Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 John 1:3
Grace be with you, mercy, [and] peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
3. Grace be with you, mercy, and peace ] Rather, as R. V., Grace, mercy, and peace shall be with us. It is not so much a prayer or a blessing, as the confident assurance of a blessing; and the Apostle includes himself within its scope. This triplet of heavenly gifts occurs, and in the same order, in the salutations to Timothy (both Epistles) and Titus. The more common form is ‘grace and peace’. In Judges 2 we have another combination; ‘mercy, peace, and love’. In secular letters we have simply ‘greeting’ ( ) instead of these Christian blessings. ‘Grace’ is the favour of God towards sinners (see on Joh 1:14); ‘mercy’ is the compassion of God for the misery of sinners; ‘peace’ is the result when the guilt and misery of sin are removed. ‘Grace’ is rare in the writings of S. John; elsewhere only Joh 1:14; Joh 1:16-17; Rev 1:4; Rev 22:21.
from God the Father ] Literally, ‘ from the presence of, or from the hand of ( ) God the Father ’: see on Joh 1:6; Joh 16:27: the more usual expression is simply ‘from’ ( ), as in Rom 1:7; 1Co 1:3 ; 2Co 1:2, &c.
and from the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the Father ] Omit ‘the Lord’ with AB and the Vulgate; the title of ‘Lord’ for Jesus Christ, though found in the Gospel and in the Revelation, does not occur in S. John’s Epistles. The repetition of the preposition marks the separate Personality of Christ; whose Divine Sonship is emphasized with an unusual fulness of expression, perhaps in anticipation of the errors condemned in 2Jn 1:7 ; 2Jn 1:10.
in truth and love ] These two words, so characteristic of S. John (see on 1Jn 1:8; 1Jn 2:8; 1Jn 3:1), are key-notes of this short Epistle, in which ‘truth’ occurs five times, and ‘love’ twice as a substantive and twice as a verb. ‘Commandment’ is a third such word.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Grace be unto you … – See the notes at Rom 1:7. This salutation does not differ from those commonly employed by the sacred writers, except in the emphasis which is placed on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of the Father. This is much in the style of John, in all of whose writings he dwells much on the fact that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, and on the importance of recognizing that fact in order to the possession of true religion. Compare 1Jo 2:22-23; 1Jo 4:15; 1Jo 5:1-2, 1Jo 5:10-12, 1Jo 5:20.
In truth and love – This phrase is not to be connected with the expression the Son of the Father, as if it meant that he was his Son in truth and love, but is rather to be connected with the grace, mercy, and peace referred to, as a prayer that they might be manifested to this family in promoting truth and love.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Jn 1:3
Grace be with you, mercy, peace.
Grace, mercy, and peace
Grace in Scripture comprehends all the senses that it bears, separately and apart, in our common dialects. When you say of a royal person, How gracious he is; when you say of a beautiful woman, What grace there is in her; when you speak of a man not having the grace to return a benefit that has been done to him; you indicate some aspect of that grace which the Source of all good bestows upon men; which becomes in them a comeliness answering to His from whom it is derived; which awakens the reaction that we call gratitude or thanksgiving. And this grace being manifested towards creatures who have need of daily forgiveness is inseparable from mercy, which, like it, proceeds from the nature of the being who shows it, and becomes an element in the nature of the being to whom it is showed–the merciful obtaining mercy. And this grace or mercy flowing forth towards creatures who have been alienated from their Creator, who have been at war with Him–and, being at war with Him, have been, necessarily, at war with each other and themselves–becomes peace or atonement. But that the grace, because it is royal, free, and undeserved, may not be supposed to be capricious; that the mercy may not be taken as dependent on the mercy which it calls forth; that the peace may not be judged by the results which it produces here, where oftentimes the proclamation of it is the signal of fresh fighting; they are declared to come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, in truth and love; these being the essential Godhead; these dwelling absolutely in the Father; shining forth to all in the life of the Son; while the Spirit in whom they are eternally united imparts them to the family in heaven and earth. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
Grace first
Our poverty wants grace, our guilt wants mercy, our misery wants peace. Let us ever keep the apostles order. Do not let us put peace, our feeling of peace, first. The emotionalists is a topsy turvy theology. Apostles do not say peace and grace, but grace and peace. (Bp. Wm. Alexander.)
The common salutation
In this short letter John does not grudge space for a salutation. It is the common salutation or benediction that might be pronounced on any Christian, whether having little more than a decent profession, or distinguished, as this lady was, by works truly good. What familiarity has made words of course to us were not words of course or empty form to John, although he must have repeated and heard them oftener than any of us. That is one thought: we should linger over the words till they get a firm grip on our hearts, till we feel their Divine meaning. And another thought is this: each individual needs the whole of this benediction. Do we not often lose ourselves in the mass? Grace, mercy, peace: the blessings stand in their due order, the first leading to the second, and the second securing the third. There is a fourth word, indeed, which includes all the three, the greatest word in any language–love. John reaches to it at the end of his sentence. But it could not have been used instead of grace and mercy. For grace expresses the Divine favour viewed as undeserved. It is the fountain of every good and perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights to us who have no claim on Him, who have nothing of our own to call forth love. Mercy, again, is more than simple grace; it is sovereign love pitying and pardoning sinners, those who positively deserve ill from God. Then peace comes in its place and order. If that peace with God, a clear and substantial reality in a crucified and interceding Mediator, then all other peace. The Elder is careful to make prominent the source from whence the supreme blessing comes. It is from God indeed, but from God in His new covenant relation to man–from God the Father. God was now for them not less the Creator, the Lawgiver, the Judge, but He was, in Christ, also and above all the Father. And from the Lord Jesus Christ. Here there is no distracting perplexity, there is only fulness and rest, when the heart, rather than the head, is engaged about grace, mercy, and peace. In Johns mind the holy mystery of the Trinity was, while none the less sublime, more a fact than a mystery, for he had beheld the Lord Jesus Christ manifesting the glory of the Father, full of grace and truth, and bearing away the sin of the world. This benediction is distinguished by the words being added, In truth and love. (A. M. Symington, D. D.)
Grace, mercy, and peace
Grace, mercy, and peace stand related to each other in a very interesting manner. The apostle starts, as it were, from the fountain-head, and slowly traces the course of the blessing down to its lodgment in the heart of man. Grace, referring solely to the Divine attitude and thought; mercy, the manifestation of grace in act, referring to the workings of that great Godhead in its relation to humanity; and peace, which is the issue in the soul of the fluttering down upon it of the mercy which is the activity of the grace. Grace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. These two, blended and yet separate, to either of whom a Christian man has a distinct relation, these two are the sources, equally, of the whole of the grace. The Scriptural idea of grace is love that stoops and that pardons and that communicates. The first thing, then, that strikes me in it, is how it exults in that great thought that there is no reason whatsoever for Gods love except Gods will. The very foundation and notion of the word grace is a free, undeserved, unsolicited, self-prompted, and altogether gratuitous bestowment, a love that is its own reason. Gods love is like an artesian well; whensoever you strike up comes, self-impelled, gushing into light because there is such a central store of it beneath everything, the bright and flashing waters. Grace is love that is not drawn out, but that bursts out, self-originated, undeserved. And then let me remind you that there lies in this great word the preaching that Gods love, though it be not turned away by, is made tender by our sin. Grace is love extended to a person that might reasonably expect, because he deserves, something very different. Then, if we turn for a moment from that deep fountain to the stream, we get other blessed thoughts. The love, the grace, breaks into mercy. As grace is love which forgives, so mercy is love which pities and helps. Gods grace softens itself into mercy, and all His dealings with us men must be on the footing that we are not only sinful, but that we are weak and wretched, and so fit subjects for a compassion which is the strangest paradox of a perfect and Divine heart. The mercy of God is the outcome of His grace. And as is the fountain and the stream, so is the great lake into which it spreads itself when it is received into a human heart. Peace comes, the all-sufficient summing up of everything that God can give, and that men can need, from His loving-kindness and from their needs. The world is too wide to be narrowed to any single aspect of the various discords and disharmonies which trouble men. Peace with God; peace in this anarchic kingdom within me, where conscience and will, hopes and fears, duty and passion, sorrows and joys, cares and confidence, are ever fighting one another; where we are torn asunder by conflicting aims and rival claims, and wherever any part of our nature asserting itself against another leads to intestine warfare and troubles the poor soul. All that is harmonised and quieted down, and made concordant and co-operative to one great end, when the grace and the mercy have flowed silently into our spirits and harmonised aims and desires. There is peace that comes from submission; tranquillity of spirit, which is the crown and reward of obedience; repose, which is the very smile upon the face of faith, and all these things are given unto us along with the grace and mercy of our God. And as the man that possesses this is at peace with God and at peace with himself, so he may bear in his heart that singular blessing of a perfect tranquillity and quiet amidst the distractions of duty, of sorrows, of losses, and of cares. And now one word as to what this great text tells us are the conditions for a Christian man, of preserving, vivid and full, these great gifts, Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you, or, as the Revised Version more accurately reads, shall be with us in truth and love. Truth and love are, as it were, the space within which the river flows, if I may so say, the banks of the stream. Or, to get away from the metaphor, these are set forth as being the conditions abiding in which, for our parts, we shall receive this benediction–In truth and in love. To abide in the truth is to keep our selves conscientiously and habitually under the influence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and of the Christ who is Himself the Truth. They who, keeping in Him, realising His presence, believing His word, founding their thinking about the unseen, about their relations to God, about sin and forgiveness, about righteousness and duty, and about a thousand other things, upon Christ and the revelation that He makes, these are those who shall receive Grace, mercy, and peace. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. Grace be with you] This is addressed to her, her household, and probably that part of the Church which was more immediately under her care.
The Son of the Father] The apostle still keeps in view the miraculous conception of Christ; a thing which the Gnostics absolutely denied; a doctrine which is at the ground work of our salvation.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Such salutations see explained where they have formerly occurred.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Gracebe with you One of the oldest manuscripts and several versions have usfor you.The Greekis literally, Grace shallbewith us, that is, with both youand me.A prayer, however, is implied besides a confident affirmation.
grace… mercy … peace Gracecovers the sins of men; mercy, their miseries. Gracemust first do away with mans guilt before his misery can berelieved by mercy.Therefore gracestands before mercy.Peaceis the result of both, and therefore stands third in order. Castingall our care on the Lord, with thanksgiving, maintains this peace.
theLord The oldest manuscripts and most of the oldest versions omit theLord. John never elsewhere uses this title in his Epistles, butthe Son of God.
intruth and love The element or sphere in which alone grace,mercy,and peace,have place. He mentions truthin 2Jo1:4;love,in 2Jo1:5.Paul uses FAITH and love;for faithand truthare close akin.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Grace be with you, mercy [and] peace,…. This form of salutation, or wish and prayer for the blessings mentioned,
from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, is the same used by other apostles; see 1Ti 1:2 and
[See comments on Ro 1:7]. Only it is added here with respect to Christ, that he is
the Son of the Father in truth and love; which is mentioned by the apostle to confirm the deity of Christ, which is plainly implied in wishing for the above things equally from him, as from the Father; and to oppose and confront some heretics of those times, who denied the true and proper sonship of Christ; and therefore he calls him, “the Son of the Father”, the only begotten of the Father; and that “in truth”, or truly and properly, and not in a figurative and metaphorical sense, as magistrates are called the sons of God, and children of the most High, by reason of their office; but so is not Christ, he is God’s own Son, in a true, proper, and natural sense: and he is so “in love”; he is his well beloved Son, his dear Son, the Son of his love; as he cannot otherwise be; since he is not only the image of him, but of the same nature, and has the same perfections with him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Shall be with us ( ‘ ). He picks up the words before in reverse order. Future indicative here, not a wish with the optative () as we have in 1Pet 1:2; 2Pet 1:2. The salutation is like that in the Pastoral Epistles: “, the wellspring in the heart of God; , its outpourings; , its blessed effect” (David Smith).
And from Jesus Christ ( ). The repetition of (with the ablative) is unique. “It serves to bring out distinctly the twofold personal relation of man to the Father and to the Son” (Westcott). “The Fatherhood of God, as revealed by one who being His Son can reveal the Father, and who as man () can make him known to men” (Brooke).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Grace be with you, mercy and peace [ ] . The verb is in the future tense : shall be. In the Pauline Epistles the salutations contain no verb. In 1 and 2 Peter and Jude, plhqunqeih be multiplied, is used. Grace [] is of rare occurrence in John’s writings (Joh 1:14, 16, 17; Rev 1:4; Rev 22:21); and the kindred carizomai to favor, be kind, forgive, and carisma gift, are not found at all. See on Luk 1:30. Mercy [] , only here in John. See on Luk 1:50. The pre – Christian definitions of the word include the element of grief experienced on account of the unworthy suffering of another. So Aristotle. The Latin misericordia (miser “wretched,” cor “the heart “) carries the same idea. So Cicero defines it, the sorrow arising from the wretchedness of another suffering wrongfully. Strictly speaking, the word as applied to God, cannot include either of these elements, since grief cannot be ascribed to Him, and suffering is the legitimate result of sin. The sentiment in God assumes the character of pitying love. Mercy is kindness and goodwill toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them. Trench observes :” In the Divine mind, and in the order of our salvation as conceived therein, the mercy precedes the grace. God so loved the world with a pitying love (herein was the mercy), that He gave His only – begotten Son (herein the grace), that the world through Him might be saved. But in the order of the manifestation of God ‘s purposes of salvation, the grace must go before the mercy and make way for it. It is true that the same persons are the subjects of both, being at once the guilty and the miserable; yet the righteousness of God, which it is quite as necessary should be maintained as His love, demands that the guilt should be done away before the misery can be assuaged; only the forgiven may be blessed. He must pardon before He can heal…. From this it follows that in each of the apostolic salutations where these words occur, grace precedes mercy ” (” Synonyms of the New Testament “).
With you. The best texts read with us.
From God – from Jesus Christ [ – ] . Note the repeated preposition, bringing out the twofold relation to the Father and Son. In the Pauline salutations ajpo from, is invariably used with God, and never repeated with Jesus Christ. On the use of para from, see on Joh 6:46; 1Jo 1:5.
God the Father. The more common expression is “God our Father.”
The Son of the Father. The phrase occurs nowhere else. Compare Joh 1:18; 1Jo 2:22, 23; 1Jo 1:3.
In truth and in love. The combination is not found elsewhere. The words indicate the contents of the whole Epistle.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Grace be with you” John prays an invocation blessing of grace to be with all the children, brethren of the elect lady, the church, so much like our Lord prayed for his church. Joh 17:19-23; 1Co 1:3.
2) “Mercy and peace, from God the Father”. God the Father is the originator of grace, mercy, and peace to whom praise and thanksgiving should be given. 2Co 1:3-4; Eph 2:8-10.
3) “And from the Lord Jesus Christ”. Grace too came by Him. Joh 1:14; Rom 16:20; 1Co 1:3; Joh 14:27; O, the mercy and peace that Jesus shows and gives. Joh 8:11, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more”. Joh 16:33; Luk 7:50.
4) “The Son of the Father”Joh 1:14; Joh 3:16-17; Gal 4:4.
5) “In truth and love.” John witnesses that Grace, mercy, and peace, three of the moral attributes of God the Father and God the Son, are in truth and love shared with and bestowed upon His children in the congregation of the elect lady, the church. If we would be like our Lord in his intercessory prayer, (Joh 17:1-26), and like the beloved John, we too must invoke and intercede that God’s mercy and grace, and peace be upon his children. Such is the Spirit of truth and love.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3. Grace mercy peace See notes on Rom 1:7; 2Co 1:2; 1Ti 1:2.
And from the Son The Son is here mentioned with great distinctness because the question in vital debate was as to his real personality.
In truth The truth of Christ’s real and divine nature.
Love The vital communion of believers based on a real Christ. The truth recurs again in 2Jn 1:4, and the love in 2Jn 1:5.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.’
The permanent nature of their true faith results from God’s grace, mercy and peace, which will keep them in truth and love, and from the grace, mercy and truth of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, also coming in truth and love. So truth and love are to be the foundation on which they are established, and this by the grace, mercy and peace of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. Note the great stress on Jesus’ true Sonship in His close connection with the Father.
‘Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us.’
‘Grace.’ Nothing can be more desirable than to have God looking on us and acting towards us in undeserved love and favour, and this is what is here signified by grace. It is God acting towards us in continual saving power in spite of our undeserving. Thus John wants his hearers to know that he is confident that they will enjoy the continued experience of the grace of God.
‘Mercy.’ As God’s grace flows towards us, he says, so will we receive mercy. That is, forgiveness for our daily sins (1Jn 1:7), and His compassion and love towards us in all our failings and weaknesses (1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:9-10).
‘Peace.’ Peace results from grace and mercy, but this kind of peace is also God’s gift, flowing from Him to us. Once we know that we are right with God, and experience His graciousness towards us, we have peace with God (Rom 5:1) and enjoy such peace, prosperity and success of spirit that our hearts can only overflow. For however things may seem to smile on us, if God is not pleased with us, we cannot fully know peace. The very foundation then of peace in our hearts is the favour of God, by which we enjoy true and genuine prosperity of spirit through the work of His Spirit, and find the peace of God which passes all understanding guarding our thoughts and hearts (Php 4:7). And this is what John wished for, and prayed for, for these Christians in this true Christian church.
‘Shall be with us.’ John speaks with quiet confidence. He has no doubt that the Father, and Jesus Christ, the true Son of the Father, will abound towards them in gracious, powerful and loving activity, thus establishing them in truth and love. Note the two aspects of church life that mattered. First truth, for love is meaningless without truth, and then love flowing from, and resulting from, that truth. As they know the One Who is light and walk in that true light, so will they love one another (1Jn 1:5-7).
The conjunction of Jesus with the Father as ‘the Son of the Father’, emphasises His Oneness with the Father on the divine side of reality.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2Jn 1:3 . The formula of greeting. It agrees substantially with that which is found in most of the N. T. Epistles; the prefixed ( ), however, is peculiar; the future indicates the wish as a certain expectation, which is based on the immediately preceding statement (Dsterdieck). If we take the reading (see the critical notes), the apostle includes himself along with the readers of the Epistle, which indeed does not elsewhere occur in the salutatory formulae; = “with.”
, , ] just as in 1 and 2 Tim. and Tit 1:4 . [7]
] Instead of , is elsewhere regularly used in this connection, as reads here also; on the difference of the two prepositions, see Winer, p. 326; VII. p. 342.
To , is always added by Paul, except in the Pastoral Epistles. God is here called , first of all in His relation to Christ, but also with the consciousness that in Christ He is the Father of believers also.
. . ] similarly in the other Epistles of the N. T., only that here the sonship of Christ is specially indicated; the repetition of the preposition brings out the independence of the Son along with the Father.
The last addition: , is peculiar to John; the . and are the two vital elements (Baumgarten-Crusius: fundamental features) of the believer, in which the divine manifestations of grace, mercy, and peace have to work (Dsterdieck): “the words contain an indication of the contents of the whole Epistle” (Ebrard); a Lapide erroneously supplies: ut perseveretis vel ut crescatis. Grotius wrongly defines the relationship when he says: per cognitionem veri et dilectionem mutuam, nam per haec in nos Dei beneficia provocamus, conservamus, augemus; in the first place, is not = per; and, in the second place, our conduct is not the cause of the divine . . . , but the relationship is the converse.
[7] The explanation of these words given on 1Ti 1:2 is regarded as unsatisfactory by Dsterdieck, although it is in substantial agreement with his own, only that it is not expressly stated that means “grace,” “mercy,” and “peace,” which is surely self-evident, but only the relation of the three ideas to one another, which is often erroneously interpreted, is pointed out.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
Ver. 3. Grace be with you, &c. ] This blessing belongs not only to the lady and her children, but to all that rightly read and hear the words of this Epistle, Rev 1:13 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2Jn 1:3 . , not a wish (1Pe 1:2 ; 2Pe 1:2 ) but a confident assurance. the well-spring in the heart of God; , its outpourings; , its blessed effect. They are evangelical blessings: (1) not merely “from God” but “from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father” who has interpreted Him and brought Him near, made Him accessible; (2) not merely “in Truth,” enlightening the intellect, but “in love,” engaging the heart.
Observe the high tribute which the Elder pays to Kyria: (1) He testifies to the esteem in which she is held; (2) he recognises her as a fellow-worker as though she were a fellow-apostle the three-fold “us,” not “you”; (3) he is about to speak of the danger from heretical teaching, but he has no fear of her being led astray: “You and I are secure from the deceiver. The Truth abideth in us; with us it shall be for ever; yea, there shall be with us grace, mercy, peace.”
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Grace. Only here, and three times in the Gospel, and twice in Rev., in John’s writings. App-184. Compare 1Ti 1:2.
be = shall be.
mercy. Only here in John.
God. App-98.
Father. App-98.
Lord. The texts omit.
Jesus Christ. App-98.
Son. App-108. The expression “The Son of the Father”, is found here only. Compare Joh 1:18. 1Jn 1:3.
love. App-135.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
2Jn 1:3. , shall be) . A prayer, together with an affirmation.- , with you) See the App. Crit. Ed. ii. on this passage.[2] The Latin Version has vobiscum, with you: and this is properly consonant with the salutation. Comp. 3Jn 1:2.-, , , grace, mercy, and peace) Grace removes guilt; mercy removes misery; peace expresses a continuance in grace and mercy.-, peace) even under the assaults of temptation.-, Lord) This is the only passage in which the Epistles of St John contain the title of Lord, which is well adapted to a salutation.[3] He usually calls Him the Son of God.- , in truth and love) Respecting the former he speaks in 2Jn 1:4; respecting the latter, in 2Jn 1:5. St Paul is accustomed to use the appellations, faith and love, for truth and faith are synonymous: and the Hebrew is constantly translated in the Septuagint by either word. Comp. 3Jn 1:3, the truth that is in thee.
[2] B (according to Lachm., not so Tisch.) Vulg. Elzev. Rec. Text, have . But A and later Syr. omit the words. Stephens Rec. Text has .-E.
[3] But the margin of both Ed., even in this passage, prefers the omission of the word ; and the Germ. Vers. omits it altogether.-E. B.
AB Vulg. Theb. Syr. omit it. Rec. Text supports it, with Memph. and later Syr. alone of the oldest authorities.-E.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Grace: Rom 1:7, 1Ti 1:2
be: Gr. shall be
the Son: 1Jo 2:23, 1Jo 2:24, 1Jo 4:10
in truth: 2Jo 1:1, Zec 8:19, Gal 5:6, 1Ti 1:14, 2Ti 1:13
Reciprocal: Gen 43:14 – And God Num 6:23 – General Isa 53:11 – by his Act 15:23 – greeting Gal 1:3 – General 2Pe 1:17 – God
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Jn 1:3. This is a form of friendly salutation which many of the writers of the New Testament used. Aside from the brotherly sentiments it expresses, the important principle is set forth that such blessings as grace, mercy and peace are to come from God and Christ if they are to be lasting.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Jn 1:3. Grace, mercy, peace, shall be with us from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. This is the old invocation, with which the other apostles have made us familiar, but in its fullest form as found in the Pastoral Epistles. It had become the sacred benediction, as including the whole compass of the Divine blessing in the Gospel: grace refers to the fountain of favour to undeserving man revealed in Christ; mercy to the individual application of that favour in the forgiveness of sins and the succour of all misery; peace to the result in the tranquillity of a soul one with God. These blessings come from the Father through the Son of the Father; but the repetition of the from makes emphatic the distinctness and equality of the Two Persons. There is here an observable deviation from St. Pauls formula; as also in the addition of truth and love the two spheres or characteristics of the Christian life in which, though not on account of which, these blessings are imparted. These last words also explain the shall be of the invocation: they express the apostles confidence that his friends, living in truth of doctrine and charity of fellowship, will ever enjoy this benediction in common with himself.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
2Jn 1:3. Grace be with you, &c. See on Rom 1:7. Grace takes away the guilt and power of sin, and renews our fallen nature; mercy relieves our misery; peace implies our abiding in grace and mercy. It includes the testimony of Gods Spirit and of our own conscience, both that we are his children, and that all our ways are acceptable to him. This is the very foretaste of heaven, where it is perfected: in truth and love Truth embraced by a lively faith, and love to God, his children, and all mankind, flowing from discoveries of his favour.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1:3 Grace be with you, mercy, [and] peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in
(c) truth and love.
(c) With true knowledge which always has love united with it, and following it.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
John wanted his readers to appreciate the importance of guarding God’s truth and practicing love for one another. These two things are the basis for grace, mercy, and peace. "Grace" is God’s unmerited favor, "mercy" is compassion, and "peace" is harmony and inner tranquillity.
"The succession ’grace, mercy, peace’ marks the order from the first notion of God to the final satisfaction of man." [Note: Ibid.]
These qualities flourish where truth and love prevail.
"When divorced from truth, love is little more than sentimentality or humanism. If I truly care about my brothers, then I will want them to know, and live according to, God’s truth." [Note: Zane C. Hodges, The Epistles of John, p. 255.]
"Where ’truth and love’ coexist harmoniously, we have a well-balanced Christian character (cf. Eph 4:15)." [Note: Bruce, p. 139.]
John’s description of Jesus Christ as the Son of God the Father is reminiscent of his emphasis on Jesus’ full deity both in his first epistle and in his Gospel.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 31
THE PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE-THE FAITH ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
Jud 1:3
THE Greek of the opening sentence of this passage, in which St. Jude explains his reason for writing this Epistle, is ambiguous. The words “of our common salvation” ( ) may go either with what precedes or with what follows. But there is little doubt that both the Authorized and the Revised Versions are right in taking them with what precedes. The true connection is, not, “While I was giving all diligence to write unto you, I was constrained to write unto you of our common salvation,” but, “While I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.” This Epistle can scarcely be called a letter “about our common salvation.” The meaning is that St. Jude had intended to write such a letter, but the crisis created by the entrance of these ungodly men into the Church constrained him to write a letter of a different kind, viz., the one which lies before us. That he had already begun to write a letter “respecting our common salvation,” and that we have here to lament the loss of another Epistle besides the lost Epistles of St. Paul and St. John, {1Co 5:9; 3Jn 1:9} is neither stated nor implied. St. Jude had been thinking very earnestly about writing a more general and comprehensive Epistle, when he realized that the presence of a very serious evil required immediate action, and accordingly he writes at once to point out the existing peril, and to denounce those who are the authors of it. It is the duty of all Christians to be on their guard, and to be unflinching in their defense of the truth which has been committed to them to preserve and cherish.
“The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.” This does not mean, which was delivered by God to the Apostles, but which was delivered by the Apostles to the Church. “The saints” here, as so often in the New Testament, {Act 9:13; Act 9:32; Act 9:41; Acts 26:10; Rom 8:27; Rom 13:13; Rom 15:25-26; Rom 15:31; etc., etc.} means all Christians. If the whole nation of the Jews was a “holy people” ( ), “a peculiar treasure unto Jehovah from among all peoples,” {Exo 19:5} by reason of their special election by Him; {Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Deu 14:21} if they were “saints of the Most High,” {Dan 7:18; Dan 7:22; Dan 7:25} much more might this be said of Christians, who had inherited all the spiritual privileges of the Jews, and had received others in abundance, far exceeding any that the Jews had ever possessed. Christians also, in a still higher sense, were “an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for Gods own possession”. {1Pe 2:9} The Christians of Corinth, Ephesus, and Colossae, in spite of the enormous evils which they practiced or sanctioned, or at least tolerated, are still called “saints.” They are holy, not as being persons of holy life, but as being devoted to God. Of course such persons ought to be holy in conduct, but to call them “saints” does not assert that they are so. The name asserts the fact of being set apart by God for Himself, and implies what ought to be the result of such separation. “Thus the main idea of the term is consecration. But though it does not assert moral qualifications as a fact in the persons so designated, it implies them as a duty.” To each individual Christian, therefore, the name is at once an honor, an exhortation, and a reproach. It tells of his high calling, it exhorts him to live up to it, and it reminds him of his grievous shortcomings.
“The faith once for all delivered unto the saints” ( ) both the adverb, “once for all,” and the aorist participle, “delivered,” are worthy of special notice. “The faith” does not mean any set formula of articles of belief, nor the internal reception of Christian doctrine, but the Substance of it; it is equivalent to what St. Paul and the Evangelists call “the Gospel,” viz., that body of truth which brings salvation to the soul that receives it. This Faith, or this Gospel, has been once for all delivered to Christians. No other will be given, for there is no other. Whatever may be delivered by any one in future cannot be a Gospel at all. The one true Gospel is complete and final, and admits of no successors and no supplements. {Gal 1:6-9}
“The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.” Does, this exclude all possibility of a “development of Christian doctrine”? That depends upon what one means by “development.” The expression has been interpreted to mean “that the increase and expansion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion; that from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation.” If the ambiguous expression “and perfection” be omitted, one may readily allow that development of Christian doctrine in this sense has taken place. To say that time is needed for the full comprehension of the great truths which were communicated to the Church once for all by the Apostles is one thing; to say that time is needed for the perfection of those truths may or may not be quite another. And the manner in which the subject is treated in the famous Essay from which the passage just quoted is taken shows that what is meant by the “perfecting” of the truths is a very different thing from the full comprehension of their original contents; it means making additions to the original contents in order to remedy supposed deficiencies. In this sense it may be confidently asserted, and as loyal Christians we are bound to assert, that there is no such thing as development of Christian doctrine. If there be such a thing, then we cannot stop short with those developments which can in some measure be called Christian. The author himself reminds us that “no one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more”. If the faith once for all delivered to the saints was defective, and needed to be supplemented by subsequent additions, why may not Christianity itself be, as some have maintained, only a phase in the development of religion, which in process of time is to be superseded by something wholly unchristian? The transition is easily made from the position of the “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” to that of Channing, that “it makes me smile to hear immortality claimed for Catholicism or Protestantism, or for any past interpretations of Christianity; as if the human soul had exhausted itself in its infant efforts; as if the men of one or a few generations could bind the energy of human thought and affection forever”; and thence to the position of Strauss, who, in his latest and most dreary work, on “The Old and the New Faith,” asks the question, “Are we still Christians?” and answers it emphatically in the negative. The chief doctrines of Christianity are to him childish or repulsive beliefs, which thoughtful men have long since left behind. We may still in some sense be religious; but Christianity has done its work, and is rightly being dismissed from the stage. This is the advanced thinking of which St. John writes in his Second Epistle: “Every one that goeth onward ( ), and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God” (2Jn 1:9). There is an advance which involves desertion of first principles; and such an advance is not progress, but apostasy.
But does the development of doctrine, in the sense contended for by the author of the celebrated Essay, mean making actual additions to the faith once for all delivered, as distinct from arriving at a better comprehension of the contents and logical consequences of the original deposit? This question must be answered in the affirmative, for various reasons. The whole purpose of the Essay, and the actual expressions used in it, require this meaning; and that this is the obvious meaning has been assumed by Roman Catholic as well as Protestant critics, and (so far as the present writer is aware) this interpretation has never been resented as illegitimate by the author. The whole argument is admittedly “a hypothesis to account for a difficulty,” “an expedient to enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious problem”, viz., the enormous difference between the sum total of Roman Catholic doctrines and those which can be found in the Christian documents of the first two or three centuries. The Essay is believed by its author to furnish “a solution of such a number of the reputed corruptions of Rome as might form a fair ground for trusting her where the investigation had not been pursued”. And that the faith once for all delivered is regarded as in need of supplements and additions seems to be implied in such language as the following: “In whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which lie around them, were intended to complete it”. It is the business of succeeding ages of the Church to “keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient”.
The author of the “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” states in another of his works that when he was admitted to the Church of Rome he embraced volumes containing the writings of the Christian Fathers, crying out that now they were really his own. The action and exclamation were thoroughly inconsistent with the position maintained throughout the Essay, and since then adopted by numbers of Roman controversialists. He ought rather to have cleared his shelves of the works of the Fathers, and to have consigned them to the lumber-room with the remark, “Now I need never look at you any more.” As Bishop Cornelius Mussus (Musso) said long ago, “For my part, to speak quite frankly, I would give more credence to a single Pope than to a thousand Augustines, Jeromes, and Gregorys” (In “Epist. ad Rom 14:1-23,” p. 606, Venet., 1588, quoted in Hardwicks edition of Archer Butlers “Letters on Romanism,” p. 394). It is the latest and most modern works on Roman theology, especially those which expound the utterances of the most recent Popes, that deserve to be studied, if the theory of the development be correct. According to that theory, the teaching of the primitive Church was certainly immature and defective, and possibly even erroneous. In order to find out what primitive writers meant, or ought to have meant, we must look to the latest developments. They are the criteria by which to test the teaching of the early Church; it is beginning at the wrong end to test the developments by Christian antiquity. In former times Romanists were at great pains to show that traces of their peculiar tenets could be found in the writers of the first few centuries; and not in a few cases the works of these primitive writers were interpolated, in order to make out a fair case. Criticism has exposed these forgeries, and it has been demonstrated that the early Christian teachers were ignorant of whole tracts of Roman doctrine and practice. Roman controversy has therefore entirely shifted its ground. It now freely admits that these things were unknown to Irenaeus, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Augustine; but for the simple reason that, when they wrote, these things had not yet been revealed. The Church was still ignorant that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin, was taken bodily to heaven after her death, and ought to be invoked in prayer; it was still ignorant of the doctrine of purgatory, of indulgences, and of the necessity of being in communion with the Church of Rome. It will not do to say that Christ and His Apostles planted the germs of these things, and that for centuries the germs did not expand and fructify, and therefore remained unnoticed. For, first, how can there be a germ of a historical fact, such as the supposed removal of the Virgins body to heaven, which is most happily named an “assumption”? Secondly, now that the fruit has appeared, we ought to be able to trace it back to the germ which for so long was ignored. And, thirdly, if the germs were really deposited by Christ and His Apostles, they would have developed in a somewhat similar manner in all parts of Christendom. Different surroundings will account for some variety of development, but not for absolute difference in kind. The germ respecting communion with the Church of Rome, if there was one, developed in the East, where all germs were in the first instance planted, into the doctrine that no such communion was necessary. Therefore, from the Roman point of view, it is necessary to maintain that the development of Christian doctrine involves, not merely the better comprehension of the contents of doctrines, and the expansion of seeds and germs of truth, but the admission of actual supplements and additions, derived from new revelations of fresh items of truth. As the Jesuit Father Harper said, in his reply to Dr. Puseys “Eirenicon,” “Christ grew in wisdom daily. So does the Church, not in mere appearance, but of truth. Her creed, therefore, can never shrink back to the dimensions of the past, but must ever enlarge with the onward future.”
Hence the necessity for the doctrine of Infallibility. For Roman developments are not the only ones. The Eastern Churches have theirs; Protestant Churches have theirs; and outside these there are other developments, both non-Christian, and anti-Christian. Unless there is some authority which can say, “Our developments are Divinely inspired and necessary, while all others are superfluous or wrong,” the doctrine of Development may be used with as much force against Rome as for her. Consequently we find the author of the Essay using the theory of Development as an argument for that of the Infallibility. “If the Christian doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important developments this is a strong antecedent argument in favor of a provision in the Dispensation for putting a seal of authority upon those developmentsIf certain large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as true.” (pp. 117-19).
This is further proof that what is contemplated in this theory is not mere logical deductions from revealed truth; for logical deductions vindicate themselves by an appeal to the reason, and need no sanction from an infallible authority. Developments are indeed said to follow by way of “logical sequence,” but this term is made to receive an enlarged meaning. “It will include any progress of the mind from one judgment to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not admit of analysis into premise and conclusion”. Thus the “deification of St. Mary” is a “logical sequence” of our Lords Divinity. “The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy”. The following criticism, therefore, does not seem to be unjust: “However the theory may be modified by the subsequent additional supposition of infallible guidance, it is quite evident that, considered in itself, its internal spirit and scope (especially as illustrated by its alleged Roman instances) are nothing short of this, that everything which certain good men in the Church, or men assumed to be such, can by reasoning or feeling collect from a revealed truth is, by the mere fact of its recognition [i.e., by the supposed infallible guide], admissible and authoritative.” This is indeed a wide door to open for the reception of additions to the faith!
That St. Jude lays much stress on the fact that the sum total of the Gospel, and not merely the elementary portions of it, have been once for all committed to the Church, is shown, not only by the prominence which he gives to the thought here, but by his repetition of it a few lines later, when he begins the main portion of his Epistle: “I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all” (Jud 1:5). Any teaching of new doctrines is not only unnecessary, it is also utterly inadmissible. And every Christian has his responsibilities in this matter. He is to “contend earnestly” (). with all the energy and watchfulness of an athlete in the arena, for the preservation of this sacred deposit, lest it be lost or corrupted. And the manner in which this earnest contest is to be maintained is not left doubtful; not with the sword, as Beza rightly remarks, nor with intemperate denunciation or indiscriminate severity, but with the mighty influence of a holy life, built upon the foundation of our “most holy faith” (Jud 1:20-23). It is in this way that lawful development of Christian doctrine is secured; not by additions to what was once for all delivered, but by a deeper and wider comprehension of its inexhaustible contents. “If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.”