Dear Pastor John,
I hope you and Barbara are doing well.
The reason I’m writing to you is that I am right now translating the “Antichrist” gospel tract*, and there is one detail about it that is a bit confusing to me.
In 1John 4:1-3, the apostle John talks about spirits (not people) which, when received, do not confess that Jesus Christ has come into the fleshly temple of that person. So we know that when someone “receives Jesus” by accepting some version of the gospel, and does not manifest the sign of the Spirit’s sound, that person actually has received the spirit of antichrist, not the holy Ghost.
Now, in the book of 2John, it would first seem that the apostle talks about the same phenomena when he says in verse 7: “For many deceivers are gone out into the world, those who do not confess Jesus Christ when he comes into a person”. But in the tract, after quoting this verse from 2John, you and Preacher Clark wrote this: “Yes, these deceivers departed from the faith, and, as John testified, they “went out” from the apostles’ fellowship into the world, declaring a perverted gospel (1Jn. 2:19).” So, it seems from the wording as if the deceivers apostle John talks about here are not spirits, but more like men, teachers who went out from among them and were preaching a different (perverted) gospel. But if that is the case, if the “deceivers” of 2John 7 are not spirits that are capable of entering human bodies, but people, then the idea of “not confessing Jesus Christ when he comes into a person” doesn’t seem to make sense, at least not the way it does in 1John 4:1-3.
My question is: Does the apostle John talk about two different things in his first and in his second epistle? And if he does, and in 2John 7 he doesn’t talk about spirits, but about people, then what does the line “who do not confess Jesus Christ when he comes into a person” mean in that context? Did these men not speak in tongues themselves when they received whatever “gospel” it was that they heard? Or does it refer to something they do, or don’t do when someone else “comes to faith” through their ministry? Or am I completely off track in my thought process? : )
I hope I was able to make my question clear.
I wish you well, Pastor John.
Zoli
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Hi Zoli.
As usual, your question is a very good one that needs to be explained.
In 1John 4:1–3, John is indeed talking about a spirit that people receive which does not produce the sound that Jesus said would always accompany the new birth (Jn. 3:8). In 2John 7, John is talking about men who have received that evil spirit and have given themselves to it, and who proclaim it as being the Spirit of God. That is the “perverted gospel” they preach. These are Christian ministers who tell people they can receive the Spirit of God without it confessing Christ through them the way that Jesus said it would always do. They are the “deceivers and the anti-Christs” of 1John 2:18 and 2John 2:7. They themselves have taken in the speechless spirit of anti-Christ, and they say that spirit is the Spirit of God.
By receiving the spirit of anti-Christ, men themselves become anti-Christs. And by promoting the spirit of anti-Christ as being the Spirit of Christ, such men may have thousands of converts to what they are saying, but no converts to God. There are many such Christian “ministries” in the world today, the work of men who themselves have not confessed Christ when he comes into a person, and are being followed by multitudes who also do not confess Christ when he comes into a person.
The way I read 2John 2:7 is that John is only speaking of the many men of his time, through whom the Spirit of Christ has never spoken and, so, do not have the real Spirit of God, yet have gone out as ministers of Christ. It is not that those ministers can physically enter into people, but their doctrine and their spirit can. This is how the spirit of anti-Christ always enters into people. When they are persuaded to believe that the Spirit of Christ does not speak through people when it comes in, they open their hearts to receive the spirit that does not speak. And when they do that, they also receive into their hearts the ministers who taught them that lie, and the father of lies himself. We really cannot separate the man from his message.
Pastor John
* https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_tracts.html?tname=tract-087-antichrist