Watch Yourselves – 2 John 1:4-11

What is the full expression of the church?  Is it adherence to the true gospel?  Yes.  But it is also living lives of obedience, and the most important command to obey is to love one another.  A healthy church demonstrates all three of these characteristics.  An unhealthy church fails in one or more of these characteristics.

I rejoiced 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.  (2 John 1:4-11 ESV)

John is speaking to the same issues in this letter as he is in his first letter.  The first letter may have been addressed to several churches and this one to a particular church in the group.  He urges this church to keep the three tests, love, truth and obedience, because of the deceivers who have and will attempt to alter the doctrine of Jesus in order to move true believers from their reward.  

If the antichrists can dissuade Christians from the truth all they have worked for can be undone.  So John once again states the doctrinal test.  You must confess that Jesus is the Christ who has come in the flesh.  He is not a phantom or a spirit who came upon the man.  He is fully God and fully man.  If you don’t confess this you don’t have God.

Should someone come to this congregation with the false teaching that Jesus Christ is not fully human and fully God, and they receive him and show him hospitality and so encourage others to accept his teaching, they are taking part in his wicked works.  False teachers must be exposed for who they are and rejected from the church.