Grace Orientation vs. Legalism; 3 John 9
3 John 1:9 NASB “I
wrote something to the church; but Diotrephes, who
loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.”
There is a contrast that John
is setting up in this epistle. There is Gaius as a positive example of a
believer who is reaching spiritual maturity and how that is impacting the life
and the priorities in their day-to-day life—he is specifically praised for his
orientation to missions and his support of evangelists and pastors that are
coming through the area—and, more than that he is praised for his walking by
means of the truth. Then in vv. 9 & 10 we have the negative. This is
instruction by contrast. The contrast is between the humility of Gaius and the
arrogance of Diotrephes. Diotrephes’
arrogance is the result of negative volition. All arrogance goes with negative
volition to Scripture. No matter how kind or sweet one is he is still arrogant
if he is operating on the sin nature. There are a lot of people who operate on
pseudo humility, pseudo gentleness and pseudo kindness and it all flows out of
a particular arrogant disposition of their sin nature. We should not fall into
the trap of thinking that arrogance is always pictured in a sort of negative,
conceited, egotistical way. Some of the sweetest, kindest people that we think
are very humble are the most arrogant, self-absorbed people that we will ever
meet. They just manage to camouflage it. We always have to remember that arrogance
is the orientation of the sin nature. So as soon as we are out of fellowship,
as soon as we are under the control of the sin nature, we are operating on
arrogance. What we see here in 3rd John is the contrast between
genuine humility from grace orientation and doctrinal orientation versus the
arrogance of negative volition in Diotrephes.
John writes at the beginning
of verse 9, “I wrote something to the church.” So he has written an epistle,
some specific teaching, certain things. This is the
indefinite pronoun tis [tij] which indicates “certain things.” He wrote specifics
about different areas of doctrine and application, but Diotrephes,
who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say.” So there is a
rejection of the apostolic writing. “I wrote” is the aorist active indicative
of the Greek verb grapho [grafw] meaning to write, and whenever we have an apostle
using the word grafw what
immediately should come to mind is the doctrine of the inspiration of
Scripture. This is foundational to understanding what is going on here. John’s
writing to the church isn’t like our writing to the church. Whatever John wrote
wasn’t part of the canon and wasn’t inspired writing, but nevertheless it came
from an apostle so it bore apostolic authority. Diotrephes
is rejecting it because, first of all he is rejecting apostolic authority, but
more importantly from what is said in vv. 9, 10, he is rejecting the truth.
The foundational contrast
here is that Gaius is responding to doctrine, he accepts the truth and applies
the truth, whereas on the other hand Diotrephes
operating on arrogance rejects doctrine, it is not a priority, he wants to set
himself up as an authority, and because he is rejecting doctrine he is
rejecting the authority of the apostle. Just as when someone rejects the
authority of a local church pastor it is ultimately a problem of arrogance,
self-absorption and negative volition to the truth.
You can only have absolute
truth if it exists above and outside of all creation. Inside of creation is
mankind and absolute truth exists above and apart from and in distinction from
all of creation, all of mankind, and all of human experience. Therefore because
there is an absolute truth it can sit in judgment on the creation and
everything in the creation. Absolute truth then becomes the standard by which
everything in the created realm is evaluated. The only way we can have absolute
truth, then, is if it is guaranteed to be such by God. We know that Scripture
equates God with absolute truth.
The doctrine of inspiration
Inspiration
is the product of God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally
directed the human writers of Scripture that without waiving their human
intelligence, vocabulary, individuality, literary style, personality, personal
feelings or any other human factor, His complete and coherent message to
mankind was recorded in the original autograph with perfect accuracy in the
original languages of Scripture, the very words bearing the authority of divine
authorship.
Inerrancy
only applies to the original autographs in the original languages. The Bible we
have today is not infallible, not inerrant, it is a translation. A translation
is always subject to flaws which come into play because of the translator’s
lack of familiarity with the original language, because he brings his own
theological biases to the translation, and a number of other things which will
affect it.
There
are three corollaries that are important to understand. The first is that
inspiration is verbal. This means that in the original languages the Holy
Spirit guided in the choice of words used. Words mean something; they change
ever so slightly the point of emphasis. Verbal means that the words are
inspired; plenary means that all of the Bible is
equally inspired, the accuracy which verbal inspiration secures is extended to
the entire Bible so that it is inerrant and infallible in all of its parts. The
third term that is important to understand is inerrancy. Inerrancy means that
the writings in the original autograph were without error. In the process of
copying and duplicating manuscripts errors have crept in such as leaving words
out, changes of spelling and grammar over the years. Furthermore, there were
misguided attempts by scribes to clarify a difficult passage. They would add a
word thinking it would clarify the passage. Marginal notes were sometimes inadvertently
included in the text when MSS were copied at latter dates. There were a lot of
different ways that little errors crept into the text but the vast majority of
them are errors related to spelling, leaving out a word, adding a word, things
of that nature that had no impact whatsoever on any major doctrine in
Scripture. We have so many MSS that we are easily able to reconstruct the original. This
is important because it tells us that we have in the 66 books of the Bible a
guaranteed revelation from God that is absolute truth. That truth, then, sits
in judgment on mankind.
We have to consider another
word here and that is “culture.” Part of the way we have defined missions is
taking the gospel or the Word of God into a cross-cultural context. This
occurred in Genesis 3:15 and the first Missionary was God who comes to a fallen
Adam and Eve and gives the gospel, and begins to teach them. So we have God
coming into a fallen culture and He starts to correct that culture with absolute
truth. The nature of all teaching of doctrine is cultural transformation.
Diotrephes “does not accept what we say.” In other words, he
knows more about the church, more about doctrine than the apostle John does. So
in his arrogance he is rejecting truth, in contrast to Gaius who is accepting
the truth. Diotrephes is a carnal believer in
negative volition to the truth because he is operating on arrogance. He is said
to be one who loves to have the pre-eminence. This is the Greek word philoproteuo [filoprwteuw] which has the idea of someone who loves to be first.
This is the person who is self-absorbed, he wants to be the most thought of
person in the congregation, he loves the spotlight and attention; he is
operating on approbation lust.
3 John 1:10 NASB “For
this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does,
unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself
does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire {to do
so} and puts {them} out of the church.”
Diotrephes has fallen into arrogance and is operating on the
five arrogance skills. These begin with self-absorption. As soon as a believer
sins arrogance, the natural orientation of the sin nature, takes over. Self-absorption
leads to self-indulgence. Self-indulgence leads to self-justification. This
blinds the believer into self-deception and this leads to a self-deification. This
is a process, a cycle that people get into. This exactly what has happened to Diotrephes, he has rejected the authority of the apostle.
God is not the one who is in charge anymore, he is. He deifies himself, the
creature puts himself in the place of the creator; he rejects the fact that
there is an external frame of reference from God that sits in judgment on his
own life. The creature rejects the truth and substitutes his own brand of truth
which is some sort of relative value system as the absolute, and this always
fails.
John is not going to let Diotrephes away with this. There is accountability. “If I
come” is a third class condition. There is an element of contingency here but
it is considered a more probable condition, i.e. if I come, I’m not sure that I
will, but it is my intent and in all probability I will come; “I will call
attention to his deeds.” This is the Greek verb hupomimnesko
[u(pomimnhskw] which in the future tense simply refers to something
in the future and has the idea of bringing something to memory. He will remind
everyone of what Diotrephes has done; he will
rehearse his failing, because they weren’t done in private. He has taken
advantage of the congregation and John will hold him accountable. This involved
“wicked words,” running down the authority over him. John continues, “and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the
brethren, either.” So not only is Diotrephes
rejecting John’s authority, rejecting the truth itself and setting himself up
as the final authority, but he is not accepting the brethren, in contrast to
Gaius who did accept the brethren. Diotrephes’
rejection of the truth affects missions, the support of missionaries, and
arrogance always does that. He not only does not receive the brethren but he
removes them from the church. He is out to build his own little kingdom.
3 John
John is clearly showing
toe contrast between Diotrephes as an example of evil
and Gaius as an example of good. So we can say that Diotrephes
practices evil, he is walking in darkness and not in the light; he is not
applying the Word. The practical application of that is that he is ejecting
people from the congregation, he is not supporting the missionaries and
evangelists that are coming through, he has an imperious, cold and
authoritarian attitude, and he is characterised by sins of the tongue—maligning,
slandering, gossipping and judging others. All of this is in contrast to the
maturing believer, Gaius. Any believer can fall into this same trap and this
happens any time we get out of fellowship.
Arrogance
1. Arrogance is defined as the creature elevating his
ideas, opinions, values and actions over that of the creator. He is going to
judge God and God’s Word from his own frame of reference.
2. Arrogance is the basic orientation of the sin nature.
3. Therefore arrogance is the enemy of the spiritual life
and is the complete and total opposite of grace.
4. Arrogance is synonymous with vanity. It puts all of
the emphasis on one’s person, talents, attainments or possessions. It is linked
with a lust for approbation or praise from others.
5. Arrogance brings with it a host of other sins—mental attitude
sins such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge motivation,
as well as sins of the tongue such as slander, gossip, judging, and maligning.
6. Arrogance is a mental attitude sin which overflows
into motivation, decision making and priorities. As soon as one becomes
arrogant he changes his priorities.