when the reformers of the 1500s promoted the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone in the person and work of Christ alone, that message had become hostile to nearly everything that called itself “Christian” in Western Europe.

But how did the light of the biblical gospel shine forth on such a dark scene? From where did the light shine? And who lit the candle?

One way to answer these questions is to say those who preached and taught… and those who wrote pamphlets and books… and those debated and fought… in short, those who “protested” were the ones God used to shine the light of His gospel upon a dark world.

Another way to answer these questions is to simply point to the Bible itself. The reason there was such a thing as a “reformer” is because the words of Scripture became accessible in such a way that people started to see discrepancies between what they read in the Bible and what they saw in the Church around them.

In the early 1500s, the Bible was rediscovered, and those men and women we now know as reformers were those who studied, taught, preached, and aimed to live according to the words of God… rather than the words of men. In church buildings, many reformers removed the statues and paintings, and all of the reformers removed the altar.

In the place of all the imagery, and in the place of a sacrificial ceremony, they erected a pulpit. Often large and always elevated, the pulpit was the place where the minister would ascend above the congregation with the Scriptures, and his job was to preach the Bible to those under his care. From that perched place, the Bible took center stage. The reformers believed that the right preaching of God’s word was and is vital to the church itself… Where the Bible is faithfully preached and the ordinances are rightly administered, there is a church.

Today, we’re going to read the second letter from the Apostle John… all 13 verses. This letter was written to “the elect lady and her children” (v1), which was probably John’s poetic way of referring to a church and her members. You’ll see how he sends greetings at the end of the short letter from “the children” of an “elect sister” (v13), which is also likely referring to another church.

At any rate, let’s listen for the way John emphasizes the “truth” and the “commands” and the “teachings” of Christ as that all-important focus for churches and for Christians.

Scripture Reading

2 John 1–13 (ESV)

1 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, 2 because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: 3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.

4 I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. 5 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. 6 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.

7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

12 Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete. 13 The children of your elect sister greet you.

Main Idea:

The Bible alone is the word of God, which gives life to sinners and sustains Christians through to the end.

Sermon

1. Starting from the Text

In this letter, the Apostle John rejoiced in the fact that “some” Christians were “walking in the truth” (v4). But he also warned of “many deceivers” who had already “gone out into the world” (v7). So, he urged those who would read his letter to “watch” themselves “so that [they] may not lose” what he and they had “worked for, but may win a full reward” (v8).

And the “truth” in which he called them to “abide” – that standard by which they might judge between the good “teaching” and the sort that is “wicked” and not to be “received” – was the “teaching of Christ” or the “commandments” of Christ (v6-11). That was the “truth,” according to the Apostle, which “all” must “know” and in which all must “abide” (v1-2).

The Scriptures, then, wherein the teachings of Christ are made known, are the rule and the safeguard for Christian faith and practice, for belief and behavior. The God-breathed text was revealed over time through “men [who] spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).[2] And it was this text that the Apostle John charged Christians to know and to keep.

So too, the reformers, during the time of the Protestant Reformation, renewed this Christian commitment to know and to make known the Scriptures. Such an emphasis was the beating heart of so many reformers across Europe. For example, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin all centered their teaching, preaching, and writing on the Scriptures. Many of their books and sermons are available to us today in English, and you can read for yourself how thoroughly biblical these men aimed to be. Their writings are soaked with Bible!

But I want to focus our attention this morning on three English reformers. Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were both burned to death on October 16, 1555, by order of “Bloody Mary.” And almost exactly 19 years earlier (Oct. 6, 1536) William Tyndale faced the executioner by order of King Henry VIII. Tyndale, Latimer, and Ridley all died as martyrs because they would not stop their efforts to make the Bible known among their fellow Englishmen.

Brothers and sisters, one of the reasons I am fascinated by the Reformation is because it reminds me that I am merely an inheritor of something that’s far bigger than I am. It also helps me gain what I think is a good perspective, and I hope that we will all benefit from the way I’m presenting this topic today.

2. The Word of God

In 2 John, the Scripture says that Christians are those who “walk in the truth” (v4)… those who “love one another” (v5)… and those who understand that “love” is “walking according to [God’s] commandments” (v6). The “truth” of which John speaks is synonymous with the “commandments” of God, and both of these words are synonymous with the words of Scripture itself.

Jesus said, in John 17, in a prayer to the Father, “Your word is truth” (Jn. 17:17). The Psalmist spoke of the “word of truth,” which is the “rule” or the “law” or the “testimony” or the “precepts” or the “commandments” of God (Ps. 119:43-47). The Apostle Paul said that the “gospel” of Christian “hope” is the “word of truth” (Eph. 1:13; Col. 1:5). And James wrote that God Himself brings sinners into the light of salvation “by the word of truth” (James 1:18).

All of this is to say that the “truth” of God is the “teaching” of God, which are both words referring to the word of God.

Friends, it is the word of God which must come to us as children of error and wrath and darkness… and the word of God must speak a message of grace (Eph. 2:1-3). Before any of us were children of God, we were first descendants of Adam with a taste for sin and a love of darkness (Jn. 3:19). But God showed His love for us in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

Therefore, the good news of the gospel is an announcement that God is and has already been gracious toward those He came to save! Jesus Christ has already lived and died and conquered death, and everyone who turns from sin and trusts in Him will be saved from God’s wrath and adopted into God’s family! And you can know that this is true because it is the promise or announcement or word of God!

Romans 3:22-25 says, “the righteousness of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Friend, if you know that you are not righteous, and you know you need the righteousness of God in order to avoid His judgment and to enjoy His eternal blessings, then you may receive the righteousness of God this very instant by simply trusting in or faithing in or believing in this word about the Lord Jesus Christ! He is the only Savior for sinners… the one who died in the place of the guilty, so that He Himself might give sinners the righteousness He already earned.

If you want to talk more about this word of the gospel or what it means to believe it, then I’d love to spend some time with you after the service today.

But the word of God is not only that powerful message which brings sinners into the family of God… it is also the powerful truth which shapes and sustains Christians throughout the entirety of their lives.

William Tyndale believed that the word of God is the “light” and “power” by which God “createth [his elect] and shapeth them after the similitude, likeness, and very fashion of Christ.”[3]For Tyndale, the biblical text is the “sustenance, comfort, and strength to [animate] them, that they may stand fast, and endure.”[4] According to Tyndale, it is through the word of God that Christians are shaped into the image of Christ and preserved along the pilgrim path. And that’s why he gave his life to the faithful translation of the Scriptures into English.

Brothers and sisters, our lives as Christians begin with the understanding that we need God’s word… and that the Bible is where we find it. We need God’s word to tell us what sin really is, who we really are, and what God is really like. We need God’s word to teach us the gospel, the depth of our sin, the height of God’s grace, and the glory of the cross of Christ. We need God’s word to shape us, to preserve us, to challenge us, to correct us, to comfort us, and to defend us.

May God help us to know and to walk according to the truth of God’s word.

3. Pastors as Stewards

Because the word of God is that which brings sinners into God’s family, and because the word of God is that which sustains Christians each day along the way, it is, therefore, the word of God – nothing more and nothing less – that must be taught and believed and obeyed among the people of God.

Back to 2 John… The Scripture teaches us, in v9, that those who do “not abide in the teaching of Christ” are ones who “go on ahead” in some other teaching (v9). These are “deceivers” who “have” already “gone out into the world,” even in John’s own day (v7), and they continue to spread their untethered teaching throughout the Church age… until Christ returns.

Friends, don’t be deceived! Those who claim to teach the word of God without showing you how their teaching aligns with Scripture are a danger to your soul. John says these presumptuous “teachers” are not to be “received” or “greeted” (v10), because to “receive” or “greet” them would (in some sense) cause those who do to “take part” in their “wicked works” (v11).

This language of “receive” and “greet” seems to refer to the the sort of reception Christians give one another in the local church. To “receive” someone who teaches something other than the truth of God as a Christian, as a fellow church member, or as a pastor or elder, is to take part in or join in or in some sense affirm their error.

This is one reason why we all ought to pay careful attention to those we welcome as fellow church members and those we affirm as pastors or elders. We are a local church that is bound together by our shared love for and trust in Christ and our shared love for and commitment to one another. And all of this is based upon a shared understanding that the Bible is God’s word… and God’s word is our standard for faith and practice, for belief and behavior.

Hugh Latimer was serving as the bishop of Worcester when he was slated to speak to an assembly of the English clergy on June 9, 1537, about a year after Tyndale was strangled and burned to death. The Reformation in England was not a slow and steady march; it was a series of wild swings back and forth, depending on who was king or queen… and for the first 30 years or so, it depended on the mood of one particular king – Henry VIII.

At least on that day, king Henry was happy with Latimer, and Latimer addressed the crowd of English pastors by calling them to act as stewards among their churches… specifically stewards of God’s word. He centered his sermon on the text of Luke 16:1-2. This is the parable of the dishonest manager.

Jesus said, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And [the rich man] called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’” (Lk. 16:1-2).

The parable goes on, but Latimer focused on these two verses. He told the young ministers that they were to work as stewards in Christ’s household. Latimer said, “These words of Christ do pertain to us and admonish us of our duty.”[5] Such a duty of pastoral ministry, according to Latimer, is to “feed with his [i.e., Christ’s] word… with all diligence… the church [which] is his household.”[6]

Throughout his sermon, Latimer repeatedly called the pastors to faithfulness in making use of the “money” of the Master which had been entrusted to them. Latimer was using “money” as an analogy for the Scriptures. He said, the pastors were not to “come” with “new money,” but they were to “take it ready coined of the [Master] of the house.”[7] They were not to “despise the money of the Lord,” either by “adulterating the word of God” or by “blowing out the dreams of men” in the “stead of God’s word.”[8] In short, faithful pastors are to invest the Scriptures as the only valid currency, making good deposits in the citizens of the kingdom.

Latimer’s call to those pastors fits well with the warning we find in 2 John. Good pastors, faithful pastors are not those who “go on ahead” in whatever “teaching” they want, but instead those who “abide in the teaching of Christ” (v9). Pastors are stewards of the Master’s resources, and they are neither to add something of their own nor to pay out less than they’ve been given.

I think a lot of Christians would benefit greatly if they started thinking about the teaching and preaching of Scripture like money. What if you knew that every Sunday, it was my job to throw out cash from behind the pulpit? You wouldn’t just be disappointed… You’d be mad at me if I tossed out fake bills or if I held some back for myself, keeping it from you.

Brothers and sisters, the word of God is “more to be desired… than gold, even much fine gold” (Ps. 19:10). “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:7-9).

The fundamental responsibility for pastors, then, is the faithful preaching and teaching of the Scriptures, because they must be faithful stewards who deal rightly with the Master’s resources. So too, every church member is responsible to receive these good investments and to make use of them as stewards themselves.

We are all stewards, in one way or another, of the word of God. May God help us all make the best use of the marvelous resources He’s given to us.

4. A Real Warning

This letter from John to an unknown church is rich with love and encouragement. John expresses his own “love” and unity with those who have “the truth” abiding “in” them (v1-2). John “rejoiced greatly” to know that at least “some” of the church members were “walking in the truth” (v4), and he urged them all to “love one another” as Christ Himself had commanded “from the beginning” (v5).

But this letter is also heavy with a real warning. John says that there is a danger of “losing what we have worked for” (v8), and there are “many deceivers” who would condemn their hearers as much as themselves (v7). The fact is that these Christians needed not only to believe and cling to Christ at some point in their lives… they needed to believe and cling to Christ every day.

They needed to believe the “truth” about Christ (v1) in such a way that they would “walk in the truth” of Christ (v4). They needed to have the sort of “love” for Christ and for “one another” (v5) that showed up in the form of “walking according to [Christ’s] commandments” (v6). And they needed to “watch” themselves (v8) and “abide in the teaching of Christ” (v9), so that they would not “lose” what they had previously gained (v8).

Brothers and sisters, here is a warning for us today… that we ought not assume that the truth we once knew or the love we once had is all we ever need. No, there is a real warning here that Christians must continually strive to “abide” in Christ and in His “teaching” and also to “love one another,” even as Christ has first loved us.

Let’s be clear… I’m not saying that a Christian can lose his or her salvation. The Bible teaches us that God’s love for sinners is not gained one day and lost the next. If God has ever loved me and forgiven my sins on the basis of Christ, then He will never stop loving me and forgiving me in Christ.

However, the Bible is full of warnings for those who think they are saved but are not. A person can live and act and even think like a Christian for quite some time, only to later turn completely away from Christ and His people. And I think this is what John is warning about in the letter before us today.

“Watch yourselves,” he says, “so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward” (v8). He is calling his reader to keep on “working” to “abide” in the “teaching of Christ” (v8-9).

Nicholas Ridley was the Bishop of London when Mary became queen in England. He had been assigned to that post when there was a Protestant king on the throne, and it would have been hard to see any possibility that Protestants in England would face any opposition. Protestant reforms were put into place everywhere, and the whole kingdom was officially in the hands of reformed ministers and church leaders.

But the young king Edward VI had died, and now Mary had come. Mary outlawed all Protestant reforms, and England reverted almost entirely to the Roman Catholic norms of a generation before. Observing the consequences all over the land, Ridley wrote A Pituous Lamentation of the Miserable Estate of the Church in England. His Lament was published after he died, sometime after Elizabeth became queen.

He wrote, “Alas! what misery is thy church brought unto, O Lord, at this day! Where of late the word of the Lord was truly preached, was read and heard in every town, in every church, in every village… almost every honest man’s house; alas! now it is exiled, and banished out of the whole realm.”[9]

He went on, “Of late all that were endued with the light and grace of understanding of God’s holy mysteries, did bless God, which had brought them out of that horrible blindness and ignorance.”[10] “But now, alas!” he said. “England has returned again like a dog to her own vomit… and is in a worse case than ever she was.”[11]

In Ridley’s day, the word of God and the faithful preaching of the Bible were taken away by force. In our own day, that seems unlikely (at least anytime soon), but how many professing Christians live as though Christ has not spoken? How many people claim to be Christian and yet “walk” completely contrary “to [Christ’s] commandments” (v6)? How many people have prayed a prayer or gotten baptized at some point, and yet they have no idea what the Bible says about who Jesus is or what Jesus actually did to save sinners from God’s wrath?

Friends, our passage today contains a real warning… a warning that should motivate us to continually return to the Scriptures, so that we will make sure to be abiding in the truth of God and not in some fancy of our imagination… a warning that should motivate us to love one another, so that we all might help each other watch out for blind-spots and pitfalls and weaknesses of all sorts.

During the time of the Reformation, several Latin phrases were used to summarize Protestant beliefs and ideas. One of those Latin phrases is Semper Reformanda, which means always reforming. The Protestant Reformation was not about creating something new, nor was it merely about fixing the structures and practices of Christianity in the West. The Protestant Reformation was about setting the Bible (and not tradition or Church leadership) back at the center of all that Christians think and do, and calling Christians to keep looking at the Bible in order to be constantly reforming all their beliefs and practices according to Scripture.

May God help us to always be reforming… as we keep going back to the word of God, which gives life to sinners and sustains Christians through to the end.

Endnotes

[1] Michael Reeves, The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010). 16-17.

[2] It is true that the New Testament writers most often referred to the Old Testament writings as “scripture” (ex: 2 Timothy 3:16-17) and did not necessarily make clear affirmations of what we know as the New Testament texts. However, there is a logical necessity of compiling the God-breathed writings which came during the period of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, which Christians embraced from the beginning. Furthermore, there are several places within the New Testament texts themselves where both the new and the old writings were affirmed side by side as “scripture” (ex: 2 Peter 3:16). [3] T. H. L. Parker, ed., English Reformers, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). 105. [4]Ibid. 105. [5] Hugh Latimer, Sermons by Hugh Latimer, ed. George Elwes Corrie, The Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844). 34. [6]Ibid. 35. [7] Ibid. 36. [8]Ibid. 36. [9]Nicholas Ridley, The Works of Nicholas Ridley, D.D., ed. Henry Christmas, Logos Research Edition (Cambridge: University Press, 1843). 49. [10] Ibid. 51. [11] Ibid. 51.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hooper, John, and Jean Garnier. A Brief and Clear Confession of the Christian Faith, Containing an Hundred Articles, According to the Order of the Apostles’ Creed. Kindle. Miami, FL: Hardpress, 2017.

Latimer, Hugh. Sermons by Hugh Latimer. Edited by George Elwes Corrie. The Parker Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844.

Parker, T. H. L., ed. English Reformers. The Library of Christian Classics. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Reeves, Michael. The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010.

Ridley, Nicholas. The Works of Nicholas Ridley, D.D. Edited by Henry Christmas. Logos Research Edition. Cambridge: University Press, 1843.

Ryle, John Charles. Five English Reformers. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1981.