WALKING IN TRUTH
T. L. Waite
John mentions in this epistle two women who were distinguished. The epistle is addressed to “the elect lady”. Not only was this lady elect, for election is one of the things that belong to all those who have part in the family of God, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1: 2), a matter that goes right back before time and goes through into eternity, but I think the matter of election just shone out and distinguished her. If you had to do with her you would see that she was elect.
Our sister told me of her early days. She had the favour of having godly parents and she made her father’s God her God. Scripture speaks of that—“This is my God, and I will glorify him; My father’s God, and I will extol him”, Exodus 15: 2. You see how faithfulness can be found in succeeding generations. It may not be, but it can be. It is not that, if we have not had the favour of believing parents, God may not grant it, for He is a blessed God and would have all brought into the greatest blessing and the greatest favour.
Another thing I wish to say is that our sister loved the truth, and she studied the truth. Would that there were more who have love for the truth and are faithful to it. She tested things by the truth. This lovely letter from which we have read brings the two matters together, love and the truth. You may say, I have love, but if you are not walking in the truth to that extent you do not know love. The affinity our sister had with others was in the truth. John says, “The elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not I only but also all who have known the truth, for the truth’s sake”. The truth in this epistle particularly converges on the incarnation, “Jesus Christ coming in flesh”, and that in the setting of the most cunning deception, for John speaks of “many antichrists”. There are many deceivers in these days and in the midst of that there are women, and men too, who are loving the truth. It is a fine thing to have that kind of contact with one another. May God help us to stand. We are speaking of things that stand, things that are going through. John speaks of those he loves “for the truth’s sake which abides in us and shall be with us”—How long?—“to eternity”. Death has nothing to do with this. While we feel the pressure of death here, the family of God is going through, the truth is going through, and what is being formed according to Christ is going through.
Then John speaks of the children of the elect lady. Our sister did not have children in the natural sense, but if I could speak by way of application, the Lord now raises the question, ‘Who is going to fill the gap that has been left in the ranks?’ Scripture speaks of those who are baptised for the dead (1 Corinthians 15: 29), which means ‘in place of the dead’. Who is going to fill the ranks here? Her children. It is for you and me now to step out with some moral worth, in some correspondence with the truth, and walk in the truth, to fill the gap our sister’s departure has left. So may Christ be glorified, as He has been in what our sister represented, and the way she finished her course.
Words at the burial of Mrs. L. Renton, Auckland, N.Z.
23 February 1982