02.02. The Second Epistle . . . .
THE SECOND EPISTLE This second Epistle is, unlike the first Epistle, properly a letter from a person, describing himself by a familiar title, conveying a salutation, like St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s letters, beginning, again like St. Paul’s, with an expression of thankfulness before going on to warning and admonition, and ending up with the promise of a visit and a message from the circle of the writer.
It is written to an “elect lady.” The early Church had apparently no tradition as to the circumstances of the letter. Clement took it to be written to a certain Babylonian lady, Elect by name. But, if it were written to an individual, it would appear much more probable, on various grounds, that her personal name is not given. However, it may, I think, be taken almost for certain that it is, as Jerome supposed, written to a Church personified, as in 1 Peter 5:13 the Church in Rome is called “she that is in Babylon elect together with you.” Then, of course, her “children” are the members of the Church. What makes this theory convincing is that the “thy” and “thee’’ of 2 John 1:4-5 pass into the “ye’’ and ’’you” of 2 John 1:6, 2 John 1:8, 2 John 1:10, 2 John 1:12; and that “the children of thine elect sister” (2 John 1:13) most naturally means the members of the writer’s own Church. And who was the author of it? The internal evidence seems to stamp it as by the same author as the first Epistle — that is, St. John the Apostle.
Thus, “Love in truth” (2 John 1:1) recalls 1 John 3:1. The co-ordination of the Father and the Son (2 John 1:3 and 2 John 1:9), the co-ordination of love, obedience, and adherence to the original faith, the faith of the Incarnation (2 John 1:6-7), the phrase “the commandment which we had from the beginning, that we love one another” (2 John 1:5), and indeed the whole spirit and phraseology of the letter recall the first Epistle unmistakably. And yet it can be no imitator’s work, for the salutation (2 John 1:3) is in its wording peculiar; and the characterization of “the antichrist" as deciding that "Jesus Christ Cometh [not “ has come ’’] in the flesh," and the denunciation of false progress (2 John 1:9), and the demand that no sympathy should be shown the false teacher (2 John 1:10), strike new notes which are indeed thoroughly Johannine, but original and interesting, and not such as could be ascribed to an imitator. So with Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria we accept it as truly St. John’s. There were, indeed, some in the early Church who doubted. This was perhaps due, at first, to the fact that this short letter to a Church, containing on a superficial view nothing of importance which was not at greater length in the first Epistle, had. very little diffusion. Somewhat later the fact that the author describes himself as “the elder [presbyter],’’ probably told against it, presbyter being the name given to the second order of the ministry, or else to those venerable men of the generation after the apostles, amongst whom there was supposed to have been another John called “the presbyter.” But in the first age ecclesiastical designations were not fixed. Peter calls himself a presbyter (1 Peter 5:1), and early bishops are often so called. St. John, in fact (except in the Apocalypse, if that is by him), never uses the term “apostle’’ at all. And he may well have loved to call himself ’’the elder,” partly with reference to age and partly with reference to office; and it may have become a familiar title of reverence and affection in Asia. On the whole, we may accept St. John’s authorship without doubt. Presumably, the Church to which St. John wrote was one of the Asiatic Churches amongst which he ministered, but we have no right to fix on any one in particular. The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not I only, but also all they that know the truth; for the truth’s sake which abideth in us, and it shall be with us for ever: Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from God. the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
I rejoice greatly that I have found certain of thy children walking in truth, even as we received commandment from the Father. And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote to thee a new commandment, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we should walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, even as ye heard from the beginning, that ye should walk in it. For many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Look to yourselves, that ye lose not the things which we have wrought, but that ye receive a full reward. Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your, house, and give him no greeting: for he that giveth him greeting partaketh in his evil works.
Having many things to write unto you, I would not write them with paper and ink: but I hope to come unto you, and to speak face to face, that your joy may be fulfilled. The children of thine elect sister salute thee.
2 John 1:2. For the truth’s sake. — St. John writes “on account of,” i.e. to maintain the true faith sorely threatened, as we learn in the first Epistle; but, in spite of all attacks, he is confident that it will endure “with us,” even as it abides “in us” by the Spirit of truths
2 John 1:3. Grace, mercy, and peace - is also St. Paul’s salutation in his Epistles to Timothy. “Grace,’’ here only used in these Epistles, describes the favourable action of God towards us as unmerited and absolute, mercy describes its character, and peace its consequence in us. St. John does not imprecate these blessings on those to whom he writes, like St. Paul, but simply assures them of their continuance with us. “Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father,” is, as far as words go, a title unique in the New Testament.
2 John 1:4. Certain of thy children walking in truth. — Doubtless some also had gone after “the deceivers.” But it is tactful, where warning has to be given, to begin with what merits thankfulness.
2 John 1:7. Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. — This is one of the most significant phrases in the Epistle. It can only refer to the future, finals coming of Christ. The antichrists then are characterized not only by the denial that Christ ’’has come in the flesh,” but also by the denial that He still exists in the flesh and is still to come from heaven, “as ye beheld him going into heaven.” This is very important. Doubtless, there is a sense in which Christ is not now in “the flesh’’; as St. Paul says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,’’ and “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” , Flesh in this sense, as coupled with blood, describes our present mortal body, which must either be changed or dissolved for the spiritual body to be “given.” But “all flesh is not the same flesh,” and the body of the resurrection may also be described as flesh. So in our Lord’s discourse about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, He first emphasizes the reality of the gift, and then directs the thoughts of His hearers to a state of glory not yet realized, when He shall have ascended up where He was before, and the things He has been talking about, His flesh and blood, will be spirit and life: for “it is the spirit that quickeneth; tie flesh profiteth nothing.” And the indications given us of our Lord’s body after He was risen from the dead indicate that He was no longer “in the days of His flesh,” or subject to its conditions or limitations. His body was simply the perfect expression of His will and purpose. But it was the same body which He had taken of Mary and in which He lived and suffered. It bore, on occasion, at least, the marks of His crucifixion. As being the same body, Christ could still be described as “in the flesh”: and His heavenly state— that is, the state in which He will return — is here, in fact, so described by St. John, and he insists on the description because it emphasizes the fact that the glorified body of our Redeemer — though He is now “quickening spirit” and the flesh and blood with which He feeds His people are spiritual — “spirit and Life”— is still the same body. He is still “to come in the flesh,” and to deny this is the mark of antichrist. This is very important, Indeed to-day we need St. John’s warning.
We are in the gravest danger of “losing the things which we” — that is, he and the other apostolic founders — “have wrought,” and converting the historical Christianity of the creeds into an idealism like that of the Gnostics.
2 John 1:9. These Gnostic antichrists professed to be the “progressives” of their day. They were, in fact, the intellectuals, and, as so being, they made, as Tertullian tells us, a vast number of converts among the ablest people. But their progress was a progress beyond “the teaching of Christ,’’ beyond “the teaching” otherwise described as what “ye heard from the beginning,” the original Gospel both in its facts and ideas. Therefore, St. John will have none of this false progress. And, in fact, history has justified him. In spite of the force of Gnostic idealism it was the historical faith and the concrete Church which survived!. And we shall see, or our children will see, the same result again. Many current idealisms and religions will pass away, but the Catholic faith and Church will prove their inherent toughness and survival power.
2 John 1:10. And just as St. Paul denounces, with his tremendous anathema, those who preach “any other gospel,’’ so St. John would have his disciples show the wandering teachers of the Gnostic heresy no manner of sympathy. To receive a teacher of falsehood, when he is out for propaganda purposes, to the hospitality of one’s home and to make him welcome, is to make oneself responsible for what he is doing.
Certainly this brief Epistle has much to teach us.