John the apostle has been sharing throughout his tiny book of Second John about how important it is for the “elect lady” to know the truth in love. We have been learning from John that keeping God's commandments reveals whether we love Him or not. We are to love one another, and by keeping the commands to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and spirits and to love our neighbors as ourselves we fulfill all the other commands. There is a reason for John emphasizing these points. There were deceivers in the world. Because there are those who would deceive today, we should pay particularly close attention to John's words written in Second John verse seven. He wrote:
For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Since part of the enigma of deception is that the person being deceived does not know that he or she is being deceived, how are we to know whether we are being deceived or not? John clarifies it in this verse. First, he declares his purpose for writing about the truth and loving one another, “For many deceivers are entered into the world”. Whenever there is something that is of real value, there is usually a counterfeit. Diamonds, jewels, precious metals, and money are examples of these in the natural world, but there are also counterfeits in the spiritual things. John states that the deceivers are in the world. Their purposes are to draw people away from the real. Our first defense against them is to recognize and admit that there are those in the world who would draw us away from the truth of God.
Next John reveals who these deceivers are: “who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” Upon first look at John's words we think of those called “Gnostics” who believed that everything material was evil and their summation was that Jesus was a phantom of sorts and that He didn't leave footprints on the sand when He walked on the beach. These false teachers and deceivers were the ones who claimed to be “in the know”, and many people followed their ways. But let's look even closer to John's words. The words “Jesus is come in the flesh” is more closely “is coming in the flesh”. Just before Jesus left this Earth, he promised to come back again. In the gospel of John in chapter fourteen and verses one through four Jesus said:
Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.
The angels who were revealed to those who watched Jesus ascend into Heaven declared in the book of Acts in chapter one and verse eleven:
You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.
Jesus is coming back again. Many do not believe this, and thereby reveal who they are – deceivers. Perhaps we should take up more of this subject in our next study since it deserves our greatest attention.
Next time we shall continue to look at the deceivers in John's day and discover how they are just as prevalent today, so meditate upon today's verse, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
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