2 John 7

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.

Jesus is the saving truth. In John 14:6, Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way, THE TRUTH, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”

Adam sinned in Genesis 3 and plunged all of mankind into a hopeless, death-dominated, separating from God, sin spiral. All who come after Adam are brought in enmity against God. From birth, we are God-forgetters by nature. Disobedience comes as natural to us as breathing. The fellowship that was complete and full in Eden has been cataclysmically devastated.  The sin-ravished and sin-controlled have no hope of a relationship with God. Fellowship cannot take place between an only holy God and an only sinful man.

Because sin exists in our lives, communion is impossible. Because fellowship cannot be had, forgiveness cannot take place. Because unrighteousness defines our souls, condemnation swings like a pendulum, ticking the seconds of time away as we inch towards death and the ultimate consummation of God’s wrath against our ungodliness. And like this, we are hopeless, in a helpless state, unable to do anything.

Then came Jesus. Living an undefiled life, He became the conqueror of sin for us. Dying a propitiating death on the cross, He bore the just wrath of God due us. Raising from the dead, He overcame the death that threatened all of us. In Jesus, God accomplished the restorative, redemptive, forgiveness-packed, love-dripping work for us that we could not accomplish for ourselves.

Jesus is the only hope. “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.” (Peter, Acts 4) It is only by Him and through Him that we find hope. We must rest in His accomplishments not ours. He alone saves. It is by God’s grace through our faith in Him that God saves us, nothing else.

John makes the theology of Jesus a major issue in 2 John verse 7. If people are trying to say anything other than that Jesus is the way to God, they are absolutely wrong. If they deny the work of God in Jesus, the real flesh bound Saviour of the world, then they are absolutely wrong. Worse, if they are trying to deceive those that believe in Jesus to turn to something else (like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses) they are evil and should not be associated with. Deceit is destructive, only Truth brings life.

Food For Thought: Put the gospel in your own words.