Imagine you are driving down the highway after work as you head towards home. It’s the same highway you take every day after work, Monday thru Friday, to get to your house. The roads are the same, the signs are the same, and the speed limit is the same. Nothing changes. This particular Friday afternoon, though, something different is about to happen.
A few miles before you exit the highway to get to the street that takes you to the entrance of your neighborhood, you notice blue and red lights flashing behind you. A little shocked and wondering what may be going on you turn your blinker on and pull over onto the shoulder of the road. You roll your window down, turn off the ignition, go ahead and pull out your license and insurance, and await an answer from the officer strolling up to your car.
“Good afternoon Officer. What did I do wrong,” you ask. “You were speeding. May I see your license and insurance?” As you hand him the information you already had ready, you ask “Are you sure I was speeding? The posted speed limit is 65. I had my cruise control set at 64.” The Officer looks at you in disbelief and says “The speed limit may be 65 here, but it’s 45 just a few miles down.” As he begins to write your citation you stare in absolute awe thinking that this may be a joke, or perhaps he misspoke. “Officer,” you say, “how can you give me a citation for doing 65 in a 45 on a road where that speed limit is not in jurisdiction? That seems not only unfair, but it seems wrong.” To which the Officer replies, “It may seem wrong to you, but I am the law. Furthermore, the principle of breaking the speed limit is present since someone, somewhere, at some time has violated the posted speed limit. I am merely applying the principle.”
“Really,” you say, “I must protest. This just is not right.” He replies, “Who are you to tell me what is and is not right? Do you have formal training in the law? Have you been handed down traditions of law keeping from well respected men? No! I do not think so. Besides, I am simply protecting the drivers I am given charge over. I am protecting them from people like you. And I am confident that this discipline will show you what breaking the speed limit does and that you will not do it again.”
Were this scenario to actually happen (and I guess there is that chance, although I am not aware of it) to a driver then such a driver would be beyond livid. They would seek to defend themselves against in justice. They would seek vindication against such a faulty application of law and jurisdiction. They would be right to do so.
2 John 10-11:
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting…
Out of all of the shadows cast onto the wall by moonlight exegesis, this one has the loudest bump that causes people to tremble in fear. By that I mean, this verse has the most forceful language, in my opinion, which causes people to do whatever it takes to not be like whoever this person is. And rather than examining the text within its context to see that the shadow is really nothing at all most people will simply submit to those wielding the sword of accusation. Consider the force of the text:
For many deceivers have gone out into the world… (v.7)
… [They] do not confess the coming of Christ (v.7)
Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist (v.7)
When 2 John 10-11 is used as proof text for severing children of God from the Body community, if the severed member notices the context and brings up the deceiver, antichrist language to the accuser, then the accuser will typically resort to sophistry. They may say something like “I am not questioning your salvation. I understand how tough this sounds. This is ‘church discipline’ and it has to be tough. Although this specific Scripture isn’t applicable to what’s going on, I am employing the principle of the text for the protection of the flock and your restoration.” Such lip-service is deceitful. How can someone rightly dividing the Word apply Scripture as a prescriptive text when it is descriptive of something entirely different historically, thematically, and grammatically? This is akin to the story at the beginning of this paper.
Furthermore, how can a deceiver and antichrist be restored to a Body in which they were never a member? Do not let the weight of this contextual question slip by unnoticed. If Body restoration is the goal of the misuse of 2 John 10-11 then how does the one misusing the text explain a deceiver and antichrist being restored back into a Body to which they never belonged? Is not the clear implication that the one not bringing the teaching spoken of in v.10 is the deceiver and antichrist? If this be true, would someone actually posit that this deceiver and antichrist is a believer who needs to be restored back into the Body of Christ?
Notice the similarities in 1 John to 2 John with regards to the antichrist:
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us (1 John 2:18-19).
John, writing to a 1st century audience, tells them that it is the last hour. They had heard that antichrist was coming. John informs them that antichrist have already come. These antichrist are not a Greek, mythological type character as is fantasized by many commentators. These antichrists are people that were among the Church, but who had left the Church.
Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2:22).
Further describing the antichrists of the 1st century, John calls them liars. What are they lying about? They are denying that Jesus is the Christ. This, John declares, is the antichrist.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out in the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already (1 John 4:1-4)
These people who were among the Church but left the Church are called spirits and false prophets. Spirits (people) who confess that Jesus came in the flesh are from God. Those who do not confess Jesus are not from God but instead are the spirit of antichrist which was already in the world during the last hour.
These antichrists, these people, spirits, and false prophets were denying the testimony of God; namely, that the love of God, Christ, was made manifest among them (1 John 4:9). He came in the flesh and dwelt among them (John 1:14). To embrace this by faith was the work of God and it was embracing Love, i.e. Christ. This resulted in those in darkness being transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). Those who were transferred into the kingdom of the beloved Son, those who had seen the light and embraced the truth of God being made manifest in the flesh through the Person of Jesus Christ no longer sinned the sin of denying the Savior. This is why John could say “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).
Compare this to the context of the erroneous proof text in 2 John:
For many deceivers (antichrist) have gone out into the world (they went out from among us), those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh (the liar, deceiver, antichrist). Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves (Christians in juxtaposition to the non-Christian antichrist), so that you may not lose what we have worked for (confidence in the teaching), but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ (faith in the Person and work of Christ Jesus manifested in the flesh which results in love), does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son (since to deny the One is to deny the Other). If anyone (of these antichrist persons) 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.
At the risk of being deemed caustic because of a sarcastic remark, so much for evangelism if we take seriously the shadow casting exegesis. According to such teachers we should never open the door for a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon. We should never invite an Atheist or Agnostic in to our home to share the Gospel. In fact, if we take the principle method to its logical conclusion then we should go to every length to remove ourselves from these people’s presence and influence. Fortunately this is not the case.
Gnosticism:
Lastly, the historical context of 1st and 2nd John absolutely must be considered. Why is John so concerned with defending the truth that Jesus Christ came in a flesh ministry against antichrist people? The answer is a historical fact agreed upon by nearly every commentator unanimously. That answer is that Gnosticism was prevalent and it was growing in regard.
In the 1st century there was a man named Cerenthus. Cerenthus was a man who followed the Jewish Law customs and employed the Gospel according to the Hebrews (or Hebrew Gospel) as his canon of Scripture. He believed that the Law was the means to salvation. Interestingly, Cerenthus taught that Jesus would establish a thousand year reign on earth before His return and ending of all things (a general resurrection was part and parcel of his teaching). He interpreted Revelation 20 literally. The Council of Nicea and Hippo both fiercely opposed Cerenthus and eventually his premillenial eschatology was deemed heretical. Cerenthus based his eschatological belief on Jewish tradition and a misquoting of Matthean texts, but I digress.
Cerenthus was teaching that Christ was born of Joseph and Mary; not a virgin Mary, but a married Mary who had copulated with Joseph. Cerenthus taught that a naturally born Jesus was not the Christ, but that the spirit of Christ entered Him at His baptism and then left Him at the crucifixion; the same belief taught, coincidentally, by some Jewish Christians in the 1st century. The Christ was from heaven, fulfilled a task in the material world, and then returned to the spirit world.
This early form of Gnosticism was furthered by a belief called Docetism. Docetism as a belief said that Jesus’ body was not physical. The body of Jesus was illusion. This belief system stated that Jesus did not actually suffer and die. This, too, was an illusion. Docetism as a belief said that Jesus was purely spirit, a ghost.
Knowing this historical fact sheds much light on the following statements from John to a 1st century Church:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out in the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already (1 John 4:1-4)
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 if the deceiver and the antichrist…If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting… (2 John 7, 10)
Now that we have tested the moonlight spirits who bring a false teaching that cast shadows on the wall at night, disrupting our peace and security in the work and Person of Christ, and have found it lacking any sound exegesis we can rest in the Son who counts us worthy to be in His Body. When these officers of an empty law steeped in the principle method try to pull us over and cite us, we have liberty and confidence in the Word of God in its proper context. His jurisdiction supersedes every earthly jurisdiction.
