I have always enjoyed watching a good magician perform his tricks. When I was a kid, I even wanted to learn how to do some magic tricks myself, so I found a catalog from a company that sold supplies for magic tricks and I bought some things—a deck of cards that was rigged for a certain trick, a rod with jewels on it that supposedly changed colors, and some other things. I tried for awhile to really master those tricks so I could amaze people with my magical abilities, but I never got very good at it.
Now, in order to enjoy a magic show, you have to allow yourself to be deceived a little bit. No matter what your eyes tell you, you know that the magician’s assistant wasn’t really sawn in half, but you go along with it to enjoy the entertainment value of the show. We do the same thing when we read fairy tales or watch movies about superheroes—we allow ourselves to be deceived just a little bit in order to let our imagination go.
This is okay when we’re talking about entertainment, but when we think of our beliefs about God and His Word, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived. As we learned when we studied the first part of 2 John, the truth of God is the foundation for the Christian community. It is the tie that binds us, the foundation upon which our fellowship as a church is built, so if the foundation of truth starts to crumble, the church will suffer and our service for God in this world will be weakened and compromised.
The truth of Christianity has always been under attack from those outside of the faith who want nothing to do with it. But an even greater danger has existed from those who want to be called followers of Christ and yet deny some of the central truths about who He is. The apostle John is going to turn our attention toward such false teachers in the last part of his letter, and we are going to find two commands that will help us dodge deception. Let’s read these verses, and then we will look at these two commands [READ 2 John 1:7–13].
We find the first command in vv. 7–9…
I. Guard yourself against deception (vv. 7–9)
When we looked at v. 6 in our previous study, we saw that John had emphasized the need to follow the command to love each other “just as you have heard from the beginning.” Now why did John stress that this was something which they had heard from the beginning? Well, because as he says in v. 7, “for many deceivers have gone out into the world.” These deceivers or false teachers might lead the people astray from the truth that they had been taught from the beginning of the church, and as we read a moment ago, John is going to warn his readers about these false teachers.
Now in the last part of v. 7, John mentions the error that the deceivers’ false teaching revolved around. He says they “do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.” From the writings of church leaders around this point in history, we know that John was talking about a heresy called Docetism. Docetism had its roots in Greek philosophy, and this teaching was basically a denial that Jesus was a real human being. According to some Greek philosophers, the human body was the epitome of corruption and evil; it was literally the embodiment of all evil desires. And so with this background in Greek philosophy, these false teachers thought, “Wait a minute—God living in a human body is like putting a square peg in a round hole. It just doesn’t fit! God is pure, and the human body is evil, so if Jesus was really from God, then He must not have been a real human being—He must have only looked like a human being, but He couldn’t have had a real physical body.”
And so as John says, they denied the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. That was their hang-up with orthodox Christianity—they were apparently willing to say that Jesus had come from God, but they weren’t willing to say that He had a real human body. But of course, if Jesus wasn’t a real human being—if he was just some kind of ghost or something like that—then He couldn’t have actually died on the cross, and He couldn’t have actually risen from the dead. So you can see how various doctrines start to topple over like a line of dominoes once you embrace this false idea.
So John has some pretty stern words for these false teachers. He says, “such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.” Now when we hear the word “antichrist,” we probably think immediately of the world ruler of the end times who is predicted in the Bible. But as John wrote over in 1 John 4:3, the spirit of antichrist is already in the world, because ultimately Satan is behind all of this—he is behind false teaching, and he will be behind the rebellion that the antichrist will lead in the end times.
So with such characters roaming around trying to promote false doctrine, its no surprise that John writes in v. 8, “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.” John clearly wants them to be on guard so that they are not deceived by these false teachers. Otherwise, the service that they had been doing for the Lord would be hindered, and they would not receive the full reward from God that they otherwise would receive. They might not hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” if their ministry was derailed by these false teachers.
In v. 9, we see that John clearly wants them to understand that this teaching is not from God [READ v. 9]. What the false teachers were teaching may have sounded very good and very spiritual, but it was wrong, and it did not have God’s approval.
So if there is anything that comes through loud and clear in these verses, it is that doctrine matters; what you believe matters, and it makes a difference. As the old saying goes, “ideas have consequences.” Let me give you a rather silly example to illustrate this. Suppose you wanted to have younger-looking skin, and you came to believe that smearing Crisco all over your face would help you achieve that. Now if you acted out on that belief, it would probably have some consequences for your skin!
Now the thing about doctrine is that the consequences of what you believe are far more subtle, but that really makes them all the more dangerous because they can have an effect on your life that you don’t immediately recognize. So we must take great care to assess the things we believe about God, and we must make sure that we don’t become deceived by someone who is teaching falsehoods about the essentials of the faith.
Now in the next few verses, John is going to instruct us about protecting both ourselves and others from false teachers.
II. Do nothing to help false teachers in their efforts (vv. 10–11)
Let’s read vv. 10–11 [READ vv. 10–11]. Now these verses could have some very direct application for us today. I imagine that most of us from time to time receive visits from Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses as they go door-to-door through town. I don’t know how familiar you are with the beliefs of these groups, but their beliefs have twisted the truth of Christianity in such a way that would put them in the same category as the false teachers that John is writing about in this letter. Their beliefs aren’t quite the same as what is described in v. 7, but John’s teaching would apply to them as well.
So John says if someone comes to us and they are not teaching the truth, we should not receive them into our homes or give them any greeting. What does John mean by these statements? Let’s look at them each in turn.
First, John says “do not receive him into your house.” What does this mean for us? When we receive visits from Mormons of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they generally ask if they can come in and talk to us for a while. Is John saying that we shouldn’t let them in the door? Well, perhaps, but we should keep one thing in mind from the history of that time. When this letter was written, it was not unusual for evangelists and teachers to travel around among various churches—much like we have missionaries or conference speakers or music groups that come through our church today. But at that time, there wasn’t a Motel 6 in every town that people could stay at, and many of the hotels that did exist doubled as brothels, so the only good option for housing these traveling teachers was to have them stay in the homes of people from the church. So church members would provide housing and food for these teachers while they ministered at their church.
So at a minimum, I think John was telling his readers not to provide lodging to any false teachers that came around. Its obvious to see how this would provide assistance to these false teachers, so that even if you did not accept their false teaching, you would be enabling them to reach out to others, and we would not want to be involved in that.
Now in our day and age of tolerance and political correctness, its kind of a shock to our ears to hear words like “false teachers” or “deceivers” or “antichrist,” but this is just another example of why we must let the Bible shape our thinking and not the culture. Perhaps it seems hateful or bigoted or intolerant to even talk like this, but that’s largely because our culture doesn’t take religious beliefs seriously anymore. People don’t think religious beliefs matter, so to talk about someone as being a “false teacher” or a “deceiver” simply because they have a different religious belief seems crazy—but not if we look at doctrine and truth the way John does! Remember, for John, truth is the foundation of the Christian community, so if the truth is compromised—if the foundation crumbles—then we cannot accomplish what God wants us to do in this world.
So again, at a minimum, I think John was telling his readers not to provide lodging to false teachers, but was he saying more than that? Was he telling them not to even allow them in their home for a conversation? Would he tell us today not to allow Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses in our door for a conversation. Well, that is a possible interpretation of John’s words, but I’m not convinced that it’s the correct one. However, it could be a good application for your family based on your circumstances. If you feel knowledgeable enough in the Scriptures that you could really give them something to think about, then it could be beneficial to sit down and have a conversation with them. I personally know some Mormons who began to doubt their religion during the time that they served as missionaries because Christians had conversations with them and challenged their beliefs. But if you don’t feel like you’re capable of that, I don’t think you need to feel obligated to have a conversation with them—and I think this verse would provide some justification for that.
John also goes on to say that we shouldn’t even greet such people. Is he saying that we must not even say “hello” to them? We should note here that the Greek word translated “greeting” seems to speak of words of encouragement. A very literal translation would be, “do not say to him ‘rejoice!’.” To us, that would be like saying “have a great day” or “God bless you” or something like that.
So according to John, we are not supposed to give even casual words of encouragement to someone who is actively trying to spread false teachings about Jesus. Keep in mind that we are not talking about Christians who may have slightly different doctrinal views than us. Most of you probably know that genuine Christians do not agree on every last point of doctrine—that’s part of the reason that we have different denominations and churches. It is a sad reality, but it is reality nonetheless. We might disagree on precisely how Christ’s return will play out or whether its appropriate to speak in tongues today, but those are not the kind of differences that John is talking about. He is talking about individuals who teach false beliefs about the identity of Jesus Christ. That is what we must guard against, because if you believe false claims about Christ, Christianity crumbles because its all about Christ! Our faith is all about who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
So, my friends, we must realize that doctrine matters, and thus we must protect ourselves from false doctrine that would cut the heart out of our faith. What that means for us is that we must become so familiar with true doctrine that we can spot false teaching a mile away!
I worked at a bank for a short time while I was in seminary, and during my training when they spoke to me about spotting counterfeit bills, they didn’t show me a bunch of examples of counterfeit money. They simply took real bills—the true currency—and they pointed out the features that would tell me it was real. They mentioned the magnetic strip that you can see when you hold a bill up to the light, and the watermark image of the president’s face that appears over to the side. And they pointed out the gold lettering and the foil stamp that changes colors as you turn the bill. They taught me about all the features of the real thing so that I would know when something false came my way.
We must treat our doctrinal beliefs in the same way—we must know the truth so that we are not deceived by error. That’s why we must put in time on our own to study the Word, and we must take advantage of the learning opportunities here at the church in Sunday School and our services and our Bible studies. Doctrine matters, so we must protect it in our own lives and do nothing to support those who teach false doctrines.
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