John warns that true Christian doctrine is going to be assaulted in every generation by false teachers. We need be on guard and oppose their lies by teaching the truth.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Part 2 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible study podcast entitled Guarding the Truth, where we’ll discuss 2 John verses 7-13. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis.
Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, 2 John is a very brief epistle, and the centerpiece in my opinion is the issue of the truth. And the first half of the epistle, he’s telling the believers to walk in the truth, but in the second half it seems he’s telling them to guard the truth or to watch out concerning the truth because there’s a threat. And the threat is false teaching. And so, we’re going to walk through that today and talk about it. And the same things are true for us today. The truth is Christianity, Christian doctrine centered on the person of Jesus Christ, and we are commanded to walk in the truth every day and to help one another walk in the truth. But we also need to understand that the truth is going to be assaulted in every generation by false teaching, and we need to guard the truth as well. So, we’ll just walk through that today.
Wes
Well, I’m going to go ahead and read all of 2 John. It’s just 13 verses, but I’m going to read all of it so that we have a sense of where we’ve been and what we’re going to look at today.
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, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. 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. 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.
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. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 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. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
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. The children of your elect sister greet you.
In verse 7, John moves to really one of the central reasons for writing his epistle. John sees a grave threat to the church in these verses, what is that threat?
Andy
It’s false teachers and false teaching. It’s one of the three great threats that Satan launches in every generation at Christians worldwide. And those three are worldliness or sin, and persecution, especially by governments or authority figures. So, incarceration and losing your property or your life. And then false teaching and generally worldliness and persecution are mutually exclusive, is going to be one or the other. The world’s either going to be kind of offering you gifts to turn from Christ or smacking you around if you don’t turn from Christ.
But there is false teaching in persecuted settings and in prosperous settings. And so, we need to be on our guard. And of the three, false teaching is the gravest threat because it changes the actual message that we preach. And so the danger that John’s writing about here is deceivers who have gone out into the world who are false teachers, and we’ll talk about the specific aspect of their false teaching. But we are called on here in the second half of this epistle, as I mentioned at the beginning, to guard the truth or protect it or as Jude said, contend earnestly for the truth that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
…false teaching is the gravest threat because it changes the actual message that we preach.
Wes
You began to unfold this, but why are false teachers so particularly dangerous to all Christians individually but then also to healthy churches as well?
Andy
Yeah, because faith comes from hearing the message and if the message is perverted, if, as in Galatians it’s no gospel at all, people cannot be saved. And so, Satan’s working on the doctrine. And I look on the doctrine somewhat like a living body. And just as our body, has no part of our body’s immune to injury or disease, so also the body of doctrine has been questioned or assaulted or perverted at some point in the 20 centuries of church history. And so fundamentally, we have to be aware that Satan is trying to pervert or controvert the doctrine so that we don’t have a true gospel anymore because doctrine is essential to people’s salvation. As you know very clearly from Romans 1:16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel, which is a body of doctrines for it. The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. And then later in that same epistle, Romans 10:17, faith comes from hearing the message about Christ. So, if as in Galatians it’s no gospel at all, it’s been perverted by false doctrine there it’s the issue of legalism, circumcision and legalism. But here it has to do with the doctrine of the incarnation. If there is a perversion of the gospel, people cannot be saved.
Wes
Now John calls these false teachers deceivers. Jesus would call false teachers wolves in sheep’s clothing in Matthew 7. Paul says the servants of Satan masquerade as servants of righteousness, just as Satan masquerades as a beautiful angel of light in 2 Corinthians 11. What does this teach us about false teachers within the church?
Andy
Alright, so we’ll start with the beginning of your question, the issue of them being called deceivers. So fundamentally they’re serving a lie. And so, anything that Satan says is a lie, even if he tells the truth, it’s a lie. As he does with Eve when he says, God knows that when you eat of it, you will be like him, and you’ll know good from evil. That’s actually true. And so, all of the cults and the false teachers all have some truth in what they teach. There’s always something essentially true, like some kind of pattern of morality. Like we look at the Mormons, and they’re really good at nuclear families and raising children and love and things like that. And you look at Islam and it’s monotheistic, it’s against paganism, it’s against idolatry and all of that kind of thing. Although it’s fundamentally idolatrous because Allah is not truly God, but that’s what we’re looking at. It’s lies, it’s deception. And so, Satan is skillful at mixing a bowl of soup, let’s say, with a little poison mixed in and a lot of healthy, delicious, enticing ingredients. Because he knows if he makes a bowl of poison, and it stinks to high heaven and it looks sinister and bubbling and nobody’s going to drink it…
Wes
It’s almost comical, right? You just think of a comic strip with a cauldron boiling with the big skull and crossbones. It’s like, who would drink that?
Andy
Nobody’s going to drink it. And so, Paul says in 2 Corinthians that Satan’s servants masquerade as servants of righteousness because Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So, if we were to see Satan as he would desire us to see him, it would be overwhelmingly beautiful and attractive, but he’s really a dragon. And so fundamentally, these deceivers look good on the outside, but they carry poison within. They are lying fundamentally in this case about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Wes
Let’s talk more about that central heresy of these false teachers that we find here in verse 7 and why that heresy is so vital to Satan’s attack on the church.
Andy
The centerpiece here is on the person of Jesus Christ. So, if you look at verse 7, many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, so that’s the issue, the coming of Jesus in the flesh. The word flesh is meant to be jarring. In John 1:14, “The Word became flesh.” It’d be the kind of thing where the Greek philosophical system would be like, are you out of your mind? Why would pure spirit God, who is pure light ever want to take on flesh like muscles and sinew? And blood vessels and all of that and live a physical life in such a repulsive kind of stinky way with sweat and digestion and blood and all the physical realities? It seems jarring, but that is the truth.
We believe that God, Jesus, became flesh. He became truly physically human. And so, the doctrine here is an assault on the incarnation, assault on the deity or the humanity, the full deity or full humanity of Christ. And so, I think here it could be an agnostic kind of thing or a docetic kind of thing. Docetism comes from the Greek word which is translated to seem. And so, Jesus only seemed to be human. It was an illusion; he really wasn’t human. That denies the incarnation, denies that he was truly human. Or perhaps Gnosticism, which also denies the deity of the Word.
And so, the fundamental false teaching here, here’s the bottom line: we have to get Jesus right in order to be saved. We have to confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is his human name, his humanity, Lord is his deity. I mean, you ask any Jew back in those days about the Lord or the Lord this, they’re not wondering who you’re talking about. That’s Almighty God. And if you’re saying Jesus is Lord, you’re claiming deity. And you have to say with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Well, I take the second half and put it on the first. You also have to believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord in order to be saved. Because it’s with the heart that you believe that and are justified. So, you have to get Jesus right. There’s a verse that I’ve used for many years with Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s John 8:24 and it says, Jesus said to his enemies, Jews who denied his deity, clearly, he said, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
So that’s the Greek. Usually, the English adds some extra words like I am he or I’m the one I claim to be. But those words aren’t in the Greek, he’s just, you have to believe that I am. By the end of the chapter it’s very clear what he’s claiming. He said, “Before Abraham was [born], I am” (John 8:58). And the Jews knew very, very well what he was claiming because when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of the burning bush, he called him to go and said, set my people free. And he said, well, who shall I say is sending me? What is your name? He said, “Tell them ‘I AM sent you'” (Exodus 3:14). My name is I am, I who I am.
And so, Yahweh is related to that. It’s a Hebrew word for existence or I am so. I am is definitely God’s name. And when Jesus said before Abraham was born, I am, he is overtly claiming to be God. And so back earlier then in that chapter John 8:24, he is saying, if you do not believe that I am God, you will die in your sins. So, I say that to Jehovah’s Witnesses because they deny the deity the full deity of Christ. And so fundamentally, these deceivers, these false teachers who have gone out into the world were denying that Jesus had come in the flesh, that God, that the word became flesh.
Wes
Now at the end of verse 7, we get this word antichrist, and we’ve discussed how the word antichrist could mean both in the place of Christ or against Christ. In 1 John 2:18, John says, the antichrist is coming, and many antichrists have come. Here in 2 John, how does John describe antichrist? And in verse 7, is John talking about the one final antichrist or the many that have gone out into the world?
Andy
Well, definitely the many because he says many deceivers, verse 7, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. So, he’s not that one final antichrist. It’s going on in John’s day. And so, they are imbued with the spirit of antichrist as John talks about in 1 John 4. And so, there is a spirit, a demonic spirit, a satanic spirit that gets in these false teachers that gets them to teach doctrine contrary to the doctrine of the incarnation. By the way, it’s interesting in the gospels, like in Mark when he’s in the synagogue of Capernaum, the demon cries out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” They’re not doubting, and they know the incarnation, they know that Mary was a virgin. They know it for a fact. And they know that what the angel said to her, they know everything. And they see what’s happening, and then how he acts, and they know who he is, and they say it.
But Jesus would not let them say that even though it was true. They were not his messengers and his mouthpieces. So fundamentally, Satan is, demons are, in this denying the deity of Christ. And go to the word antichrist, which is only in 1 John and here in 2 John, and it’s the doctrine that is against the true doctrine. I think anti here means against the true doctrine of Christ or perhaps taking the place of Christ. But I don’t know that these false teachers were coming and claiming themselves to be the Messiah. They were just teaching it seems false doctrine.
Wes
What danger does John warn the church about in verse 8? And how does this relate to Revelation 3:11 in which Jesus warns the church at Philadelphia, “Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown.”
Andy
Well, we’re at war. We’re going through battle all the time. And so, the labor that we do in the world, part of the motivation is rewards. And so, the threat here is that you’ll lose your reward. And he says, watch out that you don’t lose what you worked for, but you’ll be rewarded fully. So, the idea is I want you to fight the good fight, finish a race and keep the faith. Keep the faith. What’s that mean? Guard it. Protect it. And so, you’ll be rewarded if you do that. If you hold firmly to what I’ve entrusted to you, to the end, I’ll reward you. And not only that, but I want you to spread that gospel. I want you to take the true gospel of the deity of Christ and his life, his death, his resurrection and repentance and faith in him, save souls. And I want you to spread that abroad. And if you do that against all odds and against all persecution and you stand firm in Christ and holiness, I’m going to reward you. But I want you to watch out because these false teachers are going to come in, you’ll get no reward. Your works will be wood, hay, and stubble burned up on Judgment Day. Even worse, it would be that you yourselves would be, and he’s going to get to that, partners with deceivers and kind of allying yourself with them. So, don’t do that!
Wes
Andy, what do you make of this language of fully rewarded or a full reward?
Andy
Alright, so I guess the idea would be, alright, well, let me speak negatively. When the Lord spoke to Abraham in Genesis 15, he gave him a prediction of what would happen and how his descendants would be strangers in a country not their own, where they would be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years. But afterward, afterward he said, I will bring them out and they’ll worship me in this place in the Promised Land. But that’s going to be many centuries later because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. And so, there’s a sense of a measure of all of the wickedness of these pagan nations.
Well, let’s turn that around positively. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them. Those good works that God has laid out before us in his mind have a certain set number. They’re not infinite. We have a certain set number of good works he wants us to do and to be rewarded fully means we did them all. It’s interesting because Jesus says to the church at Sardis, he says, “Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God” (Revelation 3:3). You haven’t done all the things I left you on earth to do. So, then I take that mentality back here to being rewarded fully. It means you did all the things God laid out for you to do. And so, he says, watch out. Guard your doctrine, watch your life so that you get fully rewarded and you did all of the good works that God wanted you to do.
Wes
Now John also speaks of those who run ahead or go ahead or do not abide in the teaching of Christ. What image of sound Christian doctrine does this put in our minds?
Andy
Runs ahead. It gives a sense in which we are following, alright, we are not leading out. And so, the idea is like he says in Galatians 5, we are to keep in step with the Spirit. So, the Spirit’s leading and you follow. To run ahead means to be an innovator, a trailblazer. We don’t want to be doctrinal innovators or trailblazers. There is a clear path of doctrine and of Christian life that’s laid out for us in Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. To run ahead means you’re forging your own path. And that basically makes you a false teacher. So, it means to step out of what God wants you to do, and you’re not continuing anymore in the teaching of Christ. Any such person that says does not have God.
Wes
Now why are the Father and the Son linked together here when it comes to sound doctrine?
Andy
Absolutely completely linked because the Father sent the Son into the world to reveal himself to the world. As Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” He came into the world to present to the world a clear picture of the glory of God. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), Jesus said. And so fundamentally, if you have the Son, you have the Father as well. This is the clear teaching in 1 John and in the Gospel of John: to have the Son means you have the Father. No one who has the Son does not have the Father. No one who does not have the Son has the Father as well. So, speaking of Jews who reject Jesus but want the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you can’t do that. And so, you fundamentally have a false God if you reject Jesus. So, anyone who continues in the teaching of Christianity has both the Father and the Son.
Wes
In verses 10-11, John lays out a prohibition and a warning. Now what’s fascinating is that Jesus in Matthew 10 says that anyone who meets the physical needs of his apostles or teachers receives the same reward as those teachers. But here in 2 John, the image is negative. How do those who practically provide for teachers, let’s say both true and false share in their work and merit their reward or punishment?
Andy
Yeah. This issue of hospitality and of physically welcoming teachers into your home and feeding them and putting them up and just caring for them while they do their teaching ministry are actually found in both 2 and 3 John. Because in 3 John, he’s going to say, you were faithful in doing for the brothers even though they were strangers for you. They’ve told the church about your love. And they went out having no help from the pagans and you ought to show hospitality to such people. So, the idea is you should show hospitality to workers of the true gospel. You should absolutely refuse hospitality to false teachers.
…you should show hospitality to workers of the true gospel. You should absolutely refuse hospitality to false teachers.
Because if you show them hospitality, you are definitely, it’s guilt by association because of their wicked works you’re sharing together. He openly says it in verse 11, anyone who welcomes him in that hospitality sense shares in his wicked work. So don’t bring this person into your home, don’t share meals with him, don’t support him in any way, but shun him. And it’s very clear here. So, I like the link you made in Matthew 10:40, where there if he who receives you receives me and he receives me, receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a messenger of the gospel as a messenger of the gospel gets the same reward. Well, you don’t want this negative reward because that’s not a reward. This is punishment. So don’t share in the work of these false teachers.
Wes
Now verses 12-13, we get the concluding words of this brief epistle. How does verse 12 show the limitations of even inspired scripture? And how do the scriptures in some sense serve as a perfect but inferior replacement to face-to-face fellowship with Christ?
Andy
Well, let’s take the last one first. I mean, face-to-face fellowship is heaven. And the things we experience now are sufficient, but they’re not the best. Probably the first time I ever had that insight was in meditating on 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul was talking about tongues and prophecy. And tongues and prophecy are word-based ministries that are very showy and supernatural. And the church of Corinth was wanting to do them and was elevating those people beyond measure. And there’s all this arrogance. In the middle of his managing of the spiritual gifts, specifically tongues and prophecy. He gives this beautiful love chapter, and he goes through all that sort of stuff. And as he’s talking about tongues and prophecy, he then says, look, all these gifts are going to pass away.
When are they going to pass away? When we get to heaven, we won’t be using any of these spiritual gifts. The teaching ministry is akin to baby talk. He says,
When I was a child, I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see, but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I’ve been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:11-12).
And so, what he’s talking about is in heaven, and that’s definitely talking about heaven, when we are face-to-face with God, the teaching ministries will be over. As Jesus himself said, “They will all be taught by God” (John 6:45). And the clearest, most efficient communication will be in that face-to-face intimate fellowship with God in heaven. We don’t get that now. What do we get? We get Scripture.
Scripture is compared to our heavenly education and our heavenly knowledge like so much baby talk. But it is sufficient. It is necessary and sufficient and it’s perfect. It’s just very limited. And so, we can see that. You see the visionary prophets that are trying to describe in words, like Ezekiel did what he saw. It’s like, that’s his best effort with pen and ink. It’s like I can barely picture what you’re talking about here. And so, John himself acknowledges there’s limitations to pen and ink. And so even in now in space and time, I would rather have a conversation with you brother than receive one of your texts or your emails or even a handwritten note. I mean those are good. I’d rather have that than nothing. But what we have here is face-to-face ministry is better.
And so back in those days when the gift of prophecy was going on, prophets were there. And I think John himself would say, I would rather be with you and give you direct apostolic teaching and direct prophetic utterances than write them down. However, for the world, it’s better that he wrote them down because we don’t get to be in the room. And John’s mortal, and at some point he’s going to go and be with the Lord. And so, we are so thankful that he wrote it down with pen and ink. By the way, we see how obsolete this statement is. It’s like, I don’t want to write you with pen and ink. I’d rather be with you. It’s like, yeah, that’s not going to happen. So, we get the pen and ink, we get the writing.
Wes
Who does John send greetings from in the final verse? And what does this final verse teach us about the church?
Andy
Yeah, I think we use language as Baptists, this sister churches, this kind of thing. It’s just like-minded churches, local churches. And so, I really think that’s what’s going on here. But Peter uses a similar language when he says, “She who is in Babylon chosen together with you sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark” (1 Peter 5:13). That’s the end of 1 Peter 5. He’s talking about a local church, the church there at Rome. And so, the idea is the femininity of the church, the Bride of Christ. And so, we got this idea of sister churches, and he begins with, as we thought, the chosen lady may well be a local church. So, you got the chosen lady in her children. We got another lady and her children. That’s a sister. So, the children of your chosen sister send their greetings just to other Christians.
Wes
Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us today as we wrap up this second epistle of John?
Andy
It’s just marvelous, isn’t it? To see these few words and how perfect they are and how God in his wisdom gave us this limited, very brief epistle. It is in no way the most significant of the 66 books of the Bible. Not at all. But it has its role to play. It is perfect in what it seeks to do. It’s perfect in every word, but it’s just very short. And it addresses the issue of walking in the truth and also guarding the truth. And today we talked about the second, which is guarding the truth against false doctrine.
Wes
Well, this has been Part 2 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time as we dig into 3 John together. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Part 2 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible study podcast entitled Guarding the Truth, where we’ll discuss 2 John verses 7-13. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis.
Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, 2 John is a very brief epistle, and the centerpiece in my opinion is the issue of the truth. And the first half of the epistle, he’s telling the believers to walk in the truth, but in the second half it seems he’s telling them to guard the truth or to watch out concerning the truth because there’s a threat. And the threat is false teaching. And so, we’re going to walk through that today and talk about it. And the same things are true for us today. The truth is Christianity, Christian doctrine centered on the person of Jesus Christ, and we are commanded to walk in the truth every day and to help one another walk in the truth. But we also need to understand that the truth is going to be assaulted in every generation by false teaching, and we need to guard the truth as well. So, we’ll just walk through that today.
Wes
Well, I’m going to go ahead and read all of 2 John. It’s just 13 verses, but I’m going to read all of it so that we have a sense of where we’ve been and what we’re going to look at today.
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, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.
I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. 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. 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.
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. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 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. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
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. The children of your elect sister greet you.
In verse 7, John moves to really one of the central reasons for writing his epistle. John sees a grave threat to the church in these verses, what is that threat?
Andy
It’s false teachers and false teaching. It’s one of the three great threats that Satan launches in every generation at Christians worldwide. And those three are worldliness or sin, and persecution, especially by governments or authority figures. So, incarceration and losing your property or your life. And then false teaching and generally worldliness and persecution are mutually exclusive, is going to be one or the other. The world’s either going to be kind of offering you gifts to turn from Christ or smacking you around if you don’t turn from Christ.
But there is false teaching in persecuted settings and in prosperous settings. And so, we need to be on our guard. And of the three, false teaching is the gravest threat because it changes the actual message that we preach. And so the danger that John’s writing about here is deceivers who have gone out into the world who are false teachers, and we’ll talk about the specific aspect of their false teaching. But we are called on here in the second half of this epistle, as I mentioned at the beginning, to guard the truth or protect it or as Jude said, contend earnestly for the truth that was once for all entrusted to the saints.
…false teaching is the gravest threat because it changes the actual message that we preach.
Wes
You began to unfold this, but why are false teachers so particularly dangerous to all Christians individually but then also to healthy churches as well?
Andy
Yeah, because faith comes from hearing the message and if the message is perverted, if, as in Galatians it’s no gospel at all, people cannot be saved. And so, Satan’s working on the doctrine. And I look on the doctrine somewhat like a living body. And just as our body, has no part of our body’s immune to injury or disease, so also the body of doctrine has been questioned or assaulted or perverted at some point in the 20 centuries of church history. And so fundamentally, we have to be aware that Satan is trying to pervert or controvert the doctrine so that we don’t have a true gospel anymore because doctrine is essential to people’s salvation. As you know very clearly from Romans 1:16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel, which is a body of doctrines for it. The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. And then later in that same epistle, Romans 10:17, faith comes from hearing the message about Christ. So, if as in Galatians it’s no gospel at all, it’s been perverted by false doctrine there it’s the issue of legalism, circumcision and legalism. But here it has to do with the doctrine of the incarnation. If there is a perversion of the gospel, people cannot be saved.
Wes
Now John calls these false teachers deceivers. Jesus would call false teachers wolves in sheep’s clothing in Matthew 7. Paul says the servants of Satan masquerade as servants of righteousness, just as Satan masquerades as a beautiful angel of light in 2 Corinthians 11. What does this teach us about false teachers within the church?
Andy
Alright, so we’ll start with the beginning of your question, the issue of them being called deceivers. So fundamentally they’re serving a lie. And so, anything that Satan says is a lie, even if he tells the truth, it’s a lie. As he does with Eve when he says, God knows that when you eat of it, you will be like him, and you’ll know good from evil. That’s actually true. And so, all of the cults and the false teachers all have some truth in what they teach. There’s always something essentially true, like some kind of pattern of morality. Like we look at the Mormons, and they’re really good at nuclear families and raising children and love and things like that. And you look at Islam and it’s monotheistic, it’s against paganism, it’s against idolatry and all of that kind of thing. Although it’s fundamentally idolatrous because Allah is not truly God, but that’s what we’re looking at. It’s lies, it’s deception. And so, Satan is skillful at mixing a bowl of soup, let’s say, with a little poison mixed in and a lot of healthy, delicious, enticing ingredients. Because he knows if he makes a bowl of poison, and it stinks to high heaven and it looks sinister and bubbling and nobody’s going to drink it…
Wes
It’s almost comical, right? You just think of a comic strip with a cauldron boiling with the big skull and crossbones. It’s like, who would drink that?
Andy
Nobody’s going to drink it. And so, Paul says in 2 Corinthians that Satan’s servants masquerade as servants of righteousness because Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. So, if we were to see Satan as he would desire us to see him, it would be overwhelmingly beautiful and attractive, but he’s really a dragon. And so fundamentally, these deceivers look good on the outside, but they carry poison within. They are lying fundamentally in this case about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Wes
Let’s talk more about that central heresy of these false teachers that we find here in verse 7 and why that heresy is so vital to Satan’s attack on the church.
Andy
The centerpiece here is on the person of Jesus Christ. So, if you look at verse 7, many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, so that’s the issue, the coming of Jesus in the flesh. The word flesh is meant to be jarring. In John 1:14, “The Word became flesh.” It’d be the kind of thing where the Greek philosophical system would be like, are you out of your mind? Why would pure spirit God, who is pure light ever want to take on flesh like muscles and sinew? And blood vessels and all of that and live a physical life in such a repulsive kind of stinky way with sweat and digestion and blood and all the physical realities? It seems jarring, but that is the truth.
We believe that God, Jesus, became flesh. He became truly physically human. And so, the doctrine here is an assault on the incarnation, assault on the deity or the humanity, the full deity or full humanity of Christ. And so, I think here it could be an agnostic kind of thing or a docetic kind of thing. Docetism comes from the Greek word which is translated to seem. And so, Jesus only seemed to be human. It was an illusion; he really wasn’t human. That denies the incarnation, denies that he was truly human. Or perhaps Gnosticism, which also denies the deity of the Word.
And so, the fundamental false teaching here, here’s the bottom line: we have to get Jesus right in order to be saved. We have to confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is his human name, his humanity, Lord is his deity. I mean, you ask any Jew back in those days about the Lord or the Lord this, they’re not wondering who you’re talking about. That’s Almighty God. And if you’re saying Jesus is Lord, you’re claiming deity. And you have to say with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Well, I take the second half and put it on the first. You also have to believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord in order to be saved. Because it’s with the heart that you believe that and are justified. So, you have to get Jesus right. There’s a verse that I’ve used for many years with Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s John 8:24 and it says, Jesus said to his enemies, Jews who denied his deity, clearly, he said, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.”
So that’s the Greek. Usually, the English adds some extra words like I am he or I’m the one I claim to be. But those words aren’t in the Greek, he’s just, you have to believe that I am. By the end of the chapter it’s very clear what he’s claiming. He said, “Before Abraham was [born], I am” (John 8:58). And the Jews knew very, very well what he was claiming because when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of the burning bush, he called him to go and said, set my people free. And he said, well, who shall I say is sending me? What is your name? He said, “Tell them ‘I AM sent you'” (Exodus 3:14). My name is I am, I who I am.
And so, Yahweh is related to that. It’s a Hebrew word for existence or I am so. I am is definitely God’s name. And when Jesus said before Abraham was born, I am, he is overtly claiming to be God. And so back earlier then in that chapter John 8:24, he is saying, if you do not believe that I am God, you will die in your sins. So, I say that to Jehovah’s Witnesses because they deny the deity the full deity of Christ. And so fundamentally, these deceivers, these false teachers who have gone out into the world were denying that Jesus had come in the flesh, that God, that the word became flesh.
Wes
Now at the end of verse 7, we get this word antichrist, and we’ve discussed how the word antichrist could mean both in the place of Christ or against Christ. In 1 John 2:18, John says, the antichrist is coming, and many antichrists have come. Here in 2 John, how does John describe antichrist? And in verse 7, is John talking about the one final antichrist or the many that have gone out into the world?
Andy
Well, definitely the many because he says many deceivers, verse 7, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. So, he’s not that one final antichrist. It’s going on in John’s day. And so, they are imbued with the spirit of antichrist as John talks about in 1 John 4. And so, there is a spirit, a demonic spirit, a satanic spirit that gets in these false teachers that gets them to teach doctrine contrary to the doctrine of the incarnation. By the way, it’s interesting in the gospels, like in Mark when he’s in the synagogue of Capernaum, the demon cries out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” They’re not doubting, and they know the incarnation, they know that Mary was a virgin. They know it for a fact. And they know that what the angel said to her, they know everything. And they see what’s happening, and then how he acts, and they know who he is, and they say it.
But Jesus would not let them say that even though it was true. They were not his messengers and his mouthpieces. So fundamentally, Satan is, demons are, in this denying the deity of Christ. And go to the word antichrist, which is only in 1 John and here in 2 John, and it’s the doctrine that is against the true doctrine. I think anti here means against the true doctrine of Christ or perhaps taking the place of Christ. But I don’t know that these false teachers were coming and claiming themselves to be the Messiah. They were just teaching it seems false doctrine.
Wes
What danger does John warn the church about in verse 8? And how does this relate to Revelation 3:11 in which Jesus warns the church at Philadelphia, “Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown.”
Andy
Well, we’re at war. We’re going through battle all the time. And so, the labor that we do in the world, part of the motivation is rewards. And so, the threat here is that you’ll lose your reward. And he says, watch out that you don’t lose what you worked for, but you’ll be rewarded fully. So, the idea is I want you to fight the good fight, finish a race and keep the faith. Keep the faith. What’s that mean? Guard it. Protect it. And so, you’ll be rewarded if you do that. If you hold firmly to what I’ve entrusted to you, to the end, I’ll reward you. And not only that, but I want you to spread that gospel. I want you to take the true gospel of the deity of Christ and his life, his death, his resurrection and repentance and faith in him, save souls. And I want you to spread that abroad. And if you do that against all odds and against all persecution and you stand firm in Christ and holiness, I’m going to reward you. But I want you to watch out because these false teachers are going to come in, you’ll get no reward. Your works will be wood, hay, and stubble burned up on Judgment Day. Even worse, it would be that you yourselves would be, and he’s going to get to that, partners with deceivers and kind of allying yourself with them. So, don’t do that!
Wes
Andy, what do you make of this language of fully rewarded or a full reward?
Andy
Alright, so I guess the idea would be, alright, well, let me speak negatively. When the Lord spoke to Abraham in Genesis 15, he gave him a prediction of what would happen and how his descendants would be strangers in a country not their own, where they would be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years. But afterward, afterward he said, I will bring them out and they’ll worship me in this place in the Promised Land. But that’s going to be many centuries later because the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. And so, there’s a sense of a measure of all of the wickedness of these pagan nations.
Well, let’s turn that around positively. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them. Those good works that God has laid out before us in his mind have a certain set number. They’re not infinite. We have a certain set number of good works he wants us to do and to be rewarded fully means we did them all. It’s interesting because Jesus says to the church at Sardis, he says, “Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God” (Revelation 3:3). You haven’t done all the things I left you on earth to do. So, then I take that mentality back here to being rewarded fully. It means you did all the things God laid out for you to do. And so, he says, watch out. Guard your doctrine, watch your life so that you get fully rewarded and you did all of the good works that God wanted you to do.
Wes
Now John also speaks of those who run ahead or go ahead or do not abide in the teaching of Christ. What image of sound Christian doctrine does this put in our minds?
Andy
Runs ahead. It gives a sense in which we are following, alright, we are not leading out. And so, the idea is like he says in Galatians 5, we are to keep in step with the Spirit. So, the Spirit’s leading and you follow. To run ahead means to be an innovator, a trailblazer. We don’t want to be doctrinal innovators or trailblazers. There is a clear path of doctrine and of Christian life that’s laid out for us in Christ. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. To run ahead means you’re forging your own path. And that basically makes you a false teacher. So, it means to step out of what God wants you to do, and you’re not continuing anymore in the teaching of Christ. Any such person that says does not have God.
Wes
Now why are the Father and the Son linked together here when it comes to sound doctrine?
Andy
Absolutely completely linked because the Father sent the Son into the world to reveal himself to the world. As Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” He came into the world to present to the world a clear picture of the glory of God. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), Jesus said. And so fundamentally, if you have the Son, you have the Father as well. This is the clear teaching in 1 John and in the Gospel of John: to have the Son means you have the Father. No one who has the Son does not have the Father. No one who does not have the Son has the Father as well. So, speaking of Jews who reject Jesus but want the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you can’t do that. And so, you fundamentally have a false God if you reject Jesus. So, anyone who continues in the teaching of Christianity has both the Father and the Son.
Wes
In verses 10-11, John lays out a prohibition and a warning. Now what’s fascinating is that Jesus in Matthew 10 says that anyone who meets the physical needs of his apostles or teachers receives the same reward as those teachers. But here in 2 John, the image is negative. How do those who practically provide for teachers, let’s say both true and false share in their work and merit their reward or punishment?
Andy
Yeah. This issue of hospitality and of physically welcoming teachers into your home and feeding them and putting them up and just caring for them while they do their teaching ministry are actually found in both 2 and 3 John. Because in 3 John, he’s going to say, you were faithful in doing for the brothers even though they were strangers for you. They’ve told the church about your love. And they went out having no help from the pagans and you ought to show hospitality to such people. So, the idea is you should show hospitality to workers of the true gospel. You should absolutely refuse hospitality to false teachers.
…you should show hospitality to workers of the true gospel. You should absolutely refuse hospitality to false teachers.
Because if you show them hospitality, you are definitely, it’s guilt by association because of their wicked works you’re sharing together. He openly says it in verse 11, anyone who welcomes him in that hospitality sense shares in his wicked work. So don’t bring this person into your home, don’t share meals with him, don’t support him in any way, but shun him. And it’s very clear here. So, I like the link you made in Matthew 10:40, where there if he who receives you receives me and he receives me, receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a messenger of the gospel as a messenger of the gospel gets the same reward. Well, you don’t want this negative reward because that’s not a reward. This is punishment. So don’t share in the work of these false teachers.
Wes
Now verses 12-13, we get the concluding words of this brief epistle. How does verse 12 show the limitations of even inspired scripture? And how do the scriptures in some sense serve as a perfect but inferior replacement to face-to-face fellowship with Christ?
Andy
Well, let’s take the last one first. I mean, face-to-face fellowship is heaven. And the things we experience now are sufficient, but they’re not the best. Probably the first time I ever had that insight was in meditating on 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul was talking about tongues and prophecy. And tongues and prophecy are word-based ministries that are very showy and supernatural. And the church of Corinth was wanting to do them and was elevating those people beyond measure. And there’s all this arrogance. In the middle of his managing of the spiritual gifts, specifically tongues and prophecy. He gives this beautiful love chapter, and he goes through all that sort of stuff. And as he’s talking about tongues and prophecy, he then says, look, all these gifts are going to pass away.
When are they going to pass away? When we get to heaven, we won’t be using any of these spiritual gifts. The teaching ministry is akin to baby talk. He says,
When I was a child, I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see, but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face-to-face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I’ve been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:11-12).
And so, what he’s talking about is in heaven, and that’s definitely talking about heaven, when we are face-to-face with God, the teaching ministries will be over. As Jesus himself said, “They will all be taught by God” (John 6:45). And the clearest, most efficient communication will be in that face-to-face intimate fellowship with God in heaven. We don’t get that now. What do we get? We get Scripture.
Scripture is compared to our heavenly education and our heavenly knowledge like so much baby talk. But it is sufficient. It is necessary and sufficient and it’s perfect. It’s just very limited. And so, we can see that. You see the visionary prophets that are trying to describe in words, like Ezekiel did what he saw. It’s like, that’s his best effort with pen and ink. It’s like I can barely picture what you’re talking about here. And so, John himself acknowledges there’s limitations to pen and ink. And so even in now in space and time, I would rather have a conversation with you brother than receive one of your texts or your emails or even a handwritten note. I mean those are good. I’d rather have that than nothing. But what we have here is face-to-face ministry is better.
And so back in those days when the gift of prophecy was going on, prophets were there. And I think John himself would say, I would rather be with you and give you direct apostolic teaching and direct prophetic utterances than write them down. However, for the world, it’s better that he wrote them down because we don’t get to be in the room. And John’s mortal, and at some point he’s going to go and be with the Lord. And so, we are so thankful that he wrote it down with pen and ink. By the way, we see how obsolete this statement is. It’s like, I don’t want to write you with pen and ink. I’d rather be with you. It’s like, yeah, that’s not going to happen. So, we get the pen and ink, we get the writing.
Wes
Who does John send greetings from in the final verse? And what does this final verse teach us about the church?
Andy
Yeah, I think we use language as Baptists, this sister churches, this kind of thing. It’s just like-minded churches, local churches. And so, I really think that’s what’s going on here. But Peter uses a similar language when he says, “She who is in Babylon chosen together with you sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark” (1 Peter 5:13). That’s the end of 1 Peter 5. He’s talking about a local church, the church there at Rome. And so, the idea is the femininity of the church, the Bride of Christ. And so, we got this idea of sister churches, and he begins with, as we thought, the chosen lady may well be a local church. So, you got the chosen lady in her children. We got another lady and her children. That’s a sister. So, the children of your chosen sister send their greetings just to other Christians.
Wes
Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us today as we wrap up this second epistle of John?
Andy
It’s just marvelous, isn’t it? To see these few words and how perfect they are and how God in his wisdom gave us this limited, very brief epistle. It is in no way the most significant of the 66 books of the Bible. Not at all. But it has its role to play. It is perfect in what it seeks to do. It’s perfect in every word, but it’s just very short. And it addresses the issue of walking in the truth and also guarding the truth. And today we talked about the second, which is guarding the truth against false doctrine.
Wes
Well, this has been Part 2 of Episode 9 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time as we dig into 3 John together. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
