<p>3:18 <em>Little children, let us not love in word, nor with the tongue, but in deed and truth</em>- Every religion and indeed every person on earth talks of &quot;love&quot;. But John has radically redefined love as being what is done motivated by the &quot;new commandment&quot;, to love as the Lord loved us unto death. This is the love which is not in theory or spoken about in pious language, but the love which is reality and which is &quot;truth&quot; in the sense that the Lord Jesus was &quot;the truth&quot;. The word <em>logos</em> is to be made flesh (Jn. 1:14); that seems the idea here. The word of love, the love as the Lord loved, is not to remain as mere language, but to become deed and reality.</p><p>The commandment to love, as Christ loved us, is made new &quot;as it is made true&quot; (1 Jn. 2:8 Gk.) both in the person of Jesus, and in all who are truly in Him. This means that the principles we receive in theory are to become 'truth' in us as they were in the Lord; they are to become applied in the very person and fabric of our beings, and not remain merely part of our shadow selves. It is truth that makes us pure (1 Pet. 1:22,23), good deeds are produced by truth (1 Jn. 3:18). No amount of correct theory can make us pure; surely the reference is to the life of transparency to God, of 'truth' in the sense that there is no divide between our inner convictions and our actual lives. Then will come true in us the connection which John perceives between truth and love (1 Jn. 3:19).</p>