Last time we only just got started into 2 John, and we paused to consider “the elect lady and her children” – which reflects John's understanding of the church.
But tonight we are looking at the teaching of John's second epistle as a whole. And to understand what John is doing, look at verse 9.
In verse 9, John says: “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.”
The word for “go on ahead” means to “innovate.”
John is plainly referring to the sorts of people he spoke about in his first epistle – those who went out from us because they were not of us! But how do you know who is innovating? The Reformation provides perhaps the most striking example! Was Luther “going ahead” in his “innovative” doctrine of justification by faith alone? Or was he correct in saying that the late medieval practice of indulgences was a deadly innovation?
Today we love innovation! If it's new it must be better than the old! And sometimes it's true!
But how do you know what is innovation? Notice that John tells us what is the opposite of “going on ahead” – abiding in the teaching of Christ. Sure, there are difficult cases – were the Cyrillians in the 5th century in Egypt really heretics? who was “going” ahead in the 16th century on the Lord's Supper? where do you draw the line among 21st century African charismatics?
The way to find out is this: “are they abiding in the teaching of Christ?”
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