2 John 1:7,8 - Many deceivers have gone out

1:7

John now explains why he is giving these warnings, and it is because of false teachers. Indeed, there are “many deceivers”. It seems that their false teachings were similar to those that John dealt with in 1 John, for they do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ “came in the flesh”. It is interesting that most of the heresies encountered by the early church rejected the humanity of Jesus, whereas nowadays it is the divinity of Jesus that is the problem. As in 1 John, John is quite direct about these false teachers. They are deceivers and the antichrist. They are opposed to Jesus, whatever else they may claim about themselves. When we think of the term antichrist we tend to immediately think about the end times and the beast and such like. The term antichrist is hardly used in the Bible, and when it is it is in a very mundane way, ie referring to false teachers. This makes it both less and more “scary”. It is less scary in that we are not talking about some demonic monster of the horror movie genre, but it is far more scary in that it shows the seriousness with which false teachers should be dealt with, and is indicative of the damage that they can cause.

1:8

John’s hearers need to pay attention. Otherwise there is a risk that they will lose “what we have worked for”. John and the church had worked so that the people could enter in to God’s salvation in Christ. If they accepted the false teachings and the false teachers they risked losing all that. False teachings matter, they are not interesting ideas to be entertained, but poison to be rejected.