Reading Other People’s Mail: 2 John – Day 4
Reading Plan for 2 John – Day 4
Read 2 John Again
Warnings About Deceptive Teachers
John is concerned about the men and women in the church he is writing to. They are in his care and he is their teacher, pastor, and encourager. He also knows that there are individuals who want to lead them astray. He calls them deceivers and even says that there are “many deceivers” (verse 7).
Take a quick look at verses 7-10 and make note of the number of times John use the word deceiver or antichrist. Also take note of the characteristics of these people. Even those this is a remarkably short letter, John says a lot.
His greatest concern is that it’s easy to get taken advantage of because there are many deceivers. He hinted at the danger earlier when he said, “it has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth” (verse 4). The flip side of this comment is “some are not walking in the truth”. Why? There are other people claiming to have authoritative teaching and many people have gone astray.
Just want were these deceivers saying? Their primary deception was claiming that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. In his first letter, John warned his readers about liars who twist the truth of Christ (1 John 2:22). There is no way to know for sure who these individuals were. What we do know is that they purposely twisted the truth about Jesus. The primary claim they were making is that Jesus did not come in the flesh. The blending of some Christian beliefs with some Greek religious philosophy could easily bring about such teaching. By teaching that Jesus, like the Greek and Roman deities, was separate from the world all kinds of falsehood could emerge. One Christian variety of such a belief was that Jesus only appeared to come in the flesh. He also only appeared to die on the cross.
One of these teachers, Cerinthus, denied the virgin birth and tended to mix Christianity and paganism together. He taught that Christ came on Jesus as a dove when Jesus was baptized and then departed from Jesus at the crucifixion. Polycarp, who was mentored by John told a story to Irenaeus, the early church father, of John seeing Cerinthus at a bathhouse and leaving immediately lest the roof fall in because “the enemy of the truth was there.[1]”
Other false teachers taught similar things. They claimed that Christ could not have literally come in the flesh because the flesh is evil. Only the spirit is good. The results of such teaching varied wildly. Some advocated a total rejection of the flesh to the extent that they rejected marriage. Others taught radical free love because of a moral belief that what one does in the flesh doesn’t matter because that flesh is already corrupted.
John was very concerned about the false teachers and their lies. We don’t know if he was referring directly to Cerinthus or others like him. Whoever the false teachers were, they were teaching what would become Christianity’s greatest adversary. Irenaeus would later write his book Against Heresies to defend Christianity against such teaching. Irenaeus writes, “These men falsify the oracles of God, and prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretence of [superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe; as if, forsooth, they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein.[2]”
John warns his readers against these deceivers because they are an antichrist (verse7). His test for who qualified as a deceiver was whether or not they taught that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. If you read John’s first letter he is more descriptive of his opponents. He says things like they boast that they are without sin (1 John 1:8-10). They say they know God, but they are disobedient (1 John 2:4). They boast that they love God, but they hate their brothers and sisters[3].
Application:
John’s second letter reminds us to exercise discernment and to remember that there are false teachers in the world. Many of them appear to be Christian at first, but under the surface deny key things about Jesus Christ and who he is and what he has done for us.
Many of these teachers “run ahead” (2 John 9) of the truth about Jesus. They add to the Bible’s teaching.
How discerning would you say that you are, and have you ever encountered false teaching?- What comes to mind when you think about deceivers and antichrists?
- Why do you think John comes out so strongly against these false teachers?
Consider writing down a key verse or verses from today on an index card or small piece of paper and carry it with you today. Look at it as often as you can as a reminder of what we learned today.
Possible Verse: 2 John 9
[1] Nathan, Peter. “Christianity’s Tangled Roots.” Vision Blog, www.vision.org/visionmedia/religion-and-spirituality-tangled-roots/775.aspx.
[2] “Irenaeus of Lyons: Against Heresies.” Early Christian Writings, www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book1.html.
[3] Burge, Gary M. The Letters of John: the NIV Application Commentary from Biblical Text … to Contemporary Life. Zondervan, 1996.
