Let's turn to 2 John. Hear now the word of God from John's 2nd epistle. The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, in truth and love. I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 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 is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 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. If anyone 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. Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to come to you and talk face to face so that our joy may be complete. The children of your elect sister greet you." This is the word of our God. Last time, we only just got started into 2 John, and we saw what it means to speak of the elect lady and her children, which reflects John's understanding of the church. But tonight, we're looking at the teaching of John's 2 Epistle as a whole, and to understand what John is doing here, I'd like for us to start in verse 9, because verse 9, in a sense, contains the heart of what John is getting at. 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 going on ahead could also be translated to innovate. What does this mean, to innovate, to go on ahead? John is plainly referring to the same 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? How do you know who is going on out ahead? Think of the Reformation. Was Luther innovating? Was Luther going on ahead in his innovative doctrine of justification by faith alone? Or, on the other hand, Was he correct in saying that the late medieval doctrine of indulgences was a deadly innovation itself? It's a point worth considering because we live in a day that loves innovation. We have Innovation Park in South Bend that is designed to improve our technology. We think innovation is just the greatest thing in the world. But how do you know what John is speaking of? when he says, beware, do not go ahead, do not go on ahead, but remain, abide in the teaching of Christ. Certainly, there are difficult cases. If you go back to the 5th century, the folks who followed Cyril of Alexandria have since been labeled monophysites, those who teach that Christ has but one nature, not two. If you understand what they were getting at, they were getting at that Christ is one, that you can't sort of divide it into the divine does this and the human does that. You can't have two centers of activity in Jesus. Were the Cyrillians who wound up outside of the Catholic Church, were the Monophysites actually heretics? Were they going on ahead in their teaching? Who was going ahead? the 16th century and the debates over the Lord's Supper with Roman Catholic doctrine about transubstantiation and the Lutherans and the reforms and everybody's debating with each other and Lutheran leaves could not see eye to eye because both of them thought the other one was innovating all the one was going on ahead and Where do you draw the line today? amongst African charismatics some of whom clearly have the gospel There's others of them Where it's so much in signs and wonders that they don't even know that there is a gospel. It's all about power. It's all about stuff. It's all about what you get in this life. How do you know? Where do you draw the line between, when is somebody innovating, going on ahead in the way that John is warning us? Robert Yarbrough puts it this way. The challenge is to follow John's apostolic lead of discerning decline, of admonishing and encouraging and serving the faithful, and of continually recovering, abiding in the truth, faith, love, mercy, peace, grace, and the full range of other benefits and commands mediated by God's word in Christ. Are they abiding in the teaching of Christ? If you think back to John's first epistle, you see a community that is lacking in doctrinal belief. You see those who have gone out from us because they were not of us. And John says, they went out from us because they were not of us. They went out from us because they did not confess that Jesus is the Son of God, that he came in the flesh. So if you see a community that is lacking in doctrinal belief, practical obedience, or love for God and brother, then you are seeing a community that is innovating, that is failing to abide in the word of Christ, either in word, in love, or in deed. This begins to create challenges for us, because you can always see failings, and you can always see how the church is constantly in peril of going on ahead, of innovating in our doctrine, in our practice, in our love. Well, let's see how John handles this in his whole epistle. Last time we looked at verses 1 to 3 in some detail, John emphasizes the importance of the truth. And he uses this word, alethe, truth, five times in the first four verses. There is no substitute for truth in the church. The church, as Paul puts it, is the pillar and ground of the truth. And that's an important way of talking. in terms of understanding what John's doing here as well. Because when Paul speaks of the church as the pillar and ground, the church is that which the truth is placed upon. Church is not the source of truth. The church cannot create truth. Rather, the church is the place where truth is found. Truth which has its source in God alone. The truth abides in us and will be with us forever because Jesus Christ is the truth and he is with us forever. So, in other words, 2 John 1-3 sets up the warning against innovation that comes later by establishing the foundation of truth. I love the church, I love the elect lady and her children in truth, as do all who know the truth because of the truth that abides in us, namely Jesus Christ. But as we've seen already throughout 1 John, many times, the personal nature of truth as it is in Jesus does not obscure its propositional character, or perhaps better, its confessional character. The truth as it is in Jesus is propositionally true. Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came in the flesh and died and rose from the dead to save sinners. That's a statement of historical fact, but believing that historical fact does not save you. The devil believes every word of it. The devil believes that Jesus is the Son of God who came in the flesh and died and rose from the dead to save sinners. The devil has no problem believing that. He knows that to be true. Simply knowing that fact is not a salvific knowledge. The truth as it is in Jesus is fundamentally a confessional truth. If we confess that Jesus is Lord, we must confess that this propositional truth is the truth that we have come to believe for salvation. This truth is the one who abides in us. And that's what it means to walk in the truth, in verse 4. I rejoice greatly, John says, to find some of your children walking in the truth. As we saw last time, the sum here doesn't mean, I found some of them walking in the truth, but others aren't. It's rather, I have found those of your children. I have found that those of your children who are here are walking in the truth. Just as we were commanded by the Father. But now, in verse 5. He asks the dear lady, he asks the church, not as though I were writing you a commandment, but the one that we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. John says that this commandment is nothing new. If you think back to Leviticus 19, we have had it from the beginning of Moses and the law. Think back to Matthew 22, we have it from the beginning of Christ and the gospel. But verse 6 goes a step further. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. Walk in what? What's the it referring to? Now, Greek is a very helpful language in that Greek has grammatical gender. So that every noun and pronoun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter. And so when you look at the it here, the it is a feminine it. So that should help us, because all we need to do is go back to the last feminine noun. Only one problem. All the nouns in the sentence are feminine. Not only is love feminine, but so also is commandment. And for that matter, beginning is actually feminine as well, but that's not really in view here. So the question is, are you supposed to walk in love, or in the commandment? You could argue either one on grammatical grounds, but I would suggest that the solution is found. Are you supposed to walk in the commandment, or are you supposed to walk in love? Which, of course, you could argue that it's a tempest in a teapot, because what is the commandment but to love? But look how John sets up this verse. Love. Walk. Commandment. Commandment. Walk. It. What you have here is a chiasm. At the middle, you have the two times he refers to commandments. On either side, walk, and the first word was love, and the last word is it. I would suggest that the last word, then, is also love. This is love, that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment so that you should walk in love. So, love one another, John says, is the commandment. Now, that's curious, isn't it? Go back to Deuteronomy 6. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses said, this is THE commandment. And what was THE commandment in Deuteronomy 6? Shema Adi Yisrael, Yavah Eloheinu, Yavah Echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. That was the commandment in Genesis. Why does John say that the commandment now is love one another? Now, some would just say, well, John assumes the great commandment. But that would be perilous. Does John merely assume that God's people will remember to love him? And so he tells them, all you have to do is focus on loving one another. I would suggest that what John's doing here is, his theology of the Incarnation has far more radical implications for what the Great Commandment means. For John, the fact the propositional, historical, confessional truth of the Incarnation has brought about a new theological state of affairs. Since the Word has become flesh, since the Son of God has become man, the command to love the Lord your God and the command to love your neighbor have come together in Jesus. When you love Jesus, which command are you obeying? Are you obeying the great commandment to love the Lord your God? Or are you obeying the commandment of your neighbor? Jesus is both. In Jesus, the great commandments come together in one. So, as true God and true man, remember 1 John 5, 20, He is true God. And He has come in the flesh. Since Jesus Christ is the truth which abides in us, When you love one another, you are fulfilling both commands as well. Because Jesus is the truth who abides in you. And so loving one another means loving Jesus, means loving the God who has come to dwell with us. And you can see the importance of this confessional aspect of this command in verse 7 as well. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Notice how immediately after saying this is the commandment, the commandment is love one another, he then says, but think of what happens if you deny the incarnation. If you deny the incarnation, you deny love, you deny truth, you deny everything. Because apart from the incarnation of the Son of God, you have nothing else. And John tells us that many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is the deceiver and the Antichrist. We look at the identity of the Antichrist in 1 John 2 as well, and here John again identifies Antichrist as those who deny the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Notice that for John, Antichrist is not some future figure that's going to show up someday and look out for him. But it's one who is present today. There are many deceivers, John has told us, and by extension, many antichrists who have gone out into the world. And this is important for understanding who antichrists are. Antichrists have gone out into the world from where? Well, they went out from us because they were not of us. Antichrists start in the church. Deceivers and antichrists false messiahs arise from within the church. They do not remain with us because they are not of us They are like Simon Magus from Acts 8 they are in a sense foreign growths within the church Simon Magus who believed and Came to faith was baptized who knows maybe even spoke in tongues like everybody else did in Acts chapter 8 when the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit And he wanted this power, this is what the apostles had, to give the Holy Spirit. And so he asked, give me this power, I'll pay for it. And we're told that Peter basically kicked him out of the church. That's the last we hear of him in the scriptures. We hear more about him from the early fathers. Because Simon Magus went on to, he was the sort of guy who attracted a buckling. He had been known as the Great Power of God. That's what his word, Magus, is, the Great One. And as this Great One, he went on to found what became a mystic, heretical group, that they believed in Jesus in some sense of the word, but certainly not as the Incarnate God, who was God come in the flesh. And as Simon Magus and other teachers like him, like Valentinus and Marcian, early teachers who were in the church for a time, but they went out from us because they were not of us. These were the arch heretics who produced Gnostic theology, a view that denied that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. They believed in Jesus. They accepted parts of the apostles teaching, but they denied that Jesus was the son of God who had come in the flesh. And so Simon Magus, Valentinus and Marcian were properly called the deceiver and the antichrist. Now their doctrines have continued in various forms to this day. You can find the doctrines of Simon Magus and Valentinus and Marcian in various forms amongst Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses today. And indeed, you can even find some of their views in mainline Protestantism in certain circles, particularly among those who deny the virgin birth and the baptismal resurrection of Jesus. If you think about why the PCA exists today, It's because of the mainline Presbyterian Church permitted antichrists to remain as ordained ministers in the church. One of the clearest examples in recent years was an Episcopal bishop, John Shelby Spong. Bishop Spong is very open in his essentially gnostic views. He claims that Jesus was merely a man who died and stayed dead. But the disciples had a tremendous experience after the death of Jesus that they later, decades later he argues, they later referred to as the resurrection of Jesus. Thus, Pong says, and this is a quote from him, Paul did not envision the resurrection as Jesus being restored to life in this world, but as Jesus being raised into God. It was not an event in time, but a transcendent and transforming truth. This is precisely what John is warning against in 2 John. This is precisely the sort of failure of confession. This is age-old Gnosticism arising in new form, claiming that history doesn't matter. What matters is our experience. That may, at first blush, sound, OK, so there are these people out there who teach this. But the underlying doctrine there, that my experience is what matters, is precisely what everybody has a tendency to believe. What matters is my experience. What matters is what I encounter, not what happened in history. You see, this is this is precisely why we need to hear what John says about the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever. But and verses eight and nine help us understand what to do about this. Watch yourselves, John says. Look at yourselves, keep an eye on yourselves. Notice the the corporate implication of this. There's there's certainly you know watch yourself included in that you know keep an eye on your own Ideas, but also in the church It's The sort of relativism the sort of the idea that that all truths are essentially equal is a denial of the incarnation of Jesus the idea that that Islam and Hinduism and Mormon and all these different religions are essentially similar But they all are different paths to God is a denial of the incarnation of the Son of God It's a denial that what happens in history matters because Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father, but by me and so when he says watch yourselves be aware of Understand what is going on in and among yourselves. Why? So that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Jesus often spoke of receiving a reward. It's connected with doing good, as Jesus says in Matthew 10, verse 42. Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. And in Luke 6.35, love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3.14, if the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. This concept of reward in scripture, John is concerned here to say, Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. The reward at the final judgment is only for those who persevere. It's only for those who do not give up. Because those who give up, those who turn away, those who turn aside, or those who go on ahead, to use John's language, lose what they have worked for. They have turned aside from the one who is the truth. And that's where we oftentimes think about reward. We usually don't think about reward in terms of what we receive because of what we've done. But that's because God's judgment is not based on your works. Your works are not the reason why you inherit eternal life. The basis of God's judgment is what Christ has done. But good works, if you want a simple way of explaining how good works relate to eternal life, good works are, and I'll use fancy words, but if you think about them, they make a lot of sense. They are necessary subsequent conditions of our justification. It actually makes sense if you just take them one by one. They're necessary. Good works must happen. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. They are subsequent, since we are only able to obey after God has delivered us. And they are conditions, since it is not possible to have a living and active faith without then doing what God has said. And so it's proper to say that good works are necessary, subsequent conditions, to our justification. So, in that sense, that's why John will say, watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. It's perfectly consistent with what the scriptures teach elsewhere on justification by faith alone. If you would receive the full reward, eternal life, then be attentive to yourselves. And that's where we consider verse 9. Because 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 teaching of Christ is what John says we need to abide in. And whoever abides in this teaching has both the Father and the Son. But whoever goes on ahead does not have God. Now, what Where do you draw the line? Does this who are the ones who go on ahead? Does this mean Rome with its novel doctrines of purgatory the immaculate conception of Mary and the infallibility of the Pope? Does this mean Constantinople with their novelty of the doctrine of icons? Does this mean Baptists who innovated with their doctrine of believers baptism only? Well, what about Martin Luther with his going ahead in promulgating justice by faith alone? or the Reformed with their innovative doctrine of reprobation, which hadn't been around in the church for a long time. But notice the perspective in these questions. All these questions regarding Rome, Baptists, Lutherans, Reformed, focus on the question of going ahead of the church and where the church was at at the time the teaching came forth. Notice that John is not talking about the teaching of the church, but with those who go on ahead and do not abide in the teaching of Christ. Now, John would certainly object to any church whose teaching did not abide in the teaching of Christ. So the teaching of the church should be grounded in and should be abiding in the teaching of Christ. But for John, The teaching of Christ stands above all churches. John declares his love for the elect lady and her children. He loves the church, but the church is not the source of the teaching of Christ. The church's teaching does not determine what is the teaching of Christ. Notice how John says it. The church's teaching must abide in the teaching of Christ. And this is precisely why John says to the elect lady, to the church, watch yourselves, because there is no guarantee that the church will always get it right. John's warning here reminds us that there are times when error and heresy prevail. There are times when the deceiver and the antichrist are bishops in the church. Indeed, verse 10 assumes that this is in fact the case, even in John's day. If anyone 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. False teachers, antichrists should not be welcome in your home or or in the church, but notice notice how this happens. John assumes that they're there. in his own day. There are these false teachers, there are these antichrists, these deceivers, who are coming to you. They are coming to the elect lady. In the first century, we know this from not only the test of the epistles, but the decay and from other documents. We know there are, the way that the church is structured, there are teachers who are going from place to place. John himself is one of them. After all, he's writing to the elect lady. which seems to be the church where he is more or less pastor, and yet he's not there now, he's teaching someplace else. He was one who had come to a church in another town, and is receiving hospitality from them. You might think that it would have been so easy in the first century. After all, you have the apostles there, right? But, how do you know that you're supposed to trust the apostles? Think about it. If you are living in the first century, how do you know that you're supposed to trust John? Because he says, I learned from Jesus. Well, somebody else comes to town. Valentinus comes to town and says, I learned from Jesus too. Who do you believe? You have it on John's testimony, but that which we have seen And you have it on Valentinus' testimony, or Simon Meeks' testimony. I have seen, I know. Who are you going to believe? There, at this time, would not have been authoritative writings that you could consult. Sure, the Gospels, at least some of them, would have been written by this point, but How do you know that this gospel which was according to Mark or according to Matthew? There are other gospels out there in the first century. There are things that the Gnostics are writing that claim that they certainly read something like gospels, the gospel of Thomas and others. How do you know? You judge according to the teaching of Christ, the apostolic witness that you have heard from the apostles. The teaching of Christ, John says, is the standard, the canon, by which all other teachers are judged. John here is utterly repudiating what will later be called the two-source idea of tradition. The idea that there is not only the writings of the apostles but then there's also official church teaching which carries on this equally authoritative voice. That's the view that results in either an infallible church or an infallible pope. But John does not say that the teaching of the elect lady, or the teaching of the Bishop of Rome for that matter, is the authoritative standard. He says the teaching of Christ is the authoritative standard. In other words, for John, the authoritative standard is something that remains outside of the church. The teaching of Christ, the word of God, stands over the church and judges and evaluates every claim to Christian teaching. So when a teacher comes to town, you listen to his teaching. Notice the assumption that John, you know this guy's sound? Well, you listen to what he says and you measure it against the teaching of Christ. And if you do not hear this teaching, do not receive him into your house. Now, notice there's an assumption behind this. That if you do hear this teaching, you will receive him into your house. John assumes that Christians will practice hospitality, love of strangers, and especially towards traveling preachers of the gospel. I'd comment that this should be something that characterizes us. that we should be characterized by hospitality, love of strangers, and especially love for those who are preaching the gospel of Christ as they travel through town. And likewise, the greeting that John speaks of here is more than just saying hello. Christian greetings conveys the idea of recognizing this person as a fellow Christian. If you greet the false teacher as a Christian, then you are sharing in his teaching, you are sharing in his wicked works. And John says, you cannot love your brethren and share in the wicked works of Antichrist. As Yarbrough puts it, John has in mind aiding and abetting people who are undercutting apostolic doctrine and leadership as represented by John. You can be polite to Mormon missionaries when they knock on the door. But you should do nothing to aid them and encourage them. They are messengers of Antichrist. And John says that if you follow any teaching besides the teaching of Christ, then you separate yourself not only from Christ, but from God Himself. Notice how John very clearly says, any other teaching, communism, Islam, Hinduism, there's no other teaching. that can bring you to God, because only through Christ. Any other teaching separates you not only from Christ, but from God Himself. John concludes in verses 12 and 13 by saying that he has more to write, but that he will not use paper and ink, but rather that he will talk with them face to face. Literally in Greek, mouth to mouth. Now, you may think mouth-to-mouth is a strange way of saying it, since mouth-to-mouth in English refers to a way of reviving somebody who's not breathing. But, if you think about it, talking face-to-face is also a rather odd way of saying it. Faces don't talk. Mouths do. So, actually, talking mouth-to-mouth makes a little more sense. But John says that he hopes to talk with them mouth-to-mouth, so that our joy may be complete. Think about that. Talking face-to-face, talking mouth-to-mouth will make our joy complete. Many of the sweetest moments in my Christian life have come with fellow Christians as we speak together of the glorious work of Christ, the wonders of mercy and grace. That's not purely intellectual enjoyment. speaking of the glory of God, the power of His Spirit, the majesty of His Son, is an expression of the fellowship that we share together in Christ, in the truth. We find joy in speaking together in our fellowship with one another, which expresses our fellowship with God. Augustine, in his Confessions, tells how throughout his life, He always wanted to experience that mystical ascent to contemplate God himself. And he tried to do it through other means. Platonism was one of his main ways. He tried to ascend to God through his mystical contemplation and he'd get these brief flashes, glimpses, but nothing that really quite satisfied. And then he tells the story shortly before his mother died, of the time that he and his mother were speaking of the glory of Christ. And at first the dialogue begins with, you can tell when Monica is speaking, when Augustine is speaking, and soon their dialogue melds together so that you can no longer tell who is saying what, as he expresses in this rapturous form the experience of speaking mouth-to-mouth and finding joy, achieving that mystical contemplation. But unlike the Neoplatonists, for the Neoplatonists, this was something you had to do alone in your private contemplation. For Augustine, it becomes this is what you attain in fellowship with each other as you speak mouth-to-mouth of this truth, of this glory, that begins to swallow you up in itself as you find yourself in him. Why do we have Bible studies? Is it to learn information? Sort of. Information's good. Is it so that we can learn what we should do? Sure. Shorter Catechism says, what do the scriptures principally teach? Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, what duty God requires of man. You may recall that in the 1 John series, I expressed a little bit of uncomfortability with the way the Shorter Catechism puts that, because you get faith and duty, but there's not that sense of love and abiding. Well, this week I realized that actually the reason why it's not there is because the Westminster Divines were far smarter than I thought they were. They put it in question one. They put it in What underlies everything else? What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. The abiding, the loving, the enjoying God, then, sure, needs to be expressed in what we believe concerning God and what duty God requires of us. Everything else is found in Him. The reason why we have Bible studies, the reason why we encourage people to get together during the week is not just so we can get information in our heads. It's so that we can speak mouth-to-mouth of the glory of Christ. If all we're doing in our Bible studies is stuffing our heads full of information, or if all we're doing is going out to do things, If it's just the intellectual, if it's just the practical, it's not what John's talking about when he warns us against innovation. Indeed, we'll likely be going on ahead in something because we will have forgotten what everything else is bound up in. 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. When you abide in the teaching, the Father and the Son together dwell with us by His Holy Spirit. And that has been expressed as we speak of these things mouth to mouth in rejoicing in Him. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we do thank You and we praise You that You have loved us and that You have demonstrated Your love for us in sending Your only Son, that He came in the flesh, that He suffered for us, though we were aliens, strangers, though we were enemies, yet He died for us. And Father, we confess that that too often we have gone on ahead, too often we have not sought first your kingdom, but we have sought first our own glory. We have sought first our own ways. Have mercy on us, O God. Help us, O Lord, to love you, to love one another, because as you have commanded, that we love one another. And as we love Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we love both one another and You. And we pray, O Lord, that Your love would take root in our hearts, that it would overflow, that Your truth would abide in us, that we might know You, love You, walk before You all our days. Have mercy on us, O God, for we too quickly forget, we too quickly abide in other teaching. Grant us ears, O Lord, to hear Jesus. And grant us hearts that love you and abide in you forever. We pray in Jesus' name.