New Testament · General Epistles · Book 63 of 66
2 John
The elder writes to “the elect lady and her children”: walk in love, and receive no teacher who denies that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
- 1 chapter
- 13 verses
- About 1 minute to read
- Letters to the Churches, c. AD 48–96
2 John is a letter of thirteen verses, and it holds two commands together. The first is love, the commandment “which we had from the beginning, that we love one another” (1:5). The second guards it: “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed” (1:10). The two belong together. Love in this letter is to “walk after his commandments” (1:6), so it does not open the house to a teacher who denies the truth it walks in.
What divides is one confession. The deceivers “confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (1:7), and the letter does not treat this as a matter of opinion: whoever does not abide in the doctrine of Christ “hath not God,” and whoever abides in it “hath both the Father and the Son” (1:9). The word truth comes five times in the first four verses, and the phrase from the beginning measures every teaching by what was first heard.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
2 John 1:9 KJV
Before you read
- Who wrote it
- Not named; the writer calls himself “the elder” (1:1), as in 3 John 1:1. Traditionally the apostle John. The letter shares 1 John’s words: the commandment “from the beginning” (1 John 2:7) and the confession of Jesus Christ “come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2).
The apostle John John the son of Zebedee wrote this letter and 3 John, calling himself the elder. Irenaeus cites it as the word of
John, the Lord’s disciple
, and Bede gives this as the general consensus of the Church, from the letters’ likeness to 1 John in words and faith.Grounds Irenaeus 202 · Against Heresies 1.16.3Bede 735 · Commentary on the Catholic Epistles1 John 4:2–3
John the presbyter of Ephesus, as some held 2 and 3 John were written by a presbyter named John, distinct from the apostle, whom Papias often mentions and whose tomb was shown at Ephesus. Bede records the view before setting it aside.
Grounds 2 John 1:1Bede 735 · Commentary on the Catholic Epistles
- When it was written
- No date is given. The letter warns against the same denial as 1 John 4:1–3. Bede took the title “the elder” to mean John was
advanced in age when he wrote these epistles
, or else a title fitting a bishop. - To whom
- “The elect lady and her children” (1:1), some of whom the elder has found “walking in truth” (1:4). The children of her “elect sister” send greeting (1:13). From verse 6 to verse 12 he addresses them in the plural.
A church and its members The lady is a local church, elect in faith, and her children are its members. Her “elect sister” is another church, as Peter sends greeting from “the church that is at Babylon, elected together with you.” Hilary of Arles reads it so.
Grounds Hilary of Arles 449 · Introductory Commentary On 2 John2 John 1:131 Peter 5:13
A Christian woman and her household John writes to one woman who has ordered her household by God’s commandments, and to her children. Clement of Alexandria named her Electa, a lady of Babylon, though he saw the election of the church in her too. Andreas of Caesarea allows either reading.
Grounds Clement of Alexandria 215 · From the Latin Translation of CassiodorusAndreas of Caesarea 614 · Catena2 John 1:4
How 2 John is laid out
4 movements · 4 passages · 13 verses · gold dots mark key verses
To the elect lady
1:1–3 · 3 verses
The elder writes to the elect lady and her children, whom he loves “in the truth,” and with him all who have known the truth. That truth dwells in believers “and shall be with us for ever.” He greets them with grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, “the Son of the Father, in truth and love.”
The commandment from the beginning
1:4–6 · 3 verses
The elder rejoices that he has found some of her children walking in truth, as the Father commanded. He writes no new commandment but the one they had from the beginning, “that we love one another.” Love is to walk after his commandments, and the commandment is to walk in it, as they heard from the beginning.
The doctrine of Christ
1:7–11 · 5 verses
Many deceivers deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh; each is “a deceiver and an antichrist.” The readers must look to themselves, so as to receive a full reward. Whoever does not abide in the doctrine of Christ has not God. One who comes without that doctrine is not to be received or greeted, for to greet him is to share his evil deeds.
Face to face
1:12–13 · 2 verses
The elder has many things to write but will not set them down with paper and ink. He trusts to come and speak face to face, “that our joy may be full.” The letter closes with a greeting from the children of the lady’s elect sister, and an Amen.
The words 2 John turns on
Truth opens the letter and commandment and walk fill its middle; abide and doctrine carry the warning, and one verb serves for rejoice and God speed.
What 2 John teaches
entolḗ · commandment
The old commandment
The elder writes “not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning” (1:5). The Lord had called it new: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another” (John 13:34). To the churches it was already old, “an old commandment which ye had from the beginning” (1 John 2:7). Then love and the commandment define each other: “this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (1:6). Love here is not set against obedience. It is obedience, kept in a household the elder found “walking in truth” (1:4).
ménō · abide
Abiding in the doctrine of Christ
The truth “dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever” (1:2), and the same verb, menō, returns as the letter’s test: “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God” (1:9). The danger is to go beyond what was received. Many deceivers deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (1:7), and whoever denies the Son has not the Father either (1 John 2:23). So the readers must look to themselves, “that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward” (1:8). The Fathers read the indwelling truth of verse 2 in two ways. Hilary of Arles: By ‘truth’ John is referring to the Holy Spirit, because love is always the work of the Spirit.
Bede: the truth of the faith, which always remains invincible in us
.
chaírō · God speed
Neither bid him God speed
The verb the elder uses for his own joy, “I rejoiced greatly” (1:4), is the greeting he forbids: “receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (1:10–11). The command concerns one who comes to them and does not bring this doctrine. The churches lodged travelling brethren and sent them on their way, and 3 John commends receiving them, “that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth” (3 John 1:5–8). To lodge and bless a deceiver is to become his helper in the same way. Irenaeus and Hilary of Arles read the command strictly. Irenaeus said John made their condemnation even stronger
, and Hilary of Arles saw in it excommunication both from table fellowship at home and from table fellowship in church
.
Christ in 2 John
The letter’s warning rests on who Christ is. Grace, mercy and peace come “from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father” (1:3): the Son is named beside the Father as giver of the same gifts. And this Son “is come in the flesh” (1:7), as John’s Gospel says at its opening: “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). To deny that is not to hold another view of the same Christ but to confess another Christ.
So whoever abides in the doctrine of Christ “hath both the Father and the Son” (1:9). The Lord said, “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6), and “neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). Even the elder’s closing hope, “that our joy may be full” (1:12), takes up the Lord’s words to his disciples, “that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
Where 2 John reaches
The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it
John 13:34 2 John 1:5 1 John 2:7
The commandment to love one another: new from the Lord, old to those who had it from the beginning.
The same test of every spirit: whether it confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
To have the Son is to have the Father; to deny the Son is to lose both.
2 John 1:10–11 Romans 16:17–18
Paul’s like charge: mark those who teach contrary to the doctrine learned, and avoid them.
The sister letter’s joy: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”
Books 2 John links to most
The Church Fathers on 2 John
31 quotations from 14 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order
Clement of Alexandria on the letter as a whole: faith not without love, and Christ not divided.
He establishes in this Epistle that the following out of the faith is not without charity, and so that no one divide Jesus Christ; but only to believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
Polycarp of Smyrna, writing to the Philippians, set the same confession against false teachers and called his readers back to the word first handed down.
whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; … forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning
Bede retold Polycarp’s account of John at the baths of Ephesus, to show the apostle kept his own command.
what he taught in words, he also practiced in deeds. … while he had entered the baths at Ephesus for the sake of washing, and had seen Cerinthus there, he immediately jumped out and left without washing, saying: ‘Let us flee from here, lest even the baths collapse in which Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is bathing.’
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