2 John

Jesus is the Elder who truly governs the church. He has chosen to express that governance through other servants who shepherd the flock. His servant John writes as one of the Lord's apostolic ambassadors. He calls himself “the elder,” and he writes to the church as a chosen lady together with her children.

We who gather together in worship to call upon the Name above all names are God's lady and the Lord's family. We have been chosen by Him for a special life of truth, love, and obedience to the Lord's commandments. This love is relational and imitative. John calls Jesus the Son of the Father in truth and love. John is the elder who has learned to imitate Jesus in truth and love. He urges that life upon the church, the elect lady, and the relationship and imitation continue as the church grows with the inclusion of more and more of her children.

This is not merely an outwardly reality that is read as a rule of wisdom. The Christian way is based on an abiding presence in the life of the church. The Lord God dwells within us and moves us to walk in truth, love, and obedience. His message is alive in us, and He is in us, and will be with us forever. Because of the certainty of the promises of God secured for us in the life and death of the Son of God, grace, mercy, and peace will be with us. These have come from heaven, from the Father and the Son, and they will not be taken away.

As the church travels together toward our heavenly home, we face considerable spiritual danger. Some, but not all, within the body of Christ are walking in the truth. Others have turned away from it, and their continued presence in the church, together with their intention to be received as messengers of Christ, has created a religious environment that requires our serious attention.

We have to hear again the Lord's commandment that we love one another. This is an old word of instruction to us, since love has always been the way for those who would live in joyful subordination to the King of glory. Yet now it is as a new commandment, since the Lord of love has come to earth and has died for our sins. As we hear the message of the cross and believe, it is as if we have discovered true love for the first time.

Some have rejected that love. They have turned away from the truth of Jesus, the Son of God who came in the flesh. They may claim to have one or more of these Christian virtues of truth, love, and obedience, but they do not have the Son of God, so they cannot possibly have the gospel gifts that come to the church from heaven.

The fact is that even in the first century of New Testament church life, the Apostle John could plainly state that “many deceivers have gone out into the world.” What was the sign of these deceivers, these antichrists? They would not confess that Jesus the Messiah had come in the flesh. They stumbled over the Stone that the Old Testament religious leaders had also rejected.

Can it be that the eternal God became man? Yes it can be and is the case. It was necessary that our atoning sacrifice would be man in order to die the death that men deserved. Christ died as a man for men. But it was also necessary that he would have the power of an indestructible life as the unchangeable Son of God. There can be no doubt based on the Scriptures of the Old Testament prophets, that the One who came to save us would have to be “God with us” and “the Lord our righteousness.” No one else who could work the salvation that we needed. Therefor He Himself dressed for the battle of the ages, coming here to work the righteousness that the Father required. But it was also expected based on the Hebrew oracles that the Messiah would live and die as a true mortal man, and that he would be raised again as a resurrection man. See Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.

Some have rejected this message, and John warns the church to watch out for such deceivers. Everyone in the church should keep an eye on his own soul, and the leaders of the body of Christ in any city must protect the Lord's sheep from false prophets and teachers. They may be good-looking, intelligent, fun-loving, insightful, and skilled at presenting a compelling message. But if they will not hold to the doctrines of Christ, agreeing with all of the Scriptures concerning His person and works, then they are dangerous troublers of the body of Christ, who must be stopped before they destroy the ones they claim to love and serve.

Do not be content to see false teachers dismantle the Lord's temple and demolish His spiritual house. Let those who would speak for Christ stay with the approved and sound words handed down to us through the apostles, now contained for us in the New Testament. If they reject this Word, they have neither the Father nor the Son.

Such presumptuous apostles of error are not even worthy of being admitted into the Lord's church. The one who invites them in to God's house to promote their errors takes part in their destructive and wicked works. Christ did not come to destroy His people, but to build them up into a holy temple, a living letter of the Holy Spirit.

Let us hear the word of the true Son of God, and embrace Him in the warmth of true relationship. Let us give Him the respect of sincere imitation. Let us walk in truth and love in obedience to the Lord's commandments. The Lord has bought us with His blood. May we never abandon Him.