Bible Exposition Commentary » 2 John

2 John 1:12-13

Grant Richison — Sat, 20 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“Having many things to write to you, I did not wish to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that our joy may be full. ¹³ The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen.”

We come to the conclusion of 2 John in verses 12 and 13.

Having many things to write to you,

John has more to say on the subject of 2^nd John.

I did not wish to do so with paper and ink;

“Paper” here is papyrus, not parchment (which is much more costly). They made papyrus by placing strips of pith side-by-side and then crosswise with a paste. They made “ink” from lampblack, carbon or soot.

It is one thing to write something on paper but it is another to speak personally “face to face.”

but I hope to come to you and speak face to face,

John hopes to visit his readers personally to explain more fully the principles behind 2^nd John.

that our joy may be full

The readers of 2^nd John will be full of joy when John comes to explain himself more fully. Spoken words face to face are a more suitable method of interaction than writing.

The children of your elect sister greet you. Amen

The reference here is to two Christian women and their children. The mother of the 2^nd set of children may have died. These children may be the nephews and nieces of the elect lady (v. 1). These “children” may be those who informed John of the elect lady’s error in entertaining false teachers.

PRINCIPLE: There is joy in Christian fellowship.

APPLICATION: Far too many of us endure religion rather than enjoy the richness of Christian fellowship.

2 John 1:11

Grant Richison — Fri, 19 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“…for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.”

for

The word “for” gives the reason for the sharp prohibition of verse 10 – “Do not greet them.”

he who greets him shares in his evil deeds

To show hospitality to false teachers is to partake of their heresy. The word “shares” conveys close union and active participation. This word never carries casual or superficial connection.

PRINCIPLE: Showing hospitality to heretics helps propagate their error because it gives credibility to their teaching.

APPLICATION: Our generation is tolerant of heresy, whereas God says that we are not to have tolerance for it at all. Biblically, love has its limits. It is not love to extend hospitality to heresy.

In his last book, The Great Evangelical Disaster, Francis Schaffer wrote that evangelicals of our generation would accommodate truth to fit the culture of our generation, thus subverting our own beliefs. Many are too ready to engage in doubt even about the verities of the faith. They have a shrinking sense of the peril of heresy.

The issue here is not an unloving attitude toward heretics but decisive dealing with error. When Christians deviate from the truth, they defect from God who is the truth. God is not tolerant of differences in terms of content of truth. God expects Christians to be courteous and tolerant in terms of mode.

Ga 1:⁸ “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”

1 Co 16:²² “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!”

2 Co 6:¹⁴ “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? ¹⁵ And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

‘I will dwell in them

And walk among them.

I will be their God,

And they shall be My people.”

¹⁷ Therefore

“Come out from among them

And be separate, says the Lord.

Do not touch what is unclean,

And I will receive you.”

¹⁸ “I will be a Father to you,

And you shall be My sons and daughters,

Says the Lord Almighty.’”

Ep 5:¹¹ “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”

1 Ti 6:⁵ “…useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”

2 Ti 3:⁵ “…having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

Those who give credibility to teachers participate in their teaching, whether good or evil. If we wish heretics well, we fellowship with their heresy. We fellowship in their teaching. Instead of rebuking them, we unintentionally assist their principles and spread their teaching.

2 John 1:10b

Grant Richison — Thu, 18 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him…”

do not receive him into your house

John warned his readers not to provide hospitality to false teachers. There is no compromise here: “Do not recognize him as a genuine Christian by giving him hospitality. Do not give him the credibility of a Christian.” The elect lady already had extended hospitality indiscriminately to these false teachers because the phrase “do not” means to stop doing something you are already doing. She provided food and lodging for antichrists! She invested her resources for the devil!

nor greet him

The first century person used the word “greet” for the arrival and departure of a visitor (2 Co 13:11). It was a cordial salutation. John says in effect, “Do not encourage false teachers. Don’t give them a warm welcome to your congregation.” This applies solely to antichrists. We should not over interpret this to mean that we should forbid anyone who disagrees with our point of view. John’s reference here is to teachers of false doctrine and not merely the believers of it.

PRINCIPLE: False love loves without discrimination.

APPLICATION: Dealing ruthlessly with false doctrine seems unduly harsh to the modern mind. The problem, however, lies with modern man, not with God. North American and European culture tends to be exceedingly tolerant of religious differences. God does not mollycoddle this same distortion. God cannot contradict His own absolutes. Man is relative and God is absolute. The more absolutes in which one believes, the more conviction he has about what is true and right.

There are two extremes to this issue: 1) There are those who coddle any idea that comes down the pike; they use no discrimination regarding with whom they fellowship. These types are maudlin and mawkish in their love. 2) Then there are those who separate themselves from almost anyone who even slightly disagrees with them. Both of these extremes are wrong. The issue at hand concerns those teachers who deny fundamental Christian doctrine.

2 John 1:10

Grant Richison — Wed, 17 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him…”

We come now to the second warning – intolerance for the access of antichrists to the local congregation.

If anyone comes to you

Traveling teachers depended on local people for lodging and finances (Ac 18:2-3; 21:7; 3 Jn 5-8). The “if” indicates the reality of the attendance of false teachers in the church at Ephesus.

and does not bring this doctrine,

“This doctrine” is the doctrine of the incarnate Christ. False teachers who denied the incarnation did visit the elect lady’s congregation. Their purpose was to spread Gnostic doctrine.

For the third time, John uses the word “doctrine.” It is impossible to be a Christian without doctrine. We have to know Whom we believe, what we believe and why we believe it. If a person is wrong about Christ, he is wrong about everything in Christianity. Jesus Christ is the substructure for everything in the Bible.

PRINCIPLE: There is no latitude for difference in the doctrine of the incarnation.

APPLICATION: There are doctrines in the Bible that leave room for honest difference of opinion among evangelicals; however, there is no latitude in the doctrine of Christ. If we make a mistake about Jesus Christ, it will cost us our souls. He is the only way of access into heaven.

Jn 10:⁷ “Then Jesus said to them again, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ “All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. ⁹ “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.’”

Jn 14:⁶ “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way [literally, road], the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”

Ac 4:¹² “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

1 Co 3:¹¹ “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Co 2:⁹ “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; ¹⁰ and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”

2 John 1:9

Grant Richison — Tue, 16 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.”

John now demonstrates the gravity of defecting to the false teachers (cf. verse 8). Christian courtesy and hospitality do not extend to false teachers. It is a grave issue to tamper with false teachers.

Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God.

The word “transgresses” should be translated “goes onward.” This is a sarcastic allusion to Gnostic false teachers who were trying to bring the church into their fold. These false teachers thought that their teaching went beyond the traditional view of Christ.

The transgressor here is a Christian who defects from the pure doctrine of Christ to a supposedly higher view of truth. Gnostics claimed to be advanced thinkers for the enlightened, but John warns against teaching that does not stay within the structure of apostolic teaching.

He who abides in the doctrine of Christ

The term “abides” indicates that John speaks of vital belief in the truth. “Abides” indicates that this person is a Christian. Note that in the previous verse John warns against loss of reward (v. 8).

True belief always revolves around a proper view of Christ. Dead orthodoxy cannot produce vital fellowship with God. It is one thing for the truth to abide in the believer and it is another for the believer to remain in the truth.

1 Jn 2:²² “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

has both the Father and the Son

If we confess the Son, we possess the Father. If we deny the Son, we renounce the Father. We cannot deny Christ and believe in the Father at the same time. That is why non-Christian religions cannot be true. It is not true that there are many roads to heaven, for either Jesus is who He claimed to be or He is a faker. To advance beyond Christ is to reject Christ.

Those who embrace Jesus Christ embrace the Father as well. They have dynamic relationship to both.

Jn 14:²¹ “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, ‘Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?’ ²³ Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. ²⁴ “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.”

The argument here is not that mere orthodoxy leads to dynamic fellowship but that genuine fellowship issues from right doctrine.

PRINCIPLE: Those who go beyond the bounds of Scripture are not of God.

APPLICATION: Whenever some teacher comes along and professes some special new revelation, be wary of him for he is a faker. Groups that claim that the Bible is not fully sufficient to tell us all that we know about God are in error. The test of truth is always the Word of God and the person of Christ.

The exhortation to deal definitely with false teachers appears strange in a day when compromise, accommodation and doctrinal confusion reign supreme. Much of truth today is watered down, diluted and adulterated.

2 John 1:8b

Grant Richison — Mon, 15 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.”

but that we may receive a full reward

The “lady” and her children will lose their reward for faithful missionary service if they fall for the false teachers. If they allow false teachers to proselytize their community of believers, they will lose those for whom they labor.

“Reward” is the term for a day laborer’s wage. People who work for a living should receive due wages for their labor.

Mt 5:¹² “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

1 Co 3:⁸ “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.”

Generally God rewards hospitality (Mt 10:41; 25:40) but not in this case. If a Christian does not discriminate between truth and error, she will lose her reward. This loss of reward would only be partial. She would still receive some reward (1 Co 3:11-15).

Co. 2:¹⁸ “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹ and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.”

Co 3:²³ “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, ²⁴ knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. ²⁵ But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.”

PRINCIPLE: Christians should aim for a “full reward” in heaven.

APPLICATION: Even if Christians lose some reward they will not lose all reward. God does not forget our labor of love (He 6:10). If there is anything coming to us, we should get it all. We should get a “full reward.”

It is quite clear that some will not receive full reward. Work and effort for Christ can be lost. Do not let anyone cheat you out of your reward. Do not let some fast-talking, religious salesman cheat you out of your reward.

Mt 5:¹¹ “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. ¹² “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Mt 6:⁶ “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Mt 6:¹⁶ “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ¹⁷ “But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ “so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Ro 14:¹² “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.”

1 Co 3:⁸ “Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. ¹⁰ According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, ¹³ each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. ¹⁴ If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

1 Co 4:⁵ “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.”

2 Co 5:¹⁰ “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

Re 22:¹² “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. ¹³ “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”

We have a short time down here to be effective; then God will usher us into His presence. Will there be any crown on our head there? Will there be any reward, any fruit? Will you have little to present to the Master? You will stand there alone. You will be accountable for the life that God gave you. He will search your hearts and give a reward for what is done for His glory.

God always rewards justly. He will not give us an A when we deserve a B. Some of us deserve a D. If so, God will not give us a C. Rewards are not given; they are deserved. God always rewards us according to absolute fairness.

2 John 1:8

Grant Richison — Sun, 14 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.”

Verse 8 contains John’s second warning. This is a warning about rewards.

Look to yourselves,

This is an exhortation to the “elect lady” and her children. “Look” is in the present tense indicating that we are to be continuously on our guard against false doctrine. No believer who wishes to stay on his spiritual toes wants to be tainted to the slightest degree with false teaching. This is especially true in widespread defection from the faith. It is easy to get caught up in the crowd.

Mt 24:⁴ “And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you. ⁵ ‘For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.’”

The verb “look” means to have spiritual perception and carries a more intent, earnest seeing or contemplation – take heed. Believers need to watch out for spiritual disaster. They are not to be blind to spiritual deception.

that we do not lose those things we worked for,

Compromise with false teaching leads to loss of reward. Loss of salvation is not in view here, but loss of reward.

PRINCIPLE: The existence of error demands self-examination.

APPLICATION: There is an issue in which each Christian should be duly concerned about himself – the area of false doctrine. Participation in false teaching negates reward in heaven. Any departure from the faith results in regrettable loss of reward. Christians need to place themselves under continuous guard against this. If we do, we will protect our spiritual gains here on earth.

Any true Christian who gets involved with a cult will lose his reward. He will not lose his salvation but his reward. He did not work for His salvation, so he cannot lose it. He did not work for it in the first place so he cannot lose it in the second place. However, since he did give effort for his reward, he can lose reward. Anything he deserves, he can lose. He will throw away all his service for the Lord. Everything from that moment on is wood, hay and stubble.

We Christians cannot afford to relax our vigilance against false teaching. If we do, we may lose reward. Our eternal life is eternally secure but our reward is not. We want our fruit to last eternally.

Co 2:¹⁸ “Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind…”

There are many religious “sweet talkers” out there. They will seduce you if they can. They will beguile you, hoodwink you, bamboozle you and fool you. If you cave into them, you will lose your reward over there.

2 Co 13:⁵ “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified. ⁶ But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.”

1 Ti 4:¹⁶ “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”

Re 3:¹¹ “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.”

2 John 1:7b

Grant Richison — Sat, 13 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”

This is a deceiver

John now stamps the person who denies the incarnation as a “deceiver” and “an antichrist.” John does not mean here that the deceivers of his day were “the” Antichrist of the Tribulation.

A “deceiver” is a religious seducer who leads others astray (1 Ti 4.1). A deceiver is an imposter, a faker, who misleads people doctrinally.

and an antichrist

An “antichrist” is someone opposed to Christ. He may usurp the role of Christ (1 Jn 2:18). The word “antichrist” occurs only five times in the Bible and all five are in John’s writings (1 Jn 2:18 [2 times], 22; 4:3).

PRINCIPLE: Many fakers surreptitiously sneak into the local church with their false doctrine.

APPLICATION: The world today is filled with phonies and fakers. Many of them are in the local church. They sneak in surreptitiously. They do not want people to know what they truly believe.

2 Pe 2:¹ “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.”

Ju ⁴ “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

If a person is wrong about Jesus Christ, he is wrong about everything from God’s viewpoint. The person and work of Jesus Christ is the standard for measuring everything that matters to God. We can detect false teachers by their thinking about Christ.

Mt 22:⁴¹ “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, ⁴² saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?’”

Antichristian teaching essentially is that teaching which repudiates the deity of Christ and His true humanity. If we do not honor the Son, we do not honor the Father.

Jn 5:²³ “…that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”

2 John 1:7

Grant Richison — Fri, 12 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”

John now moves to the occasion for his writing of 2^nd John – safeguard of truth. This is a challenge to resist false teachers. Verse seven is the reason for the challenge in verse six. It is a warning not to propagate error by hosting false teachers and thereby giving them credibility. Love requires a condition to its integrity — the truth of God’s Word.

John gives 3 warnings:

· Warning against many deceivers abroad, v 7.

· Warning against receiving a half-reward, v 8.

· Warning against apostates who reject the deity of Christ, vv 9-11.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world

There were few suitable motels in the first century so traveling teachers stayed in homes of the locality where they ministered. Many of these teachers were imposters. Some of them taught Gnosticism which held that, since matter is evil, God could not dwell in human flesh.

The presence of false teachers proves damaging to the exercise of mutual love because their teaching negates the essence of Christianity, the incarnation. The false teacher, Cerinthus, preyed not on pagans but on true Christians.

who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.

The essential error rampant in John’s day related to the doctrine of Christ. They denied that He came in the flesh (1 Jn 5:1). They could not conceive of the fact that Jesus was both truly God and perfect man. All of Christianity revolves around this doctrine.

1 Jn 4:² “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”

PRINCIPLE: There is a need for great discrimination in the present-day culture of non-discrimination.

APPLICATION: We live in a day when almost no one wants to exercise spiritual discrimination because we live in a culture that neutralizes truth. No one wants to be dogmatic or claim anything definitely. David Wells, in his book No Place for Truth, comes to the conclusion that evangelical Christians of our day have arrived at the point where there is no place for truth. He chronicles doctrinal death among evangelicals. He says that this cliché culture has taken a dreadful toll on the human spirit, emptying it of “meaning, depth and morality.”

Churches today refashion their faith increasingly on therapies centered on self. They have lost the truth that stands outside human experience. Instead of standing apart from the blandishments of the world, they are absorbed into it.

We have to be accurate in the truth of God. If a chemist is not exact in his measurements, he may blow the lab into pieces. We live in a day when anything is good enough when it comes to truth. Anything is not good enough and almost is not close enough. Two plus two never equals five. There is no place for sloppiness in expounding the truth of the Word of God.

2 John 1:6c

Grant Richison — Thu, 11 Oct 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Read Introduction to 2 John

“This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.”

you should walk in it

A command cannot generate love but love can be commanded. Love manifests itself in responding to God’s will. Love for God is equal to keeping His commandments (Jn 14:15,31; 15:10,14). By the phrase, “walk in it,” John is saying in effect, “Put into practice your love for God, and don’t reinterpret God’s Word for sentimental reasons. Don’t yield to false teachers simply because they need a place to eat and sleep.”

Ro 13:⁸ “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ¹⁰ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

PRINCIPLE: Spirituality is more than dull and dead orthodoxy; it is vital response to God’s will.

APPLICATION: Walking in the truth can be as dry as last year’s bird nest. Orthodoxy without “orthopraxy” can be dry as dust. Many churches are like this today. They do not experience truth; they just assert truth. They are sound in doctrine but sound asleep in vitality.

Pharisees of 2000 years ago believed their Bible but they were dead to a vital walk with God. Walking in the truth is more than believing the truth. It is practicing the truth. This involves loving one another.