Context No. 272 of 4322 · 2 John
Context · Reflection
2 John 1:7-13: in context
7For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who don’t confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. 8Watch yourselves, that we don’t lose the things which we have accomplished, but that we receive a full reward. 9Whoever transgresses and doesn’t remain in the teaching of Christ doesn’t have God. He who remains in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10If anyone comes to you and doesn’t bring this teaching, don’t receive him into your house, and don’t welcome him, 11for he who welcomes him participates in his evil deeds. 12Having many things to write to you, I don’t want to do so with paper and ink, but I hope to come to you and to speak face to face, that our joy may be made full. 13The children of your chosen sister greet you. Amen.
This is one of the shortest books in the Bible, a brief note from an elder to a church he loves, and it holds a sharp warning right next to a very human longing. The warning comes first. Many deceivers have gone out into the world, he writes, who will not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, and he calls this denial the mark of the deceiver and the antichrist. The thing being denied is the incarnation itself, that God actually took on a real, physical human body.
His instruction about these teachers is bracing. Do not receive such a person into your house, he says, and do not even greet him, because to welcome him is to share in his work. It is a hard line, and it is meant to be. But then, in the very next breath, the tone changes completely. I have much to write to you, he says, but I would rather not use paper and ink. I hope instead to come to you and speak face to face, so that our joy may be complete. The same letter that insists Christ came in a real body refuses to let ink stand in for the writer's own presence. He does not want to send his love on paper; he wants to be in the room.
The two halves belong together. A man defending the truth that God came in the flesh naturally believes that real joy is bodily and present, not something paper can finish. What have I let paper, or a screen, quietly stand in for, that was always meant to be finished face to face?