Bible Commentaries
2 John 1

Verses 1-6

1. “The elder to the elect Cyria and her children.” Cyria is a Greek word, which means lady. Hence the English translation, which is incorrect, as the word is simply the name of the woman to whom he is writing, because she and her children were staunch friends of Jesus, the apostles and saints.

2, 3. The venerable apostle is overflowing with felicitous benedictions to all.

4. He joyfully congratulates Cyria upon the amiable fidelity of her children.

5. He still pours out his flooded emphasis on his great favorite dogma of divine love to one another, which is demonstrative proof that we are all right with God.

6. As all good works are the fruits of grace, so the normal effect of this divine love is to keep the commandments of God. We are saved by grace, i. e., this divine love, and not by works. Ephesians 2:8. Meanwhile our faithful obedience to all the commandment of God shows forth the luscious fruits of perfect love.

Verses 7-13

ARGUMENT 15

7. “Because many deceivers have come into the world, who do not confess that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh, the same is the deceiver and Antichrist.”

8. “Beware of them in order that you may ‘not destroy the things you may have done but may receive a full reward.”

9. “Every one going forth and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ hath not

10. “If any one cometh unto you and bringeth not this doctrine do not receive him into your house, and do not say unto him God speed.”

11. “He that saith to him God speed partaketh of his evil deeds.” These five verses set forth a summary of John’s climacteric of the Christhood which he constantly emphasizes, as the citadel of revealed truth, and the palladium of the Christian’s hope. Unfortunately the seventh verse in English, “is come in the flesh,” is wrong, the true Greek, erchomenon, is “coming in the flesh,” being in the present tense. So important is this great doctrine of the Christhood, i. e., that the God-man Christ has come on the earth, perfected the plan of salvation, ascended up to heaven, and is coming again in the flesh, i. e., His glorified body, when the “Father has made His enemies His footstool,” to sit upon the throne of His glory and reign forever. Meanwhile the literal Christ encumbers the mediatorial throne in heaven, the spiritual Christ, in the person of the Holy Ghost (John 16:7), succeeds Him on the earth, calling out, inspiring and adorning His Bride to meet Him in holy wedlock, when He rides down on a cloud, and reign with Him forever. Since this glorious doctrine of the Christhood constitutes the essence of the redemptive scheme, we are to guard it as the apple of the eye, filled with spiritual discernment, ever ready to detect the cloven foot of Antichrist and the soft palaver of the false prophets, who in John’s day were making sad havoc with the Church. In our day they are innumerable as the locusts of Egypt, bidding defiance to every approach of simple, solid, Gospel truth. It is not only indispensable that we be born of God and sanctified wholly, but that we be fortified by all the gifts and graces of the Spirit, so beautifully described by Paul (1 Corinthians 12:0 and 1 Peter 1:0). If the Church had been true to the warning of John, pertinaciously standing aloof from and rejecting the Antichrists and false prophets of all ages, the millennium would have been here in all its glory before you and I were born.

12. John in this verse expresses an ardent hope to preach to the dear saints, though already about one hundred years old, flooded with the Holy Ghost, looking up to heaven, whither in his transfigured glory he soon ascended, as attested by the Apostolic fathers. As he was the last writer, of course we have no inspired record of his translation.

13. This verse contains the Chr i stian greeting of the saintly household, doubtless extending their hospitality to the patriarch.