2 JOHN 1:7 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”
Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world — the false teachers deny the incarnation itself, the central mystery that God entered human flesh in Jesus, and this denial has immediate ethical consequences for the community. The language 'gone out into the world' (exēlthan eis ton kosmon) suggests active missionary work by the deceivers, a reality that makes the elder's pastoral concern urgent and his warnings necessary. The denial of the incarnation likely reflects docetic heresy, which separates the divine Christ from the material Jesus and thus severs God's redemptive engagement with creation and embodied human life.
Church Fathers on 2 John 1:7
These are they against whom the Lord has cautioned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his Epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says: For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Take heed to them, that you lose not what you have wrought. And again does he say in the Epistle: Many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know the Spirit of God:…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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